Dear Sir,
If your mental health infrastructure is broken, no ideas of your own, no technical excellence and mediocrity normalized, we will be controlled willingly or unwillingly by those who produce excellence and the ideas. Road Traffic Accidents (RTA) Epidemic from poor roads as well as reckless/poor enforcement of road safety measures is a major cause of death (mortality) and morbidity of hundreds of our compatriots each year and creating a huge burden on our health care system. Environmental pollution and displacement of communities’ epidemic through mining activities. Heavy metal toxicity of soils and water is impacting food production in mining communities and access to portable water. This represents one of the greatest social, economic and environmental injustices in our land.
Mining both legal and illegal is displacing communities from their land, impacting soil and water through toxic contamination, and overall impacting the health and well-being of our people.
In our perpetual state of distractions, communities suffer in silence, a suffering not of their own making but that of rape and exploitation of their lands through mining and other activities. The forced displacements, water and soil contaminations, biodiversity damage, non-communicable and communicable diseases from mining activities represent one of the grave social injustices and violation of the collective rights of our people and communities to a healthy soil, water, and thriving communities.
Deforestation and loss of valuable forest cover epidemic. Our forest cover is shrinking impacting valuable biodiversity species like Chimpanzees. Sir, the Chimpanzee is said to be our national animal, but Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary can no longer operate because of indiscriminate, uncontrolled encroachment and loss of forest cover.
The Chimpanzee and most of our non-human primate species need at most 25 to 50 miles of undisturbed forest cover for food every day.
Now, our valuable biodiversity including six big cat species (Lions, Leopard, African wild cat, Golden cat, Serval, Caracal), Elephants, buffaloes, pigmy hippopotamus, endemic birds’ species such as picathartes and more are threatened by loss of valuable forest cover. This does not include the loss of over 100 documented medicinal plant species from just the Freetown peninsula, Western Area. Sir, the Gola Forest, Outamba Kilimi-National Park (OKNP), Loma Mountains and Tiwai Islands are green gold, the biodiversity of which if well harnessed and protected could generate substantial revenue for communities through eco-tourism.
Long term, the cost benefit to the nation from biodiversity conservation outweighs the short-term benefits from exploitative mining activities that displace communities and require long-term soil and water remediation for ecological restoration.
Food poverty epidemic despite efforts at feed Salone initiative. We are still a very hungry society where food deserts exist and where having a meal a day is still an uphill task for most of our society.
A good number of our students in schools and colleges head to school without a meal and stay in class for long days without a meal. Food poverty and its associated violence on the population is alarming. It is impacting maternal and child mortality numbers, educational outcomes, mental health, and general productivity of society.
Food security often means a dignified life for people but the lack of it creates an undignified life, despair, loss of productivity, depression and mental health. Sir, without food security, we will be controlled willingly or unwillingly by those who feed us. The feed Salone initiative is a good step, but it needs to move from a government and donor-based model to become a culture.
By growing our own food and eating what we grow as a culture linked to our national sovereignty, then citizens will now take on greater ownership of the initiative. Unfortunately, mining contamination of soil and water bodies, and environmental degradation impacts soil health and productivity, which will have detrimental effects on the feed Salone initiative.
Water Crisis epidemic in Freetown and other communities despite over nine months of rain. We have all normalized five-gallon rubber to carry water for the house. This represents a major tragedy for our country and one that is laughable. Countries with barely three months of rain in the Sahel have pipe borne water at all times even in villages.
Comparatively, you have people building mansions in Sierra Leone whose indoor toilets, showers, and bathtubs are mere decorations because they will never have the luxury of using the shower or flushing the toilets without use of a bucket of water or five-gallon rubber.
Interestingly, we are a small nation roughly 27,000 sq miles with over 15 major rivers, yet unable to harness our water resources for the benefit of our people and communities.
Sir, a 2024 UN report highlighted that deforestation in the Western Area Peninsula National Park is threatening Freetown’s water supply due to human activities like land grabbing, quarrying, and charcoal burning. Other UN-related reports and initiatives confirm the crisis, pointing to the large population exceeding infrastructure capacity, aged and leaking pipes, water theft, and climate change impacts like seasonal water shortages.
Sex for cash, assault, and trafficking epidemic is one of the silent issues of our country impacting our young girls, tearing families and communities. It is closely linked to the drug trades and human trafficking in the sub region.
Some of our young girls out of despair, poverty and economic hardships are increasingly using their bodies to make ends meet for themselves and their families. Others out of the need to live a false life on social media that is far greater than their economics can afford.
Added to the burden on the health care system is the loss of productivity and long-term recovery costs on victims of RTAs. These are deaths, health care and economic burdens that are totally preventable through improvements in our roads and enforcement of safety measures
Either way, traffickers and scammers are taking advantage of such vulnerabilities in our young people to scam and traffic them internally and externally. As a nation, every effort must be put to protect our young girls, and ensure gendered equity and empowerment are attained for all.
Our “hands of our girls” proclamation of the state of emergency on rape and other efforts were all based on empowering our young girls and building a society of empathy, equity, and protection of the most vulnerable in our society
Land disputes, grabbing and commodification epidemic. Land disputes, grabbing and commodification of it have become the order of the day and a huge source of social injustices throughout the country. Communities are being displaced from their lands, which also comes with loss of the physical, cultural and spiritual ties they have with their environment.
Stories of land disputes and sometimes violent conflicts have now been normalized even though it poses an existential social justice issue. It is also at the heart of our reckless land cover loss and environmental degradation, endangering communities throughout the country
Floods and Landslides Epidemic exacerbated by Climate Change. We know that as a nation our contribution to global emissions of Carbon has been negligible and therefore victims of past emissions of industrial nations. However, as a nation our stewardship of the environment that would allow for greater climate change adaptation and resilience has been poor and reckless at most.
Landslides and flooding remain our number one threat from numerous local and global risk assessment studies. The August 2017 landslide was a tragic moment for country and an opportunity to have reset our environmental stewardships. Yet today, the protected area of the Freetown Peninsula and many communities around the country have been breached, raped and degraded.
Flooding each year is now a norm across the country. Climate change will exacerbate and enhance the rain, and the entire city of Freetown is assessed through various geological studies to be landslide prone. Along with loss of mangroves, sand mining in our beaches, the threat of an all-out environmental disaster is very high.
Leadership is about doing research now, and the research informing risk assessment and management to prevent future consequences. We must move from reactionary mode to one of being proactive, and proactiveness means enforcement and building the right capability to respond to these events if and when they happen.
We cannot go to COP30 painting a picture of climate resilience work in our countries that are far from the imminent realities of the people and communities that are served.
Thank you for your attention to these looming problems that our people and communities face in silence amidst the glory of international recognition, awards and travels. Sir, remember as a President your external validations matter only if they are matched by internal validations from your citizenry, those who elected you.
About the author
Alhaji Umar N’jai is a Senior Scientist, Associate Professor, Lecturer, Panafrican Scholar, Founder and Chief Strategist of Project 1808, Inc and Koinadugu College and Freelance writer ‘Roaming in the Mountains of Kabala Republic’
