In a country where a Muslim father and a Christian daughter can sit at the same table, pray in different directions, and love each other without contradiction, peace is not a policy. It is a way of life. On Wednesday, the Government of Sierra Leone moved to ensure it stays that way bringing together religious leaders, national institutions, and government ministries under one roof to sign a landmark communiqué reaffirming the nation’s commitment to interfaith harmony, responsible religious leadership, and the protection of peace as a non-negotiable national value.
The Ministry of Social Welfare, in collaboration with the Ministry of Information and Civic Education, hosted the Inter-Religious National Conversation and Communiqué Signing at the Miatta Civic Centre in Freetown an engagement that drew representatives from the country’s major religious bodies and national institutions for what officials described as a timely and critical national conversation.
Minister of Social Welfare Melrose Karminty set the tone from the outset, delivering remarks that were equal parts celebration and warning celebrating what Sierra Leone has built across generations of shared faith, and warning that in an era of misinformation, global tensions, and rising divisive rhetoric, nothing can be taken for granted.
“Peace is priceless,” she told the gathering a simple statement carrying the full weight of a country that has known what its absence looks like. Sierra Leone endured a devastating civil war between 1991 and 2002 that killed tens of thousands, displaced millions, and left wounds still visible in the faces of those who lived it. The country’s recovery has been built, in no small part, on the remarkable resilience of its interfaith culture Muslims, Christians, and adherents of traditional faiths not merely tolerating each other, but living together, marrying across faith lines, and raising families in which both the Quran and the Bible share shelf space.
Minister Karminty described this tradition as one of Sierra Leone’s most defining national characteristics a heritage admired far beyond its borders and one that must be actively defended, not passively inherited. She stressed that sustaining it requires strong leadership, moral guidance, and the shared responsibility of every citizen, regardless of faith.
Critically, she revealed that her ministry has begun developing a comprehensive national policy on religious tolerance and practice a framework that will strengthen interfaith cooperation, prevent the misuse of religion for political or destructive ends, and provide clear guidance for institutions, government agencies, and communities across the country. The policy, she said, will build on the legacy of the Interreligious Council of Sierra Leone, which played a vital role during the civil conflict by promoting dialogue, reconciliation, and national healing when the country needed it most.
She was equally direct about what will not be tolerated. The government, she affirmed, maintains a zero-tolerance stance on hate speech, incitement, and the politicisation of religion. Faith, she insisted, must never be a weapon. Religious leaders must guide their followers responsibly, avoid political endorsements, and work hand in hand with authorities to prevent conflict before it ignites.
Speaking on behalf of National Security Coordinator Abdulai Coker, Dr. Mohamed Sannor from the Office of National Security brought a dimension to the conversation that is too often absent from interfaith dialogues the explicit recognition that religious harmony is not merely a social good. It is a national security asset.
Dr. Sannor commended the two ministries for the initiative, describing it as both timely and necessary, and assured the gathering that the Office of National Security would provide its full and continued support to sustain such efforts. His message was pointed: stability, unity, and peaceful coexistence are not soft values. They are the very foundation upon which a country’s progress is built and their erosion, wherever it has occurred across the world, has been among the most reliable predictors of conflict.
He pointed with evident pride to Sierra Leone’s strong performance in global peace rankings among the top peaceful nations in Africa and in West Africa specifically presenting that standing not as a given, but as an achievement. An achievement earned through a culture of interfaith harmony in which Christians and Muslims coexist, intermarry, and participate jointly in the rhythms of national life. That culture, he urged, must not only be maintained but actively strengthened.
Rev. Jesse Founah, Secretary General of the Interreligious Council of Sierra Leone, offered perhaps the most revealing insight into what the initiative will produce on the ground. He praised Minister Karminty for what he described as a distinctly proactive and inclusive approach one that ensures religious leaders are not merely informed of decisions that affect their communities, but consulted as genuine partners in shaping them.
He highlighted one concrete and significant deliverable: the development of a national code of conduct on religious tolerance, crafted with the support of a respected religious leader and legal expert in biblical studies. This document once finalised will be distributed to religious leaders across every district in the country before a final national consensus is reached in Freetown.
The significance of this process should not be underestimated. A national code of conduct on religious tolerance, built from the grassroots up, validated by leaders across all faiths and all regions, carries a moral and institutional authority that no government circular can replicate. It represents the formalisation of what Sierra Leoneans have practised informally for generations and a firewall against the kind of top-down religious manipulation that has torn apart communities elsewhere on the continent.
Rev. Founah was unambiguous about the standard to which all religious voices will be held: intolerance will not be accepted. Every message delivered by a religious leader must support unity and peaceful coexistence. The pulpit and the minbar are not platforms for division.
The timing of Wednesday’s national dialogue is not accidental. Sierra Leone and the wider West African region are navigating a moment of elevated vulnerability one in which the conditions that historically precede religious conflict are present in greater measure than at any time since the post-war reconstruction years.
Misinformation, amplified by social media and exploited by political actors, has the capacity to transform localised tensions into national crises within hours. Global geopolitical pressures from the Iran war to the continuing reverberations of the Gaza conflict have radicalised populations and inspired violence in countries far more stable than Sierra Leone. And the internal political cycle, with elections on the horizon, creates incentives for those who would rather inflame than unite.
Minister Karminty’s explicit call for religious leaders to avoid political endorsements was a direct acknowledgment of that risk. In every country where religion has been weaponised for political gain, the process began with religious leaders lending their authority to partisan causes and ended with communities that could no longer pray together.
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Sierra Leone has been here before. The Interreligious Council’s role during the civil war years fostering dialogue when dialogue seemed impossible, promoting reconciliation when wounds were still raw remains one of the most instructive examples on the African continent of faith institutions rising to their highest calling. Wednesday’s communiqué is, in spirit, a renewal of that calling for a new era and new challenges.
What emerged from the Miatta Civic Centre on Wednesday was more than a signed document. It was a statement by government, by religious leaders, and by the national security establishment that Sierra Leone knows what it has, understands what it stands to lose, and is prepared to do the institutional work of protecting it.
The policy framework being developed by the Ministry of Social Welfare. The national code of conduct being drafted by the Interreligious Council. The security apparatus committing its backing to interfaith initiatives. These are the building blocks of a national peace infrastructure one that takes Sierra Leone’s instinctive, lived tolerance and gives it institutional spine.
In a region where borders are being contested, soldiers are crossing into neighbouring countries, and political transitions are generating instability, Sierra Leone’s commitment to protecting the sacred space between its faiths is not a small thing. It is, as Minister Karminty said, priceless.
The communiqué has been signed. The policy is being written. The code of conduct is being drafted. Now comes the harder work: living it, enforcing it, and ensuring that when the next demagogue or the next viral video tries to turn faith into a fuse, Sierra Leone has the institutions, the leaders, and the culture to say not here. Not in this country. Not with our people.
