By: George Shadrack Kamanda, JD, MSt
There is a specific kind of exhaustion that comes from watching every possible solution to public service delivery, and every policy debate in Sierra Leone, be fed through the meat grinder of partisan politics. You do not need to look far. Take our 2025 constitutional amendments. Public trust in governance, whether in my country or across the continent, is at an all-time low. We have reached a point where we no longer discuss solutions to our national issues. We discuss interests. Mostly personal interests, or the interests of a few. We have allowed the vital organs of governance to be paralyzed by a simple, destructive question: “Which side does this benefit?”
Politics Is a Negotiation, Not a War
We often mistake politics for a battleground, but at its core, politics is how a nation negotiates its future. When I said this months ago, people asked me a fair question: with our current divides, how can we negotiate our future when the parties are only negotiating theirs? It deserves a fuller answer than this piece allows. The insights below are where I would begin. Politics is the process of deciding how we live together, how we grow together, and how we protect the vulnerable. When that negotiation breaks down into “my tribe against your tribe” or “my party against yours,” the negotiation ends. What we are left with is a standstill. A zero-sum game where the only thing being “won” is our collective decline.
The Lens of the “Right Thing”
There is a lens I hope we can recover in Sierra Leone, and it is not a political one. It asks a simpler question of every policy and every debate: not who wins, but what is right or best for the country, and what serves the common good. To view the world only through politics is to lose sight of the human being standing in front of you. When you go to the market, you do not ask which party the trader belongs to before you buy. You ask the price. You ask whether you can afford the rice, the bread, the fish. When you rush a loved one to the hospital, you do not ask who installed the machine. You ask whether it works, whether it is there at all. When the light goes out, or the voltage swings, the food spoils in the fridge and the appliance burns out just the same, in every home on the street. That is the lens we have lost, and the one we need to recover.
What Sierra Leone is desperate for, what we are starving for, are leaders and citizens who can view our problems through a different lens. How do we just do the right thing?
- How do we get our country back on track?
- How do we deliver affordable public services and 24/7 electricity?
- How do we cater for the bread-and-butter issues of our citizens?
- How do we provide safe, accessible healthcare?
- How do we craft legislation that encompasses everyone, not just a favored few?
- How do we end our civic apathy and change our mindset?
The list is endless, but you get my drift. The essence is this: how do we ask the right questions, and prioritize our common interests, for one sustainable path of national development?
The Hard Truth
Our recovery will not be easy, and it will not be quick. I mean recovery of any kind: political, social, cultural, economic. We cannot fix decades of institutional erosion and social division with a few slogans or a single election cycle. It requires a fundamental shift in our national psyche. It is okay if we think differently. Dissent is the heartbeat of a healthy democratic society. But we must be able to sit down and find meaningful solutions despite those differences. I, for one, will never back down from that pursuit. It is high time we stop protecting our “corners” and start protecting our country.
My conviction is this. Our country is desperate for a new kind of courage. Not the courage to fight one another, but the courage to stand together for the truth and for our common development.
Politics of power divides. Politics of progress builds. Together, irrespective of our political affiliations, let us act and serve for the betterment of Sierra Leone every day. I hope you can join that pursuit, with your everyday actions, choices, and decisions.
Sierra Leone is too precious to let our differences divide us.
Some Questions to Ponder
- Are we more afraid of our country failing, or of our political rivals succeeding?
- If we stripped away the party colors and the tribal names, what are the three things every Sierra Leonean family actually wants for their children?
- Is our current political lens solving our daily challenges, or is it just giving us someone to blame for them?
The Takeaway
If you carry nothing else from this piece, carry these lines. Say them at your table, in your conversation with another citizen, on your feed.
“Politics of power divides. Politics of progress builds.”
“We no longer discuss solutions to our national issues. We discuss interests.”
“Our country is desperate for a new kind of courage. Not the courage to fight one another, but the courage to stand together.”
So here is the one question I will leave you with:
Are we more afraid of our country failing, or of our rivals succeeding?
