Is regional Decentralization and a Dual Chambers Polity the Sierra Leonean Panacea?

By

Mohamed Boye Jallo Jamboria

Statement of the Problem

Since attaining independence, Africa and Sierra Leone in particular has been plagued by a regime of political instability, economic decline and a myriad of other challenges. Some of these challenges, as in the case of countries like Sierra Leone, Liberia, Rwanda and Congo have led to deterioration in the political administrative infrastructures such that some of these states became failed states and went to war. On the other hand there are certain African states, Like Ghana and Guinea to name a few, with similar or even worse challenges that have ridden the tide and not deteriorated into failed states nor gone to war. A review of this state of Africa has therefore led to specific conceptual and structural questions on which this article will dwell and use Sierra Leone as a case study. Michael F Lofchie in an article in The Journal of Modern African Studies,volume6,issue01 of 1968 writes The subject-matter of African politics has always presented a special challenge and a special problem to political scientists, namely to develop a theory which would make sense of a vast, inchoate, and unfamiliar body of material. This problem has become particularly acute in the last year or two. The rapid deterioration of African political parties, a series of military coups, recurrent crises of national unity, and heightened tendencies towards anomic and violent behavior have not only cast doubt on previous assumptions as to the nature of African political life but have also led to a heightened mood of theoretical uncertainty among political scientists.

Since Lofchie wrote that article, Sierra Leone had deteriorated from a country with a flourishing mining export economy and a functional infrastructure into a failed state and finally a 10 year war that saw some of the most gruesome atrocities committed. Now the picture, honestly the picture is changing again. If this change is to be sustainable, something has to be done to put in place the institutions that can sustain change and bring about progress.

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To put the correct institutions in place for Sierra Leone and her people to reach this change, certain conceptual and systemic questions have to be asked and answers to them found.

Why did Sierra Leone have to go so low and why did Ghana, a country whose economy had deteriorated well before Sierra Leones not gone to war? By 1974 Ghanaians were queuing for a pump of toothpaste in retail shops all over Ghana every morning and certain items like a bar of bath soap was a rare luxury for which one can establish a relationship with a lady if one is promiscuous. In Sierra Leone ,on the other hand, in as much as there had been a gradual deterioration from 80s to 90s there had never been a period within that timeframe that people had to queue up for those basic items. Yet Sierra Leone sank into war whilst about the same period Ghanaians were experiencing recovery which toady has put Ghana on the pedestal of one of Africas rapid developing economies in Africa. Well some schools of thought might argue that Ghana had her turn around after the Jerry Rawlings coup and the drastic actions of killings and all that took place. That of course is not the answer as mass killings anywhere have never been the answer to any social crisis. Another school of thought will also argue that Rawlings provided the kind of leadership for change. That argument, to some extent, holds but what about the mass of the people of Ghanas will for and participation in the processes of change? Rawlings rule as it was had the characteristics of a despot with a vision. He according to John L. Adedeji introduced a political change process that was Bottom up that by implication involved all players in the Ghanaian society. Rawlings leadership provided path to recovery for which he said in his take over speech Fellow Ghanaians, the time has come for us to restructure this society in a real and meaningful democratic manner so as to ensure the involvement and active participation of the people in the decision-making process." In the case of Sierra Leone, since independence this active participation of the people in decision-making has been virtually absent and politics is an issue for a class of Sierra Leoneans from two main elite groups fighting for control, developing paternal relationships and using state coffers to ensure their stay in power whilst at the same time polarizing the nation along lines of ethnic and culture struggles. In the process thereof, power cults and socio-economic cartels had flourished at the detriment of the state. The factors of this debilitating political situation started well before independence and became reinforced after the early death of the first Prime Minister, Sir Milton Margai and his succession by his half-brother, Sir Albert Margai whose tenure saw the consolidation of the factors of socio-political division both from within and without the Sierra Leone Peoples Party. Prior to Independence, the political elite in Sierra Leone had been in disarray and lacked a national ideology and agenda. Instead and in place was a regime of marriages of convenience and cross overs which has charactistically seen the political class become political prostitutes

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ready to inter into political relationship with opponents just for them to get access to the national cake. When such relationships fail to deliver, the same soon become vociferous critics of the status quo solely for the purpose of gaining power and doing what they had condemned or pointed out as wrong doings of the opponent. In this state of affairs the bulk of the people had become excluded from mainstream participation in the affairs of the state. By default of this also, the bulk of the people have no access to benefits from the state except if they have relatives, region mates, tribesmen etc. in the system. In retrospect, this status quo has been the engine of corruption as those in power and access to state funds used those funds not only to enrich them but to sustain their support base, acting as lords over their fellow countrymen and women. Women in particular have been the most affected victims as they have had to enter into surreptitious relationships with those Big men to get access to resources they can use to sustain themselves and family relations. A correlate product of this is that young and productive minds with on connections to these power cells were left to rot and many a young man had to run to greener pastures or become frustrated and finally either die or become social derelicts addicted to some drug or doing something funny that have led them to jail. It was this that provided the fodder for the unnecessary war that was fought from March 23rd, 1991 to January 6th 1999.

Why should Sierra Leone, a country where western education and culture first found roots in all British West Africa, also known as the Athens of West Africa, deteriorate to such a low level?

Above all why should a neighboring country Guinea ,which started bankrupt and on a loan of 10 million Dollars from Kwame Nkrumahs Ghana, after a controversial independence seen by France as an act of rebellious breakaway from the on the 2nd October 1958,be seemingly making more progress today. Why with all the challenges and crisis, of far more greater proportion she had faced, guinea had never gone to war and do not ever think war as the option out of their challenges?

What is it that led both the neighbors of Guineas m, Liberia and Sierra Leone to war?

Finding answers to these questions demand a thorough examination of the social dynamics in these countries. In Sierra Leone, as in Liberia, the conflicts that eventually galvanized to war were created by the social forces that evolved with a capitalization of those societies from exploitations of the resources after contact with the western and other world economies.

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In Sierra Leone the crisis itself is multifaceted beginning from the 1900s when adventures from the coastal British controlled colony were taken inland to trade with the Natives. The words adventures and natives have been willfully used to signify the social stratifications under and through which the present modes of social thinking have begun. What were the key reasons why Sierra Leone had to go to war? David Keen (2005)1p.2 ,states The difficulties in understanding the Sierra Leone reflect wider difficulties in understanding any contemporary civil conflict.Part of the problems has been that media accounts have almost always focused on the destruction of lives and property and on the consequences of violence(which can be relatively easily described and photographed) rather than on the causes(which are more difficult to record).This has tended to obscure the important question of how a phenomenon so destructive for so many ,so detrimental for the economy and so apparently pointless, can be allowed indeed made-to happen, and often to persist for years or even decades. Keen2 further states that; , understanding Sierra Leones war means understanding its history and the grievances it generated. In understanding this one is prone to ask, but why should the history be a factor to grievances and ultimately war? Keen further states ;Some sources have suggested that the countrys abundant natural resources may have made grievances there particularly intense, because people were aware of the gap between well-being and natural wealth. These two proclamations by Keen are more or less a summary of the key underlying factors and forces that have shaped the destiny of Sierra Leone prior to and after independence. Instead of Sierra Leone consolidating into a nation-state to develop into a nation of singular social structure and culture, she has suffered the pain of developing states within the British political entity that carries the name Sierra Leone. The war Sierra Leone, which was officially from March 23rd, 1991 when the first shots were fired at Bomaru up to January 2002 when the war was officially declared over, is an indicator and a reflection of the cumulative effects of unaddressed grievances that had existed for decades if not centuries in the political and economic development of Sierra Leone. These political and social dynamics are to very large extent reflections of the imbalances resulting out of an uneven development and the laissez faire thus divide and rule governance system with which the colonial masters had governed the territory now called Sierra Leone from the period starting 1787 when the British abolitionists and Philanthropists established a settlement in Freetown up to the 27th, April 1961when independence was granted to that political entity.
1 2

Conflict & Collusion, Keen .D,pp.2 Conflict & Collusion,Keen.D,pp.8

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A look at the time line of political and thence social developments in Sierra Leone within this period and a reflection on the events following the political independence from 1961 to the date the war started will give a clear picture of uneven developments as these were dictated by social forces operating within the given context and as it was determined by the available and prevailing social intellect and mind set.

A striking and outstanding feature of Sierra Leones political development is the uneven and long temporal space in between such developments in the former Colony a compared to the Protectorate. A look at the timeline of development in Sierra Leone quickly points that out. Also a look at this same timeline points to the unfair but planned development of a class of few elites against a background of the bulk of non-elite class who are virtually excluded from mainstream polity. From 1787 to 1902 education, as it was left in the hands of missions was only concentrated in the western area which was the former colony. Thus well-grounded elite had been developed in the colony. This elite, though in the minority had a long period span of westernization close to a century whilst the people in the former protectorate were still using their traditional socio-educational such as the Secret societies to prepare their young for adulthood. Where there was any form of administration it is either in the known system or done with a mixture of Arabic educational influence from the early interaction with Islam before the advent of the coastal colony. Alongside this disparity was another which went unnoticed but which up till now is having a marked impact on the national mind set. This was the seeming refusal of northern peoples to take advantage of western education. The reason for this seeming refusal had a long standing root dating back from the days of slavery. It should be noted that the Trans-Atlantic slavery effectively started in Sierra Leone when a British sea Captain, John Hawkins became the first slave-ship captain to bring Africans to the Americas. Hawkins was a religious gentleman who insisted that his crew "serve God daily" and love another". His ship, called "the good ship Jesus," left the shores of his native England for Africa in October 1562. He arrived at Sierra Leone, and in a short time he had three hundred blacks in his possession. Hawkins claimed to have acquired them partly by sword and partly by other means. Thus it was the northern peoples that first suffered from this inhumane act which was to span over 450 years. As a result they have and in some cases still have their suspicions of the European and nay other light skinned race that they consider as stealers of people. Another side of the issue is that prior to the encounters with Europeans the same had suffered from the same acts of enslavement from earlier contact with Arabs and other North African traders who also embarked on the slave trade. Hence they have a name for whites and light skin people Kohthi a word widely used in West Africa to mean someone who takes away people.

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As a matter of fact the very first Sierra Leonean to have had western education was a Susu from Kambia, a relative of the Thorlu Bangura family who was taken away to Europe well before the advent of colonialism.

Further, the divide and rule system which took cognizance of the traditional ruling class and gave free upper hand to this class to perform the daily administration of state vis--vis providing priority education for this class alone has had a far reaching impact on the social group relations and hence mind set development of the body politic in Sierra Leone. This proxy governance and class development is still impacting the overall national and even political parties environments. There is a general mistrust between the elites and non-elite classes and one result of this mistrust has been transformed into a political divide between the Sierra Leone Peoples Party which is more of an elitist party and the All Peoples Congress which has a more mass non-elitist appeal. This same divide has had a big impact also on the rural-Urban population distributions as grievances between and within rural environments have in most cases forced non-elite members of society to moves away to urban areas which are more cosmopolitan, free and secure. It is also an underlying factor for the mass movement away from agriculture, seen as a mere source of subsistence to Mining areas in search of the dream of wealth which inadvertently most never get.

The honest truth is the British and per independence administration of Sir Milton Margai had made some rudimentary, or more aptly put , primitive efforts at creating a system, decentralized as it were into district councils and Provincial administrative institutions. This system, democratic as is seemed was more one of political pluralism in a political administration of oligarchs with divergent interests, support bases and power structures. Thus, the institutions of political administration developed in this period were compounded with a myriad of challenges that were never properly addressed. Hence there were a lot of incidences of collusion and duplications which inadvertently in the end rendered these wellmeaning institutions either redundant or dysfunctional. The key reason for this is that there was very little time for the majority of Sierras Leoneans who now took the onus of determining their destiny to understand the dynamics of the system they had inherited. As if the country was destined for calamity, just a few years after independence ,following the death of the first Prime Minister major fractures in the polity surfaced that were to lead the country through a period of political joggling, dictatorship and finally war. A question that rises is -Why were these institutions, late in their formation as they were, and which should have served as vehicles of development, rendered redundant and dysfunctional in the years following the first half of the post-independence decade?

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For one to get a clear picture of these collusions, duplications and fractures and how they did affect effective governance and the consequences, which shall be discussed at a later point, it is necessary to do a review of some historical facts about the political developments that took place in Sierra Leone from the time the colony of Freetown was formed to the time actually western style political administration was introduced in the Protectorate on to the time of Independence and the first seven years. The rest after 1968 is known to most of us alive now. Before venturing into this historical expos it is but worthwhile to see what recent writers on Africas history of independence says. Martin Meredith in the introduction of his book The State of Africa :A History of Fifty Years of Independence states in the first and second paragraphs During the Scramble for AfricaEuropean powers staked claims to virtually the entire continent. The maps used to carve up the African continent were mostly inaccurate;...When marking out the boundaries of their new territories, European negotiators frequently resorted to drawing straight lines on the map, taking little or no account of the myriad of traditional monarchies, chiefdoms and other African societies that existed on the ground. He also further went on to say Having expended so much on acquiring empires, Europes colonial powers then lost much of their earlier interest in them. Few parts of Africa offered the prospects of immediate wealthColonial governments were concerned above all to make their territories financially self-supporting. Administration was thus kept to a minimum; education was placed in the hands of Christian missionaries; economic activity was left to commercial companies. In much of Africa, therefore, the colonial imprint was barely noticeable. Let us now see how this barely noticeable system and attitude towards governance and development were assimilated and translated by the Sierra Leonean society and what impact that had on post-independence governance, peace and stability. Since colonial times, the barely noticeable (imprint)socio-political structures and institutions put in place by the British colonial administration had a lot of inadequacies which were to affect the development of the inherent political culture and social relations that have tailored the post-independence society Sierra Leone was and is. A critical look at the recent political history and an examination of the institutions, social groups and the ramifications encountered thereof from these ramifications as well as the role played by key political parties and figures in the years following the independence in 1961 will give a clear picture of what went wrong and how it went wrong? To understand the dynamics of political evolution and societal development in Sierra Leone after independence to now it is but justifiable to concentrate on a number of parameters or factors that have been of key influence in all these developments. First is the question of the four key influencing factors, mentioned previously in this paper, which are; the colony-protectorate divide, the Traditional ruling class-non ruling class(nouveau rich petty bourgeoisie class)collusions, the late introduction of western type
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education and administration into the greater parts of what is today Sierra Leone making the Sierra Leonean polity more or less not so conversant with western political culture and institutions, and finally the emergent leadership in the years before and immediately after independence in terms of the collusions and disparities inherent in this very important factor of governance, political development and statecraft . The first key factor, the colony-protectorate divide as it seems, took a natural course following the introduction of western type politics and political administrative institutions in the protectorate which in post-independence Sierra Leone will form three-fourths of the new nation-state. Also the consequent Formation of the Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) as the first protectorate party and the legalization of the protectorate political participation on national governance by the Stevenson Constitution of 1951. A significant development which followed this constitution was not the formation of the SLPP but the inherent power cells and struggles that developed after, leading to independence and the years after. Along with this constitutional development was the parallel rise of a tripartite new class of educated and political elites that was more or less in not in synchrony or rather running parallel to each other. These were the chiefs whose sons and wards had received the first full blown western type of education from the British colonial administration in the establishment of the Koyema and later Bo school; the educated provincial elites most sons and wards of chiefs but some from another school system that had been established a long time before the British ventured inland which was the EUB/UBC/UMC educated; finally the Creole or Colony elites who have had a long standing education and apprenticeship in Western administration and commerce and who formed the colonial petty bourgeoisie. The latter having more or less assimilated British cum European politico-social culture and traditions but well in the minority. These elite experienced a multi-dimensional synergy and the dynamics that resulted from the intra- and extrapolation of their actions have had a lot of impact on the Countrys development from a new nation-state of relative stability to one of a failed state. First were the disparities between the provincial elites from ruling classes and those from nonruling classes. The Stevenson Constitution assisted in the collusion course of the three Elites, according to Cartwright.J.R(1978) , in this in the sense that it ensured, then, three things: that the protectorate representatives (who had not been well prepared) would outnumber those of the colony(there was to be one elected by each of the twelve District Councils, and two by the Protectorate Assembly, against seven elected from Colony constituencies);that the chiefs, through their control of the District Councils and Protectorate Assembly, would play the key role in selecting the members from the protectorate and that whoever controlled a majority in the legislative Council would also be able to participate in the exercise of executive powers.

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By this constitution, the British sought to give power in an indirect but more modern way to chiefs who had all along been their proxies in the protectorate. This power arrangement in effect resulted in a lot of dissensions and grievances that were to metamorphosis into a more acute political discord which was to lead to other synergic developments that was to greatly affect post-independence Sierra Leone. Also by this very constitution, the transfer of a more trained and stable political administration was subverted as those who had received a longer period of administrative training and pupilage, the creoles, were legally sidelined and made inept. The same constitution also catalyzed or rather set into motion the beginnings of the formation of interest groups and associations outside mainstream politics and society that took unimaginable dimensions that were to later metamorphosis into shadow states with in the post-independence nation-state of Sierra Leone. In all these developments the structures and institutionalization of a very strong Patron-Client synergy was the final result. The Stevenson constitution, by default of the power of nomination of the chiefs to the District councils and their role and status in the protectorate assembly, developed the post-independence structure and impact of patronage in mainstream politics and development. The educated protectorate petty bourgeoisie who were the most disadvantaged in the provisions of the Stevenson constitution quickly became clients of the chiefs who assumed the role of patrons. The colonys petty bourgeoisie who were educated as well as commercially strong were also left to continue the clientele role they had operated under in their commercial encounters with chiefs before and after the establishment of the protectorate of Sierra Leone and the construction of the railways into the hinterland. Even in this kind of social group divisions with the chiefs at the pivotal position, there were further cracks that did not allow the cementing of a strong national socio-political relationship within and between the main elite groups in the Sierra Leone polity. According to John Cartwright, of the three elites-the creole intelligentsia, the protectorate intelligentsia, and the chiefs-was to some extent restricted in its ability to co-operate with the others by its base of support. The Creoles, as spokesmen for a highly mobilized society, had the least freedom of manoeuvre of the three...One of the tragedies of Creoledom was the moderates were outshouted by the Bankole-Brights whose intransigence reinforced the legacy of suspicion between the Creoles and countrymen for many years. The third group, the protectorate intelligentsia, had a less certain base than either the Creoles or the chiefs. To the extent that they had any natural constituency, it comprised all those who had become attracted to the idea of social change, and could perceive those possessing a Western education as being in the forefront of such changethee upcountry youths who had been exposed to wage labour,schooling or other stimuli for change ,were spread among a number of provincial towns ,each of which heavily outnumbered by the hinterland still firmly adhering to its chiefs.This did not necessarily leave them helpless; they could have used their supporters as spearhead for change fanning out into the

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Hinterlands and exploiting intra-chiefdom quarrels to develop a mass political movement ,as was shortly to be done in Ghana. But this was not to be done, for two reasons. One reason, to be discussed below ,was that as a preliminary to a mass movement undercutting the chiefs, the intelligentsia would have had to force the British to introduce a political structure allowing more direct popular participation than the constitutional change the British were proposing at the time..to do this would have required a united front of all intelligentsia, Creole as well as up country; mass popular participation, in which the Protectorate numbers would enjoy their greater advantage, was precisely what the Creoles could least afford to support. The second reason, already noted, was the fact that the up country intelligentsia was closely linked with the chiefs. Looking at these collusions as described by Cartwright, it was then a quagmire or catch-22 situation that the reforms and structures introduced by the British led Sierra Leones polity into from the 1940s onwards. Like it was from the beginning, emerging the nation-state that was to emerge as Sierra Leone after 1961 had been polarized into three distinct polities each having its own interest and expectations. As it were ,Sierra Leone started on a platform of conflicts, grievances and challenges that were ,unfortunately not addressed in the years immediately following independence due to unfortunate socio-political circumstances that were even to galvanize the country first to a military coup after the 1967 elections and then a protracted period of rule based on patronage and clientele or what can be best described as the Carrot and stick rule of Siaka Stevens APC. To be continued

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As it is one is prone to ask but why after 50 years we have still not corrected this anomaly? There is an answer to this and it goes back to imbibed socio-political culture and accidents and incidents that took place immediately following our political independence from Britain.

what they had failed to do was to give create the most important infrastructure which was educate the major part and body of Sierra Leone and her populace to assimilate and understand the virtues and vices of their type of political administration and traditions.

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