It is six weeks to the opportunity to change a rather challenging narrative…

A woman goes to have a baby knowing her country of residence makes it hugely unlikely she will see or hold that baby. She is a citizen of “the most dangerous country to have a baby”. Baby’s chances were slim too but he made it to find his journey from childhood to adulthood will be a test of endurance through brutal hurdles.

In his teens, surviving in “the most dangerous country in the world to be a teenager” will be the offer. There was the challenge of trying to get an education while skipping the right to childhood in order to contribute to his family’s sustenance. Neck-breaking early morning water replenishment tasks often left him too tired to absorb what came his way at school. Somehow, he gets to adulthood only to find himself on a scrapheap before he could even give to his country.

Unemployment becomes the very painful and resilient reality of what should be his most productive years. Unfortunately for him, there are no connections to even get him into the police or armed forces. Meantime, he must also keep his nose clean for justice seems to be on ebay – strictly for the highest bidders. The indignity of regular handouts from relatives in distant lands is what counts as luck for this young man. All this while the statistics tell him he will almost certainly be outlived by contemporaries in other countries. His whole life is a desperate fight for survival with dignity as a luxury item with no role in his dreams. Sadly, his experience is similar to that of millions of his compatriots.

This is the story of a people who in six weeks can choose to have more of the same or look to at least try something different, and you will be forgiven for expecting electioneering filled with talk of what will be done, how it will be done and with what it will be done. Nope!!! The whole conversation has been reduced to a matter most of the population wouldn’t quite understand and probably do not care about.

The medical system is begging to be talked about. Parents yearn for word on how their children will be educated. Businesses would love to know that reliable electricity is an agenda item. The young people need to know adulthoods without hope won’t be tolerated. There is a need to have water that is safe and justice that is fair. Life needs to be lived rather than endured… but oh no!!!

The citizenship status of one man is what the powers that be would rather talk about. They would rather have questions asked about whether he is “one of us” in order to stop the people thinking “what can he do for us?”. Sadly, it has been a decade of not being bothered by the pain of the people. Most of the arguments and almost all the actions have been about things seen as wonderful by the very few. The forced headlines now point to desperate efforts to not focus on the things that will improve the lives of the many.

When I first listened to Bob Marley’s ‘Crisis’ back in the seventies, the opening could not have been a more accurate statement of what prevailed in Sierra Leone. “They say the sun shines for all, but in some people’s world it never shines at all”. Some four decades later, that line has become so much more relevant.

The shenanigans of the last week tell of a “sun” that won’t than won’t shine for all desperately trying to stop a son is determined to shine for all. Then again, it has always been about them and where they fit in their cabal. As Marley says later in that song, “they just want to be the leaders in the house of the rising sun”

© Othame Kabia