OpEd: The Wisdom In Hon. Alhaji Musa Tarawally’s Speech: What He Actually Meant
In a short video shared on social media and other platforms, Hon. Alhaji Musa Tarawally — Grand Chief Patron, National Delegate, and bona fide member of the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) — delivered a message that has been deliberately misrepresented by sycophants and those who cannot grasp the wisdom of the speech.
He said: “Everybody is guilty.”
But what did Hon. Tarawally actually mean?
When Hon. Tarawally said “we are all guilty,” he was not confessing to any crime. He meant “nobody is a saint”, speaking as a patriot — a man who has spent his life in the service of Sierra Leone — and he was delivering a moral indictment on the collective responsibility and failure of our nation.
Meaning, we are all guilty for not standing up to unite our nation. Since independence, we have not brought ourselves together. We remain divided. We are guilty of not forging the unity our founding fathers dreamed of.
We are all guilty for not controlling and eradicating drug abuse and for not properly protecting our children against kush. Our young people are dying. Families are destroyed. Communities are shattered. And we have not done enough as a nation to stop it.
We are all guilty for not doing enough to provide for our people across the country.
Citizens are suffering. Parents are crying. Some people do not have food to eat or a place to sleep. And we have not adequately responded to their basic needs.
These are the fundamental factors affecting our nation. These are the things we are all guilty of — as a nation. Not as criminals.
As citizens, who have failed to build the nation we promised our children.
Hon. Tarawally also reminded us of our history — the senseless, brutal war of Foday Sankoh and the undemocratic rule of Johnny Paul Koroma. We stood together then. We defended ourselves. With the support of the international community, we restored peace.
That is the same unity he is calling for now: to stop political manipulation, cure drug addiction, stop kush production and secure the nation for the good of all.
This is not the first time Hon. Tarawally has spoken truth to power. It is in his consistent record.
In 2004, after a national consultation, he approached the SLPP leadership and publicly warned that electing Solomon Berewa could become problematic — that his candidacy will lead to SLPP losing the 2007 elections. His warning was ignored and taken by stakeholders as an insult, the SLPP lost the 2007 elections. His prediction came to pass.
He gave the same honest and public advice to former President Ernest Bai Koroma. He told him to stay put as a statesman — or he would become a victim of political circumstances. It was taken as an insult but it came to pass.
He told Pa Kabbah the truth. He told Solo B the truth. He told Ernest Bai Koroma the truth.
This is a man who has always believed: “If you see something wrong, you have to say it with honesty.”
Hon. Tarawally is a friend and brother of President Julius Maada Bio. He respects him. But he does not see him as a god. He will never hesitate to tell him the truth.
He brought President Bio into the SLPP. He introduced him to President Kabbah when Bio could not even enter the SLPP office. He championed his aspirations for leadership. And the consequences he suffered as a result of that decision — that is the fact and history, not an insult to the President.
That history is the very justification for the act of betrayal and dumping him — as a result of the letter written by the SLPP National Chairman, denying his legitimate membership of the SLPP under the leadership of President Bio. A man whom he registered in the SLPP.
When Hon. Tarawally spoke of a political crisis if the President does not resolve the injustice against him, he meant one thing: the end of his political alliance with the President, that can lead to him establishing other democratic alliances —for the greater good and in the greater interest of the nation.
He believes in democratic means. Through court actions. Through the ballot box. Through the rule of law. That is how disputes are resolved in a democracy.
Let the law be stated plainly, because the law is on his side.
First – Defamation
Hon. Tarawally defamed no one he spoke “We are all guilty” is, by its very grammar, self-inclusive. A man cannot defame another by including himself in the same moral category. The statement exonerates; it does not accuse.
Second — this was his opinion. The law protects honest opinion on matters of public interest. National unity, drug abuse, kush, poverty, and the unmet basic needs of citizens are matters of the highest public interest. Opinion on such matters — however uncomfortable — is protected speech, not actionable falsehood.
Third — the constitutional guarantee is absolute in its protection of political speech. Section 25 of the Constitution of Sierra Leone, 1991, guarantees every citizen freedom of expression. Article 9 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights — domesticated in Sierra Leone and enforceable in our courts — guarantees the right to receive and impart information and ideas.
Political speech sits at the very apex of that protection. A nation that jails its truth-tellers has abandoned its constitution.
Fourth — the criminal law has moved on. Parliament repealed the colonial-era criminal libel provisions of the Public Order Act, 1965, in 2020.
Sierra Leone deliberately decriminalised speech. Any attempt to resurrect criminal liability for a moral appeal to national conscience is a throwback to a darker era — and it will not stand.
There is nothing of defamation or cyberbullying in his statement. It is a patriotic call for Sierra Leoneans to come together and solve the fundamental problems affecting our nation.
His experience — including in the security sector — positions him to contribute to the process of national unity and freedom for all.
That wisdom in his speech is for the better good of the nation, and it cannot be misinterpreted by ill-motivated people for his political elimination.
Hon. Alhaji Musa Tarawally is not running from the law. He is running toward the truth. And the truth is on his side.