If it is not intimidation and detention of political opponents, it is police brutality against the people and rival politicians of the governing party. If it is not electoral hurly-burly, it is inciting the youths to kill other youths for the political gains of politicians. Rather than serving our people, our politicians are dividing us for their selfish gains. Welcome to the Sierra Leonean political ecology.

I shed a tear this morning for Sierra Leone.

When ethnolinguistic otherness and political party kerfuffle are disseminated in society as the norms of orderliness, and when these consequently feed into the fabric of a people whose modus operandi used to be “one for all, all for one”, all we see around us is social and cultural degradation that lead to total destruction.

I shed a tear this morning for Sierra Leone.

When we create boundaries of who are true Sierra Leoneans based on their political colours, geographical origin and/or place of residence, the languages they speak or based on their names, we miss the opportunity of enjoying our beautiful rainbow of a multilingual and multicultural nation.

I shed a tear this morning for Sierra Leone.

When those who left the shores of our country either by option or forcefully due to our recent sociopolitical and socioeconomic history and the violence that ensued are seen as “others”, we  are building walls to separate a people that once enjoyed their unique characteristics of tolerance and cultural co-existence.

I shed a tear this morning for Sierra Leone.

When our politics is gendered and does not favour our women for being women, and are bulldozed for being hardworking and tough as they fight to cure the ills of our country, we are maiming our mothers in whose wombs we were made, and who are the linchpins of a successful family, community, and nation. Without women, men are nothing, families inexistent, and nations fail. Degenderize politics!

I am still shedding tears for Sierra Leone for our disregard to what used to bind us.