Word reached this medium weeks ago of the announcement by local businessman Mohamed Gento Kamara of his intention to run for the position of Mayor of Freetown. Let us be the first to advise and remind Mr Gento Kamara why he has gotten or is getting the wrong advice.

As someone that is into construction and all things roads and buildings, we expect Gento to know what we mean by asking him to “stay in his lane”. He is being advised to stick to what he knows. But should you still want to venture into Salone Politics from Salone Business, you should be apprised of the pitfalls.

Before getting into this short discourse, let it be stated here that before Mohamed Gento Kamara, the nation of Sierra Leone was at the peril of any and all hustler construction companies that chopped the nation’s money by designing and constructing roads that left much to be desired and determination to change the narrative, the Gento Group of Companies ushered a new dawn where road construction contracts, instead of being given to companies in the region and from far off, can be confidently given to a local company that will do up to standard work. Gento even did better on his projects than many of the Chinese and Senegalese companies that we traditionally hire to do such works. Gento in essence transformed Freetown. See from King Harman Road, Youyi Building up to Limkokwing University including the 15 roads in Waterloo that are yet to be completed, then you will have an idea of how he has transformed Freetown.

In other societies, the role of City Mayor is given to a guy like Gento. By showing that he has the knack for polling equipment, talent and resources to see such construction projects through, a guy like Gento is encouraged by all and sundry to repeat his success at City Council the way he has done in business. Sadly, and this is what Gento is not being properly apprised of or being advised by those closest to him, politics in Sierra Leone does not apply to sound doctrine; we are still to define democracy with Sierra Leone characteristics.

While we do believe in the theory that as a nation, anyone qualified should be able to run for any public office. However, in practice, the role of the Mayor of Freetown has traditionally been given to a member of the Krio ethnic group. Generally, the people of Sierra Leone, especially those from the hinterland recognise, and we can take the liberty to say, have come to see the title of Mayor of Freetown as a kind of trade-off or an equivalent to a Krio Paramount Chieftaincy position. As one Sierra Leonean puts it: ‘We don’t expect for a Krio person to be elected as Mayor or Paramount Chief of any of the provincial towns or districts outside Freetown; in the same way we don’t expect anyone except a Krio person to win the Mayor of Freetown.’

Since we started voting for a Mayor of Freetown, no one from the areas designated in the days of old as the Protectorate has ever won the Mayor of Freetown in what was called the Crown Colony. Freetown was established in 1792 as a home for freed and rescued slaves from the Diaspora (the Americas and England) and open seas on their way to the New World.

Although this tradition of a Krio Mayor of Freetown is something that should be challenged (because if we believe that anyone from any tribe can and should be made president of Sierra Leone, then the idea that Mayor of FCC is reserved for Krios defeats our premise) we do not think that the right time and circumstances are here with Mohamed Gento Kamara as the contender for the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP).

We would have expected Gento’s friends, family and other loved ones to have impressed on him that politics is a dirty game that polarises. whole families, let alone districts and countries; that personal issues relating to work and relationships are bound to come out of which his loved ones and business associates should be warned of beforehand, instead of them coming out in the media, worse yet social media Salone style; and that he was given all his contracts in the days of the Ernest Bai Koroma Presidency should not be lost on Gento and advisers.

Gento Should be reminded here about our erstwhile deputy President the late Solomon Berewa, aka Solo B, who contested for the Presidency in 2007. In those days, many people were running to Solo B for help as support as they are to Gento today. After spending Billions of leones Solo B ended up losing to Ernest Bai Koroma