Our nation, and especially Freetown have been gripped by a spate of fire incidents recently. The State House, the Military hospital (34) a and mother unit in Makeni hospital have all made the news for the wrong reasons. Fires do take place especially in dense urbanised areas, but it the frequency of these incidents that are alarming. Even so, the conversation around fires in the capital has gained more mileage with the fire at State House last week. In the meantime, our arm chair investigators, conspiracy theorists and rumour mongers have gone to town with the reasons and causes of these occurrences. When reality fails to beat the imagination, rumours are usually converted to “truths”.
It is therefore no wonder that the cause of a fire for houses belonging to members of the public are attributed to “bad light” (power surge) from EDSA. If it involves a government building or establishment, the default position is that government officials are trying to destroy evidence. This is even before any official investigation or report has been concluded or complied respectively. What is gnawingly disheartening is the level of schadenfreude (the emotional experience of pleasure in response to another’s misfortune) with which such unfortunate events are transmitted or relayed. You can feel the joy in some people’s voice clips. Oh dear. Even though there have been reports of arsonists at work, they are hardly mentioned. Unfortunately, when you see citizens deliberately setting fires to electric transformers, pylons and stealing copper wires etc, you begin to wonder what kind of country we live in.
There are theories that due to load shedding, the amount of electricity supplied by EDSA generates power surges that have destroyed lots of people’s appliances. Other theories maintain that the spate of electricity theft and the sub-standard connections and wirings have significantly contributed to this upsurge of fire events. Irrespective of these theories, this is a grave matter that would require our government to answer these burning questions with fire prevention. With social media swamped in an orgy of Artificial Intelligence (A.I) and Computer Generated Images (CGI), showing different levels and severity of the State House on fire, it was refreshing to see the government’s instant response in the minute by minute commentary of the fire at State House. It is customary to find the government losing the initiative and on the back foot, defending and responding to rumours. This time, it was proactive. Was it because it was State House? Was it because it was V P Juldeh in charge? Or was it in response to devastating A I generated images?
So, why the frequent recurrence of buildings going up in flames?
The situation of the electricity supply in Freetown is an open secret that is so bad that His Excellency Dr Julius Maada Bio had to step in and took charge of the energy ministry. The sigh of relief that greeted this self-appointment reverberated as far as the Nimi Hills and Fouta Djallon Mountains. Sadly, not many people are convinced that much has changed. We know that the dry season has not been helpful but Papa yah. The situation involving the fires has been so bad that some unpatriotic Sierra Leoneans have been saying on social media, that it is God’s way of reminding Sierra Leoneans that we are in hell. Why any citizen would be triumphalist or celebrate such unfortunate events is beyond the base instincts of human comprehension. “What a life?” “What a country?”
Do these fire incidents reflect a deeper meaning of what is really wrong with our country?
In order to address this hypothesis, let us use the colonial period as the point of departure for this discussion. So, take a minute, close your eyes and recall that for the greater part of the 19th century, Sierra Leone was the PRIME CENTRE for British naval, political and missionary activities on the western African coast. By virtue of Sierra Leone’s role and position as the centre for business and administration for British Colonial Empire, not only did it become the blueprint but also a “Nation of Firsts” in West Africa. Take a cursory look at some of the “firsts” and WEEP.
Sierra Leone was the FIRST country as Crown Colony(1808) , Railway (1898), Electricity and Broadcasting (1927), Airline and Airport (Hastings) in sub-Saharan Africa (1927), Tropical Hospital in W/Africa (1925), Primary School (1794) and University (FBC-1827), Hospital for “mentally retarded (known as such at the time) in W/Africa 1920, First Municipality Mayor (1893), banking system with the Bank of British West Africa (1898), Post Office in W/Africa (1859), motor vehicles (1912”), English legal system with black judges and black jurors, first Supreme Court of Appeal for Gambia, Ghana and Nigeria, with Freetown as Administrative Centre for all 3 in 1843, women cast vote in Sierra Leone in1792 before those in Britain in 1918, First Missionaries in 1800s and many more. Now go to these other countries and weep.
As a nation, what is our relationship with Maintenance and Accountability?
As a nation, our culture of maintenance is disgraceful. It is very common for government services to allow infrastructure, machinery, roads etc to deteriorate, disintegrate, degenerate or destroyed than take a proactive step to maintain them. If you go to places like PWD, Road Transport or even visit the court yard of Youyi Building or New England Ville, you’ll be forgiven to think that you are in a salvage yard. Take for example, the government buses that APC brought during their tenure. Where are they now? Our governments would rather sign new contracts, bring in their own buses and paint them in party colours than maintain what we already have. Our leaders would rather allow a graveyard of these machines than repair or maintain them. That is what happens when both SLPP and APC parties prioritize their party needs above the nation’s needs.
For example, how many people had hand -held telephones at home, during the days of Sierra Telecommunications (SLET)? Do you remember when you had to spend up to 72 hours to make collect phone calls abroad? With the advent of mobile phones, we had Sierratel, but it is our very country men who ran Sierratel to the ground, sold the contracts to foreign companies like Africell, Q-Cell, and Orange, Comium, etc only to create NATCOM as landlords to collect rent. With 5 in every 7 Sierra Leonean owning a mobile phone today, can you imagine how much revenue our government would be making if it had only maintained, improved and developed Sierratel as the main service provider for mobile communication in our country? We live in a world where people would rather sleep hungry than have a phone without data. But no, they sold one of our best heirlooms and CASH COWS to foreign interests………for presumably nice brown envelops under the table. You wonder how these companies can now conduct weekly giveaways as peanuts in competitions and prizes?
We got independence to self-govern in 1961. What we forgot to include in the independence package was accountability against self –destruction. We elect public officials to positions of public trust but bury our heads when it comes to accountability. Take for example the mudslide that avoidably took away thousands of lives. Evidence shows that the role of human endeavour, thanks to land grabbing, uncontrolled deforestation, unregulated planning and rogue officials presided over the pilfering and plundering that laid the hills bare to the mercy of nature.
With all the deaths that took place, were there any lessons learnt? You need to drive by the same area today to know that the answer is: NO. As if nothing happened, settlements are sprouting all over again. Were any individuals brought to account for why and how those lands were acquired, sold, stolen and given to people? NO. Now sit back and see what comes out of the investigations from the fire at State House. Sit back and see whether a national policy would be generated for tackling of fires, or the whether preventive measures would be instituted. One thing is sure though, State House will get a face lift. A burning house is a burning shame. If we do our part, fire won’t start.
Don’t forget to turn the lights off when you leave the room.
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