ECOWAS Court Cannot Reverse a Supreme Court Verdict or Enforce on a Member State an Undomesticated Treaty

Open Letter to Leeroy Kabbs Kanu

Dear Mr Kanu,

Please find below a rejoinder to your article titled, ‘ECOWAS Court cannot reverse a Supreme Court verdict or enforce on a member state an undomesticated Treaty’. 

I accept the fact that you have a right to your opinion; first, as a human being, and second, as a Sierra Leonean, and third, as a Government official. However, even before articulating my views, let me hasten to categorically state that I do not have any specific position on this Sam Sumana vs Government of Sierra Leone/APC matter at the ECOWAS court level as at yet, despite the interest of all well-meaning Sierra Leoneans in it. 

However, please note that this particular paragraph in your article is a open insult to Sierra Leone, Sierra Leoneans and the Government. I believe you therefore owe this nation and your party an apology. 

‘But Sierra Leoneans normally do not argue issues from an analytical and coherent perspective. They depend on insults, verbal abuse expatiation of their raw emotions and articulation of partisan beliefs during important arguments on forums and the social media’.  

I agree with you that certain Sierra Leoneans, like your very self, are myopic in their thinking and often one-sided in their arguments either to protect their jobs, interests, political lineages or other considerations, but not all of us. 

Except if you now wish to confirm claims by those you have been arguing with about your citizenship that you are a foreigner? Otherwise, hope you will find time to reflect on this erroneous assertion and correct that negative perception about us Sierra Leoneans, because I know that there are distinguished and credible Sierra Leoneans within and without the APC, SLPP and the country with brains, who have excelled with distinction in the international arena and beyond partisan and narrow-mindedness.  

Honestly, I can not recall any instance in which you have opposed, not to talk about challenged, any mistake or alleged wrong doing by the APC party or Government, like more mature and responsible APC top bras as Eddie Turay, Justice Abdulai Conteh and even lawyer Iscandari or Dr Mahoi do, for example. You are always up in arms against dissent even if they are advancing a popular public opinion, as long as it does not favour the APC party or government. This is not patriotism or nationalism. It is plain cronyism!

As a human rights professional and media activist, I also accept that it is your constitutional right to belong to any party or association of your choice and promote, protect and defend its interest, but you also have an obligation to put the interest of the country first and above those parties or associations.

Honestly, both the APC party and SLPP are a disappointment. They have betrayed public trust and their role as ruling and opposition parties respectively. Both parties have left the masses, especially the citizenry at the mercy of fate and the few civic actors who have continued to raise up their voices despite scorning from people like you.  I even bear more briefs against the SLPP for failing to checkmate some of the key excesses of some heartless and unpatriotic government functionaries and government policies, as the lead opposition party in parliament.

I therefore urge you to endeavour to remove the speck from you eyes first before you start picking on others or negatively branding all Sierra Leoneans. You can engage in your political dialogue or debate without downgrading Sierra Leoneans, because many Sierra Leoneans have class!

Mustapha Sesay
Media & Communications Specialist
Former National SLAJ Secretary General