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A REBEL MENTALITY

by

Paul Conton

The Honourable Musa Tarawallie, Sierra Leone Government Minister of Lands, has once again jumped into a fray on the side of conflict and violence, with a hurried statement in support of his boss’s wife, First Lady Sia Koroma. The issue centers around a report made by PMDC leader and defeated 2012 presidential candidate Charles Margai (see Global Times Online – Police to interrogate First Lady) that Sia Koroma had paid for a gang of thugs to invade his land, brutalize his workers there and seize control of the land. In his statement (see Awareness Times Lies against Sierra Leone First Lady Exposed), Musa Tarawallie vigorously rejects Charles Margai’s claims to the land, which he describes as state land, although he is curiously silent on the question of why the first lady should go to the trouble of hiring thugs in order to give the state back its land! The truth of the matter, of course, is that the first lady and Charles Margai have been in contention for this land for some time. This is not a question of state land at all, as Musa Tarawallie would have us believe in his statement, but a contention between two citizens over a plot of land intended for private use.

The statement from the minister tells us a lot about his thinking. For him, the important point here is to establish that Charles Margai does not own the land and has no genuine claim to it. Once that case can be made, then Charles Margai is in the wrong, Sia Koroma is in the right, and he, Tarawallie, would have performed a valuable service for his boss. For right-thinking Sierra Leoneans, however, the issue of who owns the land is almost an irrelevance It matters not one jot to the average Sierra Leonean whether Margai or Sia Koroma owns a few town lots in Aberdeen. It will not affect the ordinary Sierra Leonean’s life in the slightest. It’s a question that can and should be settled by the appropriate legal authorities. If Charles Margai is in control of a piece of land and has his workers living on the site, and Sia Koroma believes this land is rightfully hers, the courts are open to her as they are (or should be) to every Sierra Leonean to redress that situation.

Rule of Law

So the issue of who actually owns the land is miniscule. No, the real issue here, and what should be of concern to every right-thinking Sierra Leonean, is, did the first lady cause a gang of thugs to invade the land, brutalize Mr Margai’s workers and seize the land? This issue is hugely important for Sierra Leone because it defines the allowable limits of behavior for public officials and by extension the government. Are we to be guided by the rule of law or are we to operate in a society where the government and its agents can ride roughshod over the bodies of private citizens?

This case is remarkably similar to one reported only two weeks ago (see natinpasadvantage.com/ Why Always Musa Tarawallie?), also involving Musa Tarawallie, in that case as principal villain rather than in the supporting role he is playing now. This case is also part of a trend in the behavior of the APC government since it took office in 2007, in which the rights of citizens to peacefully and legally hold private property is usurped, and their legitimate human rights are violated with impunity. This very website was formed as a reaction to this (see natinpasadvantage ).

The behaviour attributed to the first lady simply would be unthinkable in a functioning democracy. The public outcry would be irresistible. There was not too long ago an incident in Britain, in which a government minister was stopped for some minor traffic offence and, rather than accepting his guilt he and his wife conspired to make it appear as if the wife was the guilty party. No bodily harm was caused to any individual, no property was damaged, but it was proved that there was a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice in this traffic incident. For this offence not only was the minister sacked but both he and his wife were jailed. Serious democracies demand that their leaders are held to the highest possible standards of behavior with regards to the rule of law. If you as leader do not respect the law, how do you expect the average citizen to respect it? If the first lady prefers to use thugs rather than seek redress in a court of law, what does she expect the average citizen to do faced with a similar situation?

To come back to our friend Musa Tarawallie, these arguments are probably lost on him. The thinking of the rebel during our long rebel war always was: “This property is in the possession of someone else, but I want it, and so with my gun and my gang, I am going to take it.” Sadly that thinking has still not left us. Sadly, recent events indicate that it permeates the top levels of the APC party and the Sierra Leone government.