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I am always excited when a new book is published on Sierra Leone by Sierra Leoneans. It used to be such a rarity. Thankfully the first twelve years of this century has seen a rise in the number of publications by Sierra Leoneans, especially since the end of the civil war. I try to lay my hands on as many of them as I can! It has therefore been more than gratifying to read my latest acquisition OKRAFO – OVER A CENTURY IN THE LIVES OF A LIBERATED AFRICAN 1816-1930 by Victor S. Weeks Okrafo-Smart published by Palm Tree Publishers in Nottingham, England; ISBN: 978-0-9554724-0-4; web site: https://www.okrafo.com/

It is not a novel. It is not a turgid historical read either. It is a fascinating narration by the author of over one hundred years of his roots and family history as the descendant of a Liberated African. But the book’s fascination extends much further than that because it gives a flavour of British colonial history in Sierra Leone and the role of the first generation of white missionaries in the country’s early years of growth as a British colony.

Victor’s story is all the more remarkable because it must be remembered that Liberated Africans came to Sierra Leone – although they were predominantly settled in Freetown and the surrounding villages – from many other parts of Africa and did not settle there as an homogenous group. Yet in the period of time covered by the book they coalesced into a strong and united cultural group that influenced not only the growth and development of Regent Village, from where Victors’ ancestors hailed, but also the growth of Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital city. No wonder Regentonians, with a high degree of good humoured exaggeration, like to refer to their village as the Athens of West Africa! A good number of them spoke Greek and therefore had no qualms in forsaking the mother country in boasting how learned they were!

An intriguing snapshot of Victor’s ancestry is in the family name. How could thoroughbred black Africans originally called Okoroafor end up with “weeks” and “Smart” as part of their surname? In time the name Okoroafor transmogrified itself to Okrafor and finally to Okrafo, probably a concession to the English tongue that couldn’t get round a twister of a name like Okoroafor! It took a colonial Governor and a colonial Bishop to have their names forever etched into the author’s family tree. At least the name Okoroafor did not disappear for ever; otherwise our author would probably have been named plain Victor Weeks or Victor Smart. His true identity would have been lost.

As you will read in the book the Okrafo-Smart family have every reason to be proud of themselves. They bred intellectuals in all spheres of human endeavour right through their family history. Many studied abroad and returned home as Surgeons, barristers, Judges, theologians and artists, and, more often than not, better qualified than their colonial counterparts. This discrepancy gave rise to discriminatory practices whereby a mediocre and less qualified white colonial officer was promoted above the better qualified African. A case in point was that of the renowned Dr. Robert Wellesley Cole whose mother was an Okrafo-Smart. He point-blank refused to give in to such discriminatory practices and returned to England where he worked for many years.

The author’s grandfather was another case in point. Not only was he the master builder who designed and landscaped the famous City Hotel in the heart of Freetown he was also a prodigious writer on all manner of subjects and one of the first to agitate for nationhood and political Independence from the British as long ago as 1910. Excellence of this kind was littered throughout the author’s family. There are countless examples throughout the book. Indeed one senses, almost hears, from page one to the last pages of the book the mood music of the author’s pride in the many and varied achievements of five generations of the Okoroafor dynasty.

Central to the Okrafo-Smart story is the important fact that the author’s Grandfather’s brother, Dr Benjamin Okrafo-Smart was able to establish a link with the Ibo ethnic group in Nigeria. He was both a doctor and theologian and worked in Nigeria where he was ordained in the Anglican Church as a pastor of All Saints Church, Yaba, Lagos. Sometime during this period (between the 1930 and 1940) he visited Imo State in Eastern Nigeria and founded a church there. Because of his involvement with that church he was able to trace his ancestry to the original Okoroafor family. This is intriguing because, of the hundreds of thousand of Liberated Africans from across the continent, not too many have been able to trace their families as far back as their original family roots.

The African reader of this book will know how sacrosanct our ancestors are to us. They are the reason for our living. We talk to them, we seek guidance from them. We believe that they are always with us in our life’s journey. Before the publication of books their stories were communicated from one generation to another by word of mouth. Now, thanks to writers and authors of Victor’s ilk we can still look back in awe at our ancestor’s achievements and pass them down to succeeding generations. Of course although this book commences with the story of just one Liberated African from his arrival in Sierra Leone, his story goes back further in time than 1816 and is probably lost in the mists of time. Let us remember also that there are a hundred thousand and more such stories to be told that can enrich the colourful tapestry of the history of the Krios in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Let’s hope that this book will inspire the younger generation of Sierra Leoneans to put their fingers to the keyboard and start writing before this rich vein of our history is permanently lost.

Finally, there is afoot in Freetown a group of krios who are investigating what they have described as the marginalisation of the Krios in Sierra Leone. How penetrating this self analysis will be and what its ultimate purpose is in the context of contemporary politics is not clear. Hopefully it will restore some pride in Creoledom which is going through a process of self immolation. I would highly recommend Victor S Weeks Okrafo-Smart’s book to such people who are in search of a reviving tonic for this malady.

John Bankole Jones

Barrister at Law