By Alpha Amadu Jalloh
They say children are the future. But in Sierra Leone, that future is being erased. Not quietly. Not accidentally. But deliberately and shamelessly by the very people entrusted with the sacred duty to protect it. Youth in Sierra Leone are not being prepared for leadership. They are being eliminated from it.
What we are witnessing is not just neglect. It is calculated erasure. The kind that robs a generation not only of opportunity but of identity. The youth are being silenced before they can speak, condemned before they can dream, and erased before they can exist.
They are seen, not heard. Used, misused, then discarded. Called upon only to chant slogans, fill stadiums, fight political battles, and protect the ambitions of leaders who see their own shadows in the courage of young people and shudder. They are branded unruly when they speak, dangerous when they mobilise, and disposable when they demand justice.
Across Sierra Leone, the echo of ambition in young hearts is drowned by the familiar crackle of AK-47s. Not fired by insurgents or foreign enemies, but by local police officers. Men and women who were trained to serve and protect have now become agents of fear. They do not carry their weapons as symbols of law but as tools of intimidation and survival. They are driven not by professionalism but by desperation and blind orders from above.
What kind of society turns its guns on its future?
But the problem is deeper. It is cultural. It is spiritual. And it is systemic. A kind of national betrayal perpetrated by those who once swore to uphold justice and morality.
Religious leaders, once beacons of truth and defenders of the weak, have abandoned their pulpits for political appeasement. They preach comfort while the youth bleed. Their silence is deafening. Their complicity is visible. Many have turned houses of worship into extensions of political platforms where prayers for peace are replaced by praises for presidents.
Community elders, who once bore the moral weight of society, now retreat into the shadows of self-preservation. They see the injustice. They feel the decay. But they choose to look away. And in doing so, they have become protectors of the very system that is destroying the next generation.
In Sierra Leone today, the youth are not only ignored. They are actively suppressed. From education to employment, from governance to innovation, doors are closed. Walls are built. And those who dare to break through are labelled threats to national security. Brilliance is feared. Boldness is punished. Vision is treated like rebellion.
│ “The youth in Sierra Leone are not lacking in potential. They are suffocating in a system that fears what they could become.”
│ A nation afraid of its own future will always destroy its present.
Why? Because those in power are terrified.
They fear the youth because they know the youth cannot be bought so easily. They fear them because they carry within them an untamed energy that threatens the false order maintained by corruption, mediocrity and manipulation. The political class knows its time is coming to an end. And instead of mentoring the future, they are moving to silence it.
Let us be clear. A leader who is afraid of the youth is not a leader. He is a coward.
You cannot erase the future and expect to have one. You cannot kill the voice of tomorrow and hope your name will be remembered in history. When you block the youth from rising, you are not building peace. You are building a ticking time bomb.
Who will lead when the current generation fades? Who will govern when the hands holding the reins today are too weak to grip them? If every bold voice is muted and every sharp mind is exiled, who will be left to save Sierra Leone?
The nation is not bleeding from the wounds of the past. It is bleeding from the betrayal of the present. The real civil war today is not fought with rebels in the bush, but with policies, poverty, bullets and silence aimed directly at the youth.
The international community sends aid but rarely demands accountability. Projects are funded. Speeches are made. But the dying of a generation continues unnoticed. Civil society, once the moral conscience of a nation, has largely been co-opted. Some are louder in defence of funding than in defence of justice.
Where are the journalists who used to hold power to account? Where are the activists who used to fill the streets with songs of resistance? Where are the teachers, imams and pastors who once stood between the powerful and the powerless?
│ “In Sierra Leone, young people are taught to dream small, speak less, and wait forever. That is not guidance. That is control.”
│ The silence of the youth is not peace. It is oppression disguised as tradition.
The youth of Sierra Leone do not need handouts. They need space to grow. They do not need saviours. They need systems that work. They do not need permission to lead. They need protection from those who fear their light.
Let them breathe. Let them speak. Let them rise.
Because when a nation erases its youth, it is not just muting noise. It is silencing hope. And when hope is gone, what is left?
To the youth of Sierra Leone. You are not voiceless. You are not invisible. You are not weak. You are not what they say you are. You are what you know yourselves to be.
You are the pulse of this country. You are the builders of its next chapter. You are the authors of its redemption.
Even if they cut your roots, remember this. A seed buried in silence still grows.
You are not erased.
You are that force.
│ “We must create a society in which our youth will be proud to stay, not desperate to escape.” President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah
│ True leadership builds bridges for youth, not barriers to their survival.