Sierra Leone: A Mutual Deception

By Alpha Amadu Jalloh

Sierra Leone is not a democracy. It only plays one on the international stage. At home, the country is trapped in a dangerous cycle of mutual deception. Leaders pretend to govern. Citizens pretend to believe. The constitution promises rights. The streets deliver poverty. What exists is not a democracy but a survival pact built on betrayal.

In Sierra Leone, everyone is calculating how to get ahead, no matter who they must deceive. It is a society where betrayal is normalised, and trust is dangerous. From friends to family, from government to grassroots, from partner to neighbour, you can be thrown under the bus at any time. It is not a question of if. It is a question of who strikes first.

This is not just a failure of politics. It is the collapse of national ethics. Politicians lie. Civil servants inflate contracts. Businessmen scam consumers. Religious leaders fleece the faithful. Even the average citizen, exhausted by poverty and corruption, has learned to survive by deception.

What Sierra Leone calls democracy is a thin mask stretched over a deeply broken system. Democracy requires accountability, participation, justice, and respect for rights. None of those exist in any meaningful form. What exists instead is a dangerous theatre of deceit.

Political parties have become criminal enterprises. Power rotates between gangs disguised as ideologues. Elections are investments. The prize is access to state resources. From independence to now, the same families, the same elites, the same regions recycle themselves into power. These political dynasties are not interested in governance. They are interested in profit.

Whether SLPP or APC, the names may change but the intent never does. Both parties run like syndicates. Their goal is simple. Win power. Loot. Protect your own. Marginalise the rest. Every five years the people are told to vote. Every five years they are betrayed again.

The elite class that props up this system is a relic of colonialism. These are people who inherited privilege and now guard it with tribalism, secrecy, and corruption. They dominate ministries, banks, law firms, and state enterprises. They produce nothing. They consume everything.

Meanwhile, the economy is in ruins. Inflation has shredded the value of the Leone. Youth unemployment has crippled dreams. Corruption has infected every layer of public life. Ministries are overstaffed but underperforming. Infrastructure projects begin with pomp and end in abandonment.

And yet, the political elite live in obscene comfort. They drive through the slums in convoys. They attend conferences in Europe and Dubai. They rent lavish buildings for government offices while public facilities decay. They travel first class while the people beg for food.

The suffering of ordinary people is met with indifference. Our leaders do not care. Hospitals are death traps. Schools lack desks. Roads are broken. Communities go years without clean water. But the leaders celebrate awards and conferences while people die in silence.

Institutions that should protect democracy are compromised. Parliament is full of party loyalists. The judiciary is slow and politicised. The anti-corruption commission is selective. The police are used as enforcers. Civil society is fragmented. The media is underfunded, threatened, or co-opted.

The people themselves have been beaten into silence. Poverty has made them easy to manipulate. Votes are sold for rice. Support is traded for handouts. Tribal identity replaces accountability. The youth have stopped believing. Many are fleeing. Some drown in the Mediterranean. Others are trafficked. The rest are stuck in despair.

In Sierra Leone, betrayal is everywhere. It is cultural. It is political. It is generational. People lie on CVs. Forge certificates. Cheat in business. Sell loyalty for survival. This is not democracy. It is dysfunction. It is danger. It is decay.

The country does not need another election. It needs rebirth. It needs justice. It needs a rupture in the old order. This change will not come from the elite. It must come from a new generation of citizens who refuse to be deceived and refuse to deceive in return.

We need to break this culture of mutual betrayal. We need to reject politics as a business. We need leaders with empathy. Institutions with integrity. A public that holds power to account. A democracy that delivers.

Until that happens, Sierra Leone will remain what it is today. Not a nation. Not a democracy. But a mutual deception pretending to be both while its people survive each other under a broken sky.