Julius Maada Bio, President of Sierra Leone
By Alpha Amadu Jalloh
Sierra Leone has become a nation where the last person you speak to determines the next person you trust. A land where deals and betrayals shape everyday life and survival is not about virtue but about who backs you. Trust is a luxury no one can afford and morality is now a word for the naive. In this environment, survival is not about what is right, it is about what is necessary.
We have built an economy not on production, innovation, or hard work, but on deception, connections, and survival at any cost. In our Sierra Leone, you pay for a passport. You pay for a job. You pay for a promotion. You pay for justice. Even anti-corruption is a business, not a cause. The Anti-Corruption Commission and the immigration authorities and other gatekeepers prosper in a system where survival means extracting payment from those below while shielding those above.
“When a nation begins to celebrate thieves and mock the honest, morality becomes a disease, and corruption becomes a cure.”
Monopoly of Happiness: Unveiling Sierra Leone’s Social Imbalance
When we speak of corruption, we often imagine suitcases of cash in secret rooms. But ours is far more insidious. It is in the air we breathe, in the silence of those who should speak, in the shifting loyalties of the so-called guardians of the public good. Every handshake comes with an unwritten price and every promise is a contract of exploitation. The system is not designed to serve citizens; it is designed to wear them down until they can pay their way through.
At the top of this pyramid sits Julius Maada Bio, his family and their inner circle. They are not just in power, they own power. His wife, Fatima Maada Bio, his daughter, his nieces and nephews, all exert more influence than entire ministries. The police, the military, major institutions, they exist not to serve the people but to protect the interests of this ruling class.
“Sierra Leone’s problem has never been the absence of intelligence, but the absence of conscience among those who lead.”
Monopoly of Happiness: Unveiling Sierra Leone’s Social Imbalance
But corruption is not just about power, it is about privilege. While ordinary Sierra Leoneans fight for daily survival, the presidential circle jets in and out, untouched by the suffering they govern. The presidency has ceased to be an institution of service and has become a personal enterprise, an empire where the inner circle thrives while the country crumbles.
And then there is the case of Jos Leijdekkers. How does a man with serious international questions hanging over him become so deeply connected to the nation’s highest office? This is not just about corruption, it is about sovereignty. When personal relationships dictate national decisions, when foreign actors embed themselves within our leadership, who really rules Sierra Leone?
But perhaps the greatest tragedy now unfolding before our eyes is the Kush epidemic. A deadly drug destroying our youth, dismantling families, and shattering communities. Kush is not only a public health disaster but also a silent economic crisis. It has stolen the nation’s workforce, drained productivity, and replaced ambition with addiction. The young men who should be in workshops, classrooms, and offices are now lying motionless on street corners, enslaved by a substance that offers escape but delivers death.
Kush has crippled the country’s image abroad. It tells the world that Sierra Leone cannot protect its own sons and daughters. It whispers to investors that our streets are unsafe, our youth are lost, and our leadership is asleep. Every addict is a symptom of a failed system, a living testimony that our government has abandoned its duty to protect and to heal. While those in power build walls around themselves, a generation is perishing in slow motion.
We have normalised betrayal as a way of life. Your friend will sell you out if it benefits them. Your colleague will undermine you to get ahead. Your family will sacrifice you for temporary gain. Every person is out for themselves, and if you do not play the game, you get left behind. We have arrived at a place where people justify wrongdoing because others did worse. The pain you endure today means nothing because tomorrow they might be doing the same to someone else.
“Our happiness is monopolised by a few, while the majority survive on borrowed dreams and broken promises.”
Monopoly of Happiness: Unveiling Sierra Leone’s Social Imbalance
In this society, survival is a game where fairness is weakness. If you believe justice will protect you, you are a fool. If you believe loyalty will shield you, you are mistaken. Everyone is looking out for themselves, and if that means trampling you, so be it.
In Sierra Leone today the attitude is simple: “Udat care bot di die Arata?” (“Who cares about the dead rat?”) That is the philosophy of our nation. As long as I am eating, as long as my family is safe, as long as I enjoy the spoils of my connections, why should I care about the suffering of others?
But this mindset is a ticking time bomb. A nation where no one cares for another, where survival is based on exploitation, where the weak are left to perish while the powerful keep enriching themselves, cannot endure for long.
Our people are bleeding but we have been taught that pain is normal. We have been silenced not by force but by exhaustion. How can you fight when the very person you hope to stand with will betray you for a few leones? How can you resist when even your voice may be used against you?
The cruel irony is that the system will eventually consume its creators. The exploiters today will be the exploited tomorrow. The connections that serve today will abandon you when you are no longer useful. No one is safe in a system built on survival at any cost because once you are dispensable, you are gone.
Power changes hands and when it does, those once untouchable become the hunted. We have lived this cycle and we will live it again. But do we learn? No. We change faces, change uniforms, change titles, and continue the same cycle of destruction.
Now the question is: Can we break free? Can we build a Sierra Leone where people do not have to betray each other to survive? Where leadership is about service, not self-enrichment? Where justice is not for sale?
The answer is simple but hard. Change begins with the people. Not with politicians, not with foreign investors, not with international organisations, but with ordinary citizens who decide that enough is enough.
It begins when we stop normalising corruption. When we stop excusing our own wrongdoing because others did worse. When we refuse to sell our dignity for temporary gain. When we recognise that true power lies in unity, not in survival alone.
So here we are. You are the first person I talk to since I last talked to you. Because in this nation, every conversation becomes a negotiation, every interaction a transaction. But what if, for once, we spoke the truth without expecting payment? What if, for once, we cared about the person next to us without asking what they can do for us?
Sierra Leone does not have to be a country of deception and betrayal. But for that to change, we must first stop betraying ourselves. We must recognise that no one truly wins in a broken system. Because in the end, after all the deals, after all the payments, after all the betrayals, what remains of us?
A country that eats itself cannot survive. A people who do not trust each other cannot build a future. If we continue like this, Sierra Leone will remain a land of “who you last talked to,” a land of “pay your way,” a land of “survive at any cost.” But if we wake up, if we demand more of ourselves and those who rule us, then maybe, just maybe, we can build a nation worth believing in.
