The Sweet Poison of Collectivism: Why Sierra Leone’s Hunger for Community Risks Feeding on Empty Promises

 

By Mahmud Tim Kargbo

When a society hungers for belonging, collectivism often becomes its immediate craving. Like a starving man reaching for cassava bread heavy with palm oil rather than a wholesome meal, Sierra Leoneans frequently turn to collectivist ideas, state programmes, centralised policies, and forced community schemes, when confronted with social fractures and economic hardship. Collectivism promises solidarity, but it rarely produces genuine community. Instead, it delivers temporary satisfaction, leaves institutions malnourished, and often undermines the very freedoms it claims to serve.

Constitutional and Historical Foundations

The 1991 Constitution of Sierra Leone is both a bulwark against and a vehicle for collectivism. On one hand, it safeguards fundamental rights such as freedom of association, assembly, and expression (Chapter III: http://www.sierra-leone.org/Laws/constitution1991.pdf). On the other, it contains broad Fundamental Principles of State Policy (Chapter II) that mandate government to direct resources towards social welfare, housing, and education. These dual imperatives reflect a post colonial aspiration, balancing liberty with a developmental state.

However, the one party rule of the 1978 Constitution had already entrenched a culture of collectivism. The state claimed to embody the people, monopolising political life and eroding voluntary associations. By the late 1980s, Sierra Leone was marked by economic collapse, centralised corruption, and a hollowed out civil society. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission later identified this concentration of power and exclusionary governance as key drivers of the civil war (TRC Report: http://www.sierra-leone.org/TRC.html).

The Allure of Collectivism in Contemporary Sierra Leone

Post War Reconstruction and State Expansion

In the aftermath of conflict, the state assumed responsibility for rebuilding social fabric. Programmes such as the National Social Security and Insurance Trust (NASSIT) (http://www.nassit.org.sl) and the Free Health Care Initiative were designed to guarantee entitlements to all Sierra Leoneans. The logic was clear, having suffered together, citizens must now be healed together.

Yet, as the Audit Service Sierra Leone has repeatedly observed, these schemes often suffer from weak procurement processes, leakages, and non compliance with financial management rules.

(http://www.auditservice.gov.sl). What begins as solidarity ends in inefficiency and mistrust.

Education and the Free Quality Schooling Programme

The Free Quality Education (FQE) initiative, launched in 2018, is perhaps the most visible expression of collectivism today. It mandates free access to schooling for all children, funded from central government revenues and donor support. On paper, this embodies constitutional obligations under Section 9 (education as a state duty). Yet its collectivist nature is apparent, schools rely on central subventions, teachers are recruited through national processes, and parents contributions are minimal.

This contrasts sharply with Sierra Leone’s rich tradition of voluntary education, mission schools, community built classrooms, and alumni supported institutions. By sidelining these organic associations, collectivism risks weakening the very social capital that sustained learning during the war years.

Land, Housing, and the Community

Land policy illustrates another collectivist temptation. Appeals to community interest are frequently deployed by local elites and politicians to justify land allocations or block developments. The TRC urged reform to clarify rights and prevent arbitrary expropriation, but collectivist rhetoric still dominates. Customary tenure, poorly codified, allows chiefs to speak for the community while excluding dissenting voices. Here collectivism becomes a mask for authority, not a mechanism of solidarity.

Donor Collectivism

International actors also reinforce collectivist tendencies. Post war Sierra Leone has been awash with externally funded programmes designed to address national needs, DDR (Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration), NaCSA community driven development, and donor led budget support (http://www.nacsa.gov.sl). While necessary for stabilisation, these initiatives often bypass voluntary local associations, substituting bureaucratic community committees for organic institutions. This mirrors the junk food effect, rapid calories but no sustainable nutrition.

Collectivism versus Civil Society

The TRC emphasised that rebuilding Sierra Leone required strengthening civil society, faith communities, trade unions, professional associations, and local clubs (http://www.sierra-leone.org/TRC.html). These provide the leafy greens of democratic life, trust, deliberation, and accountability. Collectivism, by contrast, weakens such institutions by drawing activity into the orbit of state and donor programmes.

Consider market women’s associations, which have long operated on mutual trust, rotating credit, and collective responsibility. When government agencies impose levies or establish national market associations under political patronage, they diminish voluntary organisation. Similarly, the coopting of youth groups for political mobilisation transforms civic bodies into partisan tools.

The Legal Discipline Against Collectivism

Sierra Leone is not without safeguards. The Audit Service Act 2004 entrenched the independence of the supreme audit institution, enabling annual scrutiny of public spending (http://www.auditservice.gov.sl). The Anti Corruption Commission Act 2008 (as amended) created enforcement mechanisms to prosecute abuse (http://www.anticorruption.gov.sl). The Public Financial Management Act 2016 and the Public Procurement Act 2016 imposed rules to prevent collectivist policies from collapsing into patronage (http://www.sierralii.org).

But these safeguards only work if citizens demand their use. Parliament must debate audit reports, civil society must track remedial actions, courts must enforce accountability. Otherwise, collectivism entrenches itself in the form of political cronyism, programmes justified as for the people but administered for the few.

A Healthier Diet for the Republic

If collectivism is political junk food, what constitutes healthy civic nutrition in Sierra Leone?

Reinvigorating Voluntary Associations

Encourage alumni groups, credit unions, trade unions, mosques, churches, and cultural societies to reclaim their independence and vibrancy.

Strengthen ward committees under the Local Government Act, ensuring they are genuine forums for community consultation rather than political rubber stamps.

Constitutional Accountability

Insist that budgets be debated openly, procurement published, and audit recommendations implemented.

Protect whistleblowers and investigative journalists under the Access to Information Act.

Decentralisation in Practice

Honour the TRC’s call for local participation by strengthening local councils.

Resist the temptation to recentralise functions under ministries in the name of efficiency.

Cultural Honesty in Language

Call charity charity, not taxation.

Call solidarity association, not compulsion.

Call community the people themselves, not those who claim to speak for them.

Cultivation of Virtue

As Aristotle argued, rightly ordered souls create rightly ordered societies. Families, faith groups, and communities must inculcate prudence, honesty, and responsibility. Without these virtues, even the best legal safeguards will wither.

Sierra Leone’s appetite for collectivism is understandable. Our past is scarred by exclusion, our present shaped by inequality. Collectivist programmes appear to offer instant redress and a sense of belonging. But they are poor substitutes for genuine solidarity. The 1991 Constitution and the TRC’s recommendations provide a more durable recipe, rights and responsibilities, decentralisation, accountability, and voluntary association.

If we continue to feast on the junk food of collectivism, our civil society will remain weak, our institutions bloated, and our freedoms malnourished. But if we cultivate the healthier diet of constitutionalism, accountability, and voluntary civic life, Sierra Leone can yet build a polity that satisfies both hunger and health.

 

References:

 

Constitution of Sierra Leone 1991

 

http://www.sierra-leone.org/Laws/constitution1991.pdf

 

Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Sierra Leone (reports)

 

http://www.sierra-leone.org/TRC.html

 

Audit Service Sierra Leone

 

http://www.auditservice.gov.sl

 

Anti Corruption Commission Sierra Leone

 

http://www.anticorruption.gov.sl

 

Sierra Leone Legal Information Institute (laws and judgments)

 

http://www.sierralii.org

 

National Social Security and Insurance Trust (NASSIT)

 

http://www.nassit.org.sl

 

National Commission for Social Action (NaCSA)

 

http://www.nacsa.gov.sl

 

National Public Procurement Authority (NPPA)

 

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