When Luxury Becomes a National Disgrace

 

 

By Alpha Amadu Jalloh

 

There is a place in Freetown now called Chapter One. To the uninformed, it is just a luxurious nightclub. But to those who understand the pulse and pain of Sierra Leone, it is a monument to moral decay, greed and reckless opulence. In a country where thousands of children go to bed hungry, our so-called elites are spending thousands of dollars in one night drinking, partying and posting fake smiles on social media. While mothers cry quietly in dark homes because they cannot afford medicine for a sick child, the powerful are dancing and wasting fortunes under blinking lights. They are dancing not to music but on the backs of the broken and the betrayed.

 

This is not just about a nightclub. It is about a national disease. A cancer that has infected the hearts of those in government, their friends, families and those who have made riches without conscience. The soul of Sierra Leone has been sold for likes, bottles of champagne and VVIP tables. We are witnessing the collapse of what once made us human.

 

We used to be each other’s keeper. We used to care. We used to check on our neighbours and share even when we didn’t have much. That spirit has vanished. In its place is a new Sierra Leonean identity, selfish, greedy and addicted to praise from the poor. We now measure success not by impact but by how loudly the poor can clap for you. And today, if you haven’t been to Chapter One, people think something is wrong with you.

 

What really happened to our values? How did we go from wanting to build a better Sierra Leone to building palaces of vanity while the people suffer?

Chapter One, like Lagoonda and LOR before it, has become the newest shrine of misplaced priorities. It is a space for dirty deals, money laundering, drug trafficking and for young girls selling themselves because they see no other way out. It is heartbreaking to hear that some patrons spend US dollars just to enter this place, while 70 percent of Sierra Leoneans cannot afford one square meal a day. How does a country this impoverished become home to such extravagance?

 

Imagine for a second if that money was used to build a modern vocational training institute. One equipped with tools, instructors and technology to train our youth in real skills. Imagine if those resources built an industry where 200 young people could be gainfully employed. Instead, we built a nightclub. Not for tourism, not for music development, not even for arts and culture but for waste. For show. For sin.

There are young women in Chapter One who would have become lawyers, teachers or doctors if only our nation gave them a chance. But today, they sell their dignity in dark rooms so that they can eat, buy sanitary pads and help their families survive. They didn’t choose that path. We failed them. The system failed them. The silence of the privileged failed them.

 

Meanwhile, government officials travel the world like kings. They sit in five-star hotels eating breakfast worth more than a market woman’s entire weekly sales. They host events with banners and branded T-shirts, paying for propaganda instead of projects. Their families flaunt luxury on Instagram while university graduates sit at home hopeless and humiliated.

 

To make it worse, they want applause. They want the sick to say thank you for expired medicine. They want the hungry to clap when they throw a few cups of rice during elections. They want poor youths to call them “Daddy” for handing out small tokens after squandering billions. They want their wives to be called “Queen Mothers” for doing what taxpayers already paid them to do.

 

But go to the streets and see reality. See schoolchildren walking barefoot with torn uniforms. Visit hospitals where there are no gloves, no electricity and no doctors on call. Visit communities where people still drink Gutter WATA like goats. How can this be happening in a nation blessed with diamonds, minerals, fertile land and intelligent people?

 

And yet, when a place like Chapter One opens, the rich gather with pride. They rent SUVs. They wear designer clothes. They buy bottles and burn money in full view of the suffering masses. They post it online for validation from the very people they oppress. Their followers are mostly unemployed youths whose dreams are slowly dying, one post at a time.

 

We must ask ourselves. What do we truly celebrate in Sierra Leone today? Wealth without work? Power without responsibility? Praise without purpose? When will we demand more from our leaders and from ourselves?

 

The truth is, Chapter One will not last. Like the many others before it, it will fade. Because the economy of the ordinary Sierra Leonean is not compatible with such lavishness. The masses are too hungry to keep financing elite egos forever. Soon, they will stop going. Soon, the rich will run out of stolen money or new tricks. And like Lagoonda and LOR, Chapter One will become just another footnote in the history of national failure.

Let this be a wake-up call. A warning. An indictment. A cry for decency and direction. Let it be known that Sierra Leone cannot develop through nightclubs and wastage. Development requires compassion, investment, integrity and planning. We need leaders who build factories, not fantasies. We need citizens who demand substance, not strobe lights.

 

Let us return to being our brother’s and sister’s keeper. Let us use our resources to lift each other up. Let us build a Sierra Leone where the youth do not have to sell their bodies, where parents do not have to beg for medical fees and where success is defined by how many lives you touch, not how many bottles you pop.

 

Enough is enough.

 

Alpha Amadu Jalloh is a writer, youth advocate and author of “Monopoly of Happiness: Unveiling Sierra Leone’s Social Imbalance.”