When Tomorrow Never Comes

 

By Alpha Amadu Jalloh

In Sierra Leone, tomorrow has become a myth. Once a symbol of hope, of better days and brighter destinies, “tomorrow” has slowly faded into a cruel illusion. For decades, the people have waited. They have been promised. They have endured. But the sunrise they were told would come never arrived. In this country of vast potential and broken dreams, tomorrow never comes.

 

Across Sierra Leone, children are born into a world that tells them to believe, to work hard and to be patient. But by the time they grow old enough to understand, they realise that the future their parents longed for is still trapped in yesterday’s speeches. The young inherit a nation whose institutions are paralyzed and whose leaders recycle the same failures under new slogans.

 

This is not about one city or one tribe. It is not about who was born in Freetown, Bo, Kenema or Koinadugu. It is about an entire nation suspended in time. Sierra Leone is moving, but going nowhere. Year after year, administration after administration, we are told that development is coming, reforms are coming, change is coming. But in truth, what keeps arriving is more poverty, more corruption, more manipulation, more fear.

 

Fear now rules where faith once lived. Families fear hunger. Graduates fear unemployment. Mothers fear childbirth. Fathers fear arrest for asking questions. Journalists fear their own pens. Citizens fear their own voices. It is as if the entire country is holding its breath, hoping not for prosperity, but simply to survive another day.

 

When tomorrow never comes, education becomes a trap. Children walk miles to attend schools with no teachers, no books, no chairs. They write exams they cannot review. They graduate into streets that offer no jobs, only disappointment. Their dreams are reduced to visa applications or boat journeys through deserts and oceans in search of a tomorrow that their homeland has refused them.

 

When tomorrow never comes, hospitals become mourning grounds. Patients lie on iron beds without sheets, waiting for doctors who have long given up. Medicine is scarce. Electricity is absent. Compassion is a luxury. And while the poor die in silence, the wealthy few board flights to clinics in India, Ghana and Europe.

 

When tomorrow never comes, elections become carnivals of deception. Politicians arrive with bags of rice and promises wrapped in lies. They speak of patriotism, yet live like foreigners in their own land. They tell the people to tighten their belts while they expand their own privileges. And when power is won, the promises vanish like mist.

 

What is governance when the governed are never allowed to breathe? What is democracy when the ballot only rotates oppressors? What is independence when dependency is all we export?

 

Sierra Leone was not destined for this. This land is rich in minerals, fertile in soil, and mighty in spirit. But all that potential has been hijacked by a political elite that sees the people not as citizens but as statistics, tools and threats. Their goal is not to build a nation, but to maintain control.

 

When tomorrow never comes, the youth become restless. They lose respect for elders. They abandon civic duties. They mock elections. They stop dreaming. Because hope, once betrayed, is not easily restored.

 

And yet, despite all this pain, the people still rise each morning. They go to the market. They fetch water. They teach. They preach. They care for each other. They endure. But how long can a nation survive on endurance alone?

 

Sierra Leone cannot afford to live in waiting mode forever. The country is not a refugee camp of expectations. It must become a land of action. The cycle of broken promises must end. The people deserve more than survival. They deserve dignity. They deserve justice. They deserve a future that actually arrives.

 

Let this be a call, not just to those in power, but to all Sierra Leoneans. Tomorrow is not a date on a calendar. It is the result of the decisions we make today. We must no longer wait for others to bring it. We must build it. Community by community. Voice by voice. Vote by vote. Truth by truth.

 

To the leaders clinging to power and privilege, know this. The people are watching. The youth are awakening. You may silence a few, bribe some, threaten others, but you cannot silence a whole generation forever. The people are beginning to realise that your tomorrow is not theirs. They are beginning to separate real leadership from empty titles.

 

And to the young people of Sierra Leone, this is your fight. Not with weapons, but with wisdom. Not with violence, but with vision. Stand for something. Speak for others. Organise. Challenge the status quo. Stop dancing for politicians who will never feed your future. You are not too young to lead. You are too needed to wait.

 

When tomorrow never comes, we must become the ones who bring it. Through our words. Through our votes. Through our courage. Through our refusal to settle for less.

 

Let this piece be remembered not as a eulogy but as a wake-up call. Let it be shared in classrooms, whispered in homes, recited in mosques and churches, and debated in communities. Let it remind us that Sierra Leone is not dead. It is wounded, yes. But it is still alive. And where there is life, there is still time to reclaim tomorrow.

 

Tomorrow may never come unless we make it come.

About the Author

The author is a Sierra Leonean writer and advocate for justice, youth empowerment and democratic accountability. He is the author of Monopoly of Happiness: Unveiling Sierra Leone’s Social Imbalance and recipient of the Africa Renaissance Leadership Award 2025.