Alpha Amadu Jalloh: Sierra Leone Telegraph: 5 August 2025:
Sierra Leone is a country where emotions have overridden logic in politics. What used to be a straightforward matter of governance, development, and leadership has now become a sentimental battlefield where people argue not on the basis of truth or vision, but on feelings and blind allegiance.
In the past, people supported political parties based on region, tribe, and personal interest. That in itself was already a disease, but in recent times, something more dangerous has emerged. Emotion. Pure, unchecked, and weaponized emotion.
Let me clarify before someone jumps in with misplaced accusations. I am not a supporter of the All People’s Congress (APC). I am not a supporter of the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP). I am a Sierra Leonean who is tired of being emotionally blackmailed into political submission. And I know many others feel the same way but are afraid to say it out loud because the moment you critique one party, you’re branded as belonging to the other.
We live in a time where Sierra Leoneans are not guided by policy, development record, or competence. Instead, they are driven by who can trigger their emotions better. Political parties no longer need to have solid plans. All they need to do is cry victim, claim tribal marginalization, or shout betrayal and suddenly they have a crowd ready to die for them without questioning a thing.
Look at the APC for instance. Their supporters, many of them poor, uneducated, and vulnerable, are constantly being used as pawns. They are fed rumours and lies, then sent into the streets to protest and riot, while the same politicians who incite them are in the comfort of their air-conditioned homes or overseas.
One recent example is the ridiculous rumour being spread that the United Nations and the European Union are putting pressure on President Julius Maada Bio to hand over power to Dr. Samura Kamara. My people, let us reason. Is it even possible for the UN to remove a sitting president in a sovereign country like Sierra Leone just like that? Under what law? What mechanism?
If there is anyone in the international community with the authority to remove an elected president by force, let them come forward and show us. Otherwise, these rumours are just tools of manipulation used by desperate political actors to fool the masses.
Yet, thousands of APC supporters are running with this lie. They are celebrating prematurely. Some are even praying for a coup, forgetting the horrors of our not-so-distant past. And when these things fail to happen, they blame others instead of the manipulators within their own circles.
It’s embarrassing. It’s depressing. And frankly, it makes me ashamed of what we’ve become.
There is nothing wrong with supporting a party. But when your support becomes blind, emotional, and irrational, it turns you into a slave of the very people who are ruining your country.
Even more painful is the fact that these same citizens will fight each other on behalf of politicians who dine together behind closed doors. When the cameras are off, the so-called enemies in SLPP and APC are often seen laughing, drinking, and cutting deals. Meanwhile, their supporters are fighting in ghettos and on Facebook, insulting each other, and losing friendships and even lives.
We, the ordinary Sierra Leoneans, are not their priority. We are the fuel for their ambition, the crowd they manipulate, the numbers they need. But once they win, they forget us. The promises vanish, and all we’re left with is the high cost of living, poor health care, joblessness, and endless suffering.
Emotion has become the easiest tool for control. That’s why political leaders don’t bother to explain policy or engage in real debates. They just have to cry, accuse, blame the other tribe, or say “they don’t want us to lead” and boom, support floods in.
We have created a toxic political culture where intelligence is an insult. If you ask questions, you’re a betrayer. If you challenge a lie, you’re a mole. If you suggest peace, you’re weak. And so, we continue to rot in a system that rewards ignorance and punishes reason.
Let’s be honest. Both APC and SLPP have failed this country. They’ve had decades between them to fix our roads, hospitals, schools, justice system, and economy. Yet today, we’re worse off than we were years ago. But we keep rotating the same failures, hoping for a different result. Isn’t that the definition of madness?
Look at what happened during the last election cycle. There were blatant irregularities, yes. There were concerns, yes. But instead of pursuing legal remedies and staying consistent in pressure, opposition supporters decided to go emotional. Instead of organizing civil protests based on facts, they relied on TikTok videos and WhatsApp forwards. That’s not activism. That’s laziness dressed as outrage.
The SLPP is not innocent either. They too have emotionally weaponized their base. They cry “coup” at any dissent. They label every critique as “anti-government.” They act as though they are the only party with a right to govern, a dangerous mindset that undermines democracy. But at least for now they hold the reins of power. The burden of accountability therefore weighs more heavily on them.
But the point here is not to favour one party over the other. It’s to highlight how our politics has devolved into theatre and we the citizens are the unthinking audience clapping at the wrong times.
We need a cultural shift
Sierra Leoneans must learn to pause before reacting. When someone says the UN is pressuring Bio, ask what’s the source. When a party says they won the election, ask where’s the evidence. When someone says, “This man will change Sierra Leone,” ask how. With what resources. With what track record.
Our country is on life support. The economy is bleeding. Unemployment is a nightmare. Our education system is in decline. Health care is a shadow of what it should be. But all we care about is who will win the next election, not who will fix the country.
And those of us who speak out are often accused of being traitors. We are told to “support our own.” But what has “our own” done for us. Given us more poverty. More division. More false hope.
My brothers and sisters, it is time to grow up
This is not a school play. This is not a tribal war. This is not an emotional drama where the loudest voice wins. This is real life. And if we don’t stop allowing emotion to lead our politics, we will perish in ignorance and regret.
We can’t afford to keep voting because of who is Mende or Temne, Limba or Loko. We can’t keep supporting parties because our fathers did. We need to think for ourselves, demand better, and stop dancing to the emotional drumbeat of politicians who care only about power.
Until we do, Sierra Leone will remain in the dark, not because we lack light, but because we have chosen to close our eyes.
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