The Law must call them home: The crisis of absentee Paramount Chiefs in Sierra Leone

Pa Kaprr Yoni Emmanuel Sesay: Sierra Leone Telegraph: 10 November 2025:

For those who care about law, governance, and the moral architecture of Sierra Leone’s society — and who cherish the Paramount Chieftaincy as a cornerstone of our cultural identity — this is a moment for reflection.

The Paramount Chieftaincy is not a colonial artefact or a quaint custom. It is one of Africa’s oldest systems of moral order and local governance — a living institution that predates the modern state. Its strength has always rested on a delicate balance of law, custom, and presence.

Yet that balance is now quietly eroding, threatened by a troubling post-war norm: Paramount Chiefs who reside for long periods outside their chiefdoms.

What began as a wartime necessity — chiefs fleeing violence to preserve life — has hardened into habit. Many never returned permanently to their thrones. Today, some Paramount Chiefs live comfortably in Freetown or other towns, visiting their chiefdoms only occasionally while continuing to enjoy stipends and the privileges of office. Their absence, once excused by crisis, now undermines both the spirit of custom and the purpose of law.

Traditionally, chieftaincy was a living covenant between ruler and ruled. As late as the 1970s, a Paramount Chief could not even pass through another chiefdom without announcing his presence by drumbeat or seeking the host’s consent. These rituals were not mere ceremony; they symbolized mutual respect and accountability.

Today, gleaming Prados glide through chiefdoms without courtesy calls, and some thrones stand occupied in name but empty in practice.

This absenteeism corrodes legitimacy. Paramount Chiefs hold office in trust — their powers exist not for personal comfort but for public service. The law assumes that authority will be exercised faithfully and in place.

To abandon one’s chiefdom while continuing to rule it by proxy is to stretch both legality and morality beyond recognition. No statute or custom ever intended that a Paramount Chief should reign from afar.

Even if such relocation were arguably lawful — and legal precedent suggests it is not — it must still meet the tests of necessity and proportionality. A wartime flight for safety cannot justify a peacetime residence in luxury. Public power, whether traditional or statutory, must always serve necessity, not convenience.

The deeper danger is moral. Once we allow certain chiefs to treat public duty as optional, we invite selective accountability. The law begins to bend to personality rather than principle. Edmund Burke once warned that “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” In our context, silence from both the people and the authorities allows decay to masquerade as dignity.

African wisdom captures it more succinctly: “A chief is a chief because of his people.” Authority depends on nearness — the shared presence in joy and hardship, in disputes and reconciliation. A Paramount Chief who governs from afar severs this covenant. What remains is a title without soul, a ceremony without substance.

This neglect would not be tolerated elsewhere. A contractor who abandons a site without notice is in breach of contract. A minister who disappears from post would face sanction. Yet when Paramount Chiefs abandon their people, there is silence — partly out of reverence, partly out of resignation.

The 1991 Constitution and the Chieftaincy Act of 2009, unfortunately, say nothing about residency or the consequences of neglect. This legislative silence has become a shield for dereliction. Thrones remain, stipends are paid, but moral authority is hollowed out. The institution survives in form, but not in function.

There are clear lessons from elsewhere. In 1936, King Edward VIII’s abdication required an Act of Parliament because the monarchy could not be left leaderless. The analogy is instructive: a Paramount Chief who lives apart from his people for years has abdicated in substance, if not in name.

Reform is therefore overdue. Parliament should amend the Chieftaincy Act to define residence requirements and provide sanctions for prolonged absence. The Ministry of Local Government and the Council of Paramount Chiefs should develop guidelines for temporary delegation and clear limits to substitutes. Above all, traditional authorities themselves must lead this renewal — for no law can save an institution that will not save itself.

This is not an attack on Paramount Chieftaincy. It is a call to rescue it — to restore its dignity, integrity, and accountability. The Paramount Chief is meant to be the moral compass of the chiefdom, not its absentee landlord.

If the law and tradition fail to act, the erosion will continue silently, until the thrones remain but the authority they symbolize fades into ceremony.

It is time, therefore, for Sierra Leone to look inward — to reconcile the modern state with its oldest institution. The law must call them home.

Legal Note: Non-Residence as Gross Misconduct

While Sierra Leone’s courts have not yet ruled explicitly that non-residence by a Paramount Chiefs amount to gross misconduct, the principle is strongly supported by law and precedent.

Under Section 29(1) of the Chieftaincy Act, 2009, a Paramount Chief may be suspended or removed for gross misconduct, abuse of office, or wilful violation of the Constitution or any other law. Though “gross misconduct” is undefined, administrative practice within the Ministry of Local Government treats persistent absence from the chiefdom without lawful cause as a breach of that standard.

Comparable reasoning appears in:

1. Regina v. Minister of Local Government, Ex parte Amadu Wurie (Sierra Leone High Court, 1970s, unreported) — held that conduct frustrating the discharge of an office’s essential functions constitutes gross misconduct.
2. Bundu v. Attorney-General (Sierra Leone Court of Appeal, 1980s, unreported) — found that persistent neglect of duty justifies removal from public office.
3. Re A Chief of Ejisu (Gold Coast [Ghana] Native Authority Court, 1946) — ruled that a chief who “habitually resided away from his town” had forfeited his stool, as chieftaincy “requires personal presence among one’s people.”
4. Republic v. Minister for Chieftaincy Affairs, Ex parte Adjei (Ghana High Court, 2006) — confirmed that prolonged absence undermines customary leadership and amounts to neglect of duty.

Read together, these authorities support the proposition that a Paramount Chief who resides away from his or her chiefdom for an extended period, without lawful justification, commits gross misconduct. In effect, such prolonged absence is constructive abdication — a moral and legal forfeiture of the throne.