Hassan Arouni: Sierra Leone Telegraph: 29 November 2025:
This week, Mr. Sheku Badara Bashiru Dumbuya, affectionately known to thousands of former pupils simply as SBB, turned 80 years old.
Eighty is a milestone that invites reflection—not only on a man’s life but on the generations he shaped, strengthened, and set on their paths. And in the case of SBB, former Speaker of Parliament and one of Sierra Leone’s most distinguished educators, the reflection is profound.
A week before his birthday, a group of my former classmates from the St Edward’s Sixth Form class of 1983–85 paid him a warm visit. It was an emotional reunion—a living tableau of gratitude: greyed temples, softened voices, weathered hands, and hearts still shaped by a man who once commanded our unruly teenage energy with nothing more than his presence and principles.
That visit reminded me of this truth: education is not merely curriculum. It is character. It is courage. It is the shaping of the human will. SBB understood that.
The Bash Street kids meet their match
Those of us who passed through St Edward’s in those years were a lively mixture—bright, ambitious, loud, mischievous, eager to impress and determined to rebel. We had come from different schools: Annie Walsh, St Joseph’s, Prince of Wales, and beyond. Among us were future leaders—Chief Justice Abdulai Charm, strategist Abdul Tejan-Cole, diplomats, UN staff, nurses, campaigners, broadcasters, accountants, technologists.
But in 1983, we were simply teenagers in blue-and-white uniforms, convinced that intelligence and defiance were twin virtues. Then came SBB. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t posture. He didn’t need to. Discipline, with him, was an atmosphere. Respect gathered around him like gravity.
He walked into a classroom and we straightened—not out of fear, but out of recognition that here was a man anchored in principle. A man who believed that academic excellence without character was an incomplete education.
The day we knelt in the sun
Of all the memories we share, one remains etched with humour and reverence: the afternoon we, in our supreme teenage wisdom, decided to alter the school song.
Instead of ending the verse with its dignified close, we added a playful, irreverent flourish: “Pam pam!”. We sang it loudly, proudly—and very wrongly.
SBB turned, looked at us, and said with terrifying calm: “Sixth Form. Kneel down.”
And so we knelt—on cement that could have fried plantain—under a Kingtom sun that had no mercy. Ten minutes stretched into twenty, then an hour, then two. Our rebellion wilted long before our knees did.
When we finally stood and sang again, the pam pam evaporated from our lips as though it had never existed.
Years later, that moment still explains much: He wasn’t protecting a melody. He was protecting a standard. He was teaching us that respect matters, tradition matters, and excellence matters. It was a lesson for life.
The legacy of SBB
What distinguishes SBB, even now at 80, is that his influence did not end with our school days. It travels with us. In courtrooms and boardrooms. In government offices and diplomatic postings. In hospitals, NGOs, universities, and newsrooms. In Sierra Leone and across the world.
His former pupils carry his imprint—discipline, rigour, integrity, and a reverence for doing things well.
He taught not only History. He taught poise. He taught responsibility. He taught courage of conviction.
Those qualities proved more durable than any exam syllabus.
A visit, a blessing, a full circle
When my classmates visited him last week, they found a man still sharp, still gracious, still rooted in the principles that defined him.
He greeted them warmly. He remembered names, faces, stories. He laughed with them. He blessed them.
And in that gentle afternoon, the circle closed: the teacher who formed us, now seeing the full-grown lives his effort helped build.
It struck me then that very few professionals live to witness the full reach of their impact. But SBB has. He has lived long enough to see his seeds become trees.
Why we celebrate him
At 80, we honour him not simply because he taught us, but because he transformed us. We honour him because he held the line when the world around us was shifting. Because he demanded discipline in an era of youthful bravado. Because he believed we could be excellent, even when we preferred shortcuts. Because he taught us to stand tall, think clearly, speak with purpose, and walk with dignity. And because to be taught by SBB was to have your life shaped by a man whose character was as firm as his expectations.
A teacher for the ages
We often say in Sierra Leone that teachers plant trees under whose shade they may never sit. But in this rare and beautiful case, the gardener has lived to see the forest. (Photo: Author – Hassan Arouni).
On behalf of all his former students, I say: Thank you, Sir, for the discipline that strengthened us, the guidance that anchored us, and the belief that shaped us.
Thank you for helping us become the men and women we are today. And thank you for being, at 80, a living reminder that great teaching is one of the most powerful legacies any human being can leave behind.
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