John Pa Baimba Sesay: Sierra Leone Telegraph: 16 December 2025:
Have you ever wondered why it is so difficult to get people to adapt to change, even on the most basic issues?
I have seen firsthand the tremendous effort that goes into addressing the waste-management challenge in Freetown. One moment, waste is collected after being piled up for days; the next moment, people return and dump more at the exact same spot.
Many believe it is solely the council’s responsibility, forgetting that waste management is not a cheap enterprise. Because we are not used to paying for waste disposal or have normalised shortcuts like using unregulated garbage collectors, we view these practices as “normal.”
Beyond waste alone, consider recent events: over the past few days, the IGP and the Executive Director of SLRSA have been out in the field, clamping vehicles or towing those whose owners failed to comply with basic traffic rules.
This has been an impressive effort, one for which I must commend the police leadership.
Sadly, the mindset remains unchanged. Drive along Wellington at night and you’ll see abandoned vehicles again where they had already been removed. This isn’t about government; it’s about how we, as citizens, perceive our responsibilities.
The truth is, we have received enough civic education. To his credit, Chernor Bah as Minister of Information and Civic Education is doing commendable work over in the area of civil education.
But too many of us remain accustomed to accepting things as they are, clinging to the “how for do… na so God mark” mentality.
I truly can’t get it! Either God made SOME of us in one rushed day outside the normal seven, or perhaps He created us just before going to sleep, only He knows.
But the way some Sierra Leoneans continue to act, makes you wonder what more can be done to help us adapt to the real world of acceptable standards.
Be the first to comment