Oumar Farouk Sesay: Sierra Leone Telegraph: 20 July 2026:
For centuries, rulers have sought protection from the consequences of their failures by shifting blame onto those around them.
Under monarchies, the king was often regarded as divinely appointed and therefore beyond error. When mistakes were made, courtiers, servants, advisers, or convenient scapegoats were made to suffer instead. In some royal traditions, even a “whipping boy” could be punished for a prince’s misconduct.
The message was unmistakable: the ruler must remain innocent, even when wrongdoing occurs under his authority.
That instinct did not disappear with the monarchy. It survives in modern republics, including Sierra Leone, where presidents are often shielded from criticism by ministers, party officials, security commanders, and political loyalists who are prepared to absorb public anger on their behalf.
Whenever citizens are killed, injured, detained, or denied justice, a familiar defence is quickly assembled: the president did not know; the president did not order it; the president was misinformed; subordinates acted without authorization.
But leadership cannot be reduced to plausible deniability.
Those who died during the Pademba Road prison disturbances and those killed in subsequent episodes of unrest were not statistics. They were citizens with names, families, histories, and rights.
When bodies were withheld until they decomposed or buried without the meaningful participation of relatives, the injury extended beyond death itself. It became an assault on dignity, grief, and families’ right to mourn their loved ones.
Yet responsibility is often reduced to the vague language of collective responsibility, rendering officials faceless. Command structures grow unclear. Investigations yield little accountability. The public is urged to remain patient as grief hardens into resentment, and silence conceals a deepening rage.
For a time, the president may appear protected.
Ministers may issue statements. Security officials may defend their actions. Party supporters may dismiss criticism as propaganda. Loyalists may insist that every abuse was the work of overzealous subordinates. Those closest to power may convince themselves that blame can be so widely dispersed that it settles on no one.
But power is temporary, and political protection has an expiry date.
Once a president leaves office, the shield around him begins to collapse. Actions once labelled unauthorized excesses are repackaged as the defining record of his administration. The deaths, injuries, arbitrary arrests, property destruction, and unresolved grievances are eventually attached to the name of the person who held the highest authority.
History rarely remembers the obscure official who issued a reckless instruction in the dead of night. It remembers the government under which that instruction was carried out.
It rarely records the names of every loyalist who defended an injustice. It remembers the president whose administration allowed that injustice to stand.
This is why a president must do more than avoid personally issuing unlawful orders. He must ensure that every institution acting in his name is bound by law, guided by humanity, and respectful of citizens. He must demand credible investigations whenever lives are lost. He must punish wrongdoing regardless of the political loyalty of those responsible. He must refuse to allow secrecy, silence, or institutional protection to substitute for justice.
A leader cannot claim the achievements of his administration while disowning its abuses. Authority and accountability are inseparable.
If a president takes credit for roads built, schools opened, hospitals commissioned, and economic gains recorded under his leadership, he must also accept responsibility for the bloodshed, repression, and institutional failures that occurred under the same government.
That is the burden of command.
Presidents must therefore pay close attention to the conduct of those who claim to serve them. A subordinate who abuses citizens in defence of the government is not protecting the president’s legacy; he is poisoning it.
A loyalist who suppresses the truth is not saving the administration; he is preserving evidence for history’s eventual judgment.
Every act committed in the name of power leaves a mark.
Long after political slogans fade, ministers change allegiance, and praise-singers vanish, history remains. Families will recall those who died, communities will remember those who suffered, and the nation will keep in mind whether its leader opted for accountability or indifference.
Mr. President, ask those who have gone before you about the weight they now carry. Ask them what they wish they had done differently when power was still in their hands, their voices still commanded institutions, and they still had the opportunity to correct the course of events.
Then turn the question inward.
In honest self-reflection, ask yourself what you could have done differently. Ask what injustices you could have prevented, what abuses you could have condemned, what excesses you could have restrained, and what wounds you could still help heal.
Do it now, while you still have time.
Do it before silence becomes complicity, before regret becomes your permanent companion, and before history renders its verdict without your defence. Use the authority you still possess to uphold justice, restrain those who act in your name, and restore the dignity of those who have been wronged.
Let your leadership bear the mark of your conscience.
Do not permit ministers, commanders, political enforcers, loyalists, or praise-singers to commit transgressions under the shelter of your office. They may disappear into obscurity when power changes hands, but the consequences of their actions will remain attached to your name.
Act now. Correct what can still be corrected. Acknowledge what must be acknowledged. Bring justice where it has been denied. Etch your legacy firmly in the annals of history—not as a leader who looked away, but as one who found the courage to change course while there was still time.
Your ministers may be forgotten. Your commanders may be forgotten. Your loyalists and political enforcers may be forgotten.
But history will remember the president. And history will judge you—not your minions.
Be the first to comment