Gibril Bangura: Sierra Leone Telegraph: 16 August 2026:
Sierra Leoneans have every right to ask uncomfortable questions about President Julius Maada Bio’s latest cabinet reshuffle. At the centre of those questions is the appointment of Karefa A. F. Kargbo as Minister of Finance, at a moment when the country is struggling with fiscal pressures, public debt, the cost of living and the credibility of its economic management. The appointment has been reported as part of President Bio’s latest changes to his government.
But Kargbo is not simply another technocrat entering government for the first time. His political history reaches back to the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC), the military regime that seized power in 1992 and governed Sierra Leone outside the constitutional democratic order.
And that history raises a question that President Bio cannot reasonably expect Sierra Leoneans to ignore: Why has a president who himself once sat at the apex of the NPRC chosen a former senior participant in that military establishment to take control of the nation’s finances nearly three decades later?
This is not about denying Kargbo the opportunity to serve his country. It is about accountability, institutional memory and the lessons Sierra Leone claims to have learned from its turbulent past.
THE NPRC WAS NOT A DEMOCRATIC GOVERNMENT
The NPRC came to power through a military coup. That fact should never be sanitised by political convenience. President Bio himself was a leading member of the NPRC. He served as its deputy chairman and eventually became its chairman following the January 1996 coup that removed Captain Valentine Strasser.
Kargbo, meanwhile, occupied senior positions within the NPRC establishment, including the foreign-affairs portfolio and other important state responsibilities. Contemporary and historical accounts place him among the senior officers associated with the NPRC period. (Photo above: Head of NPRC – Valentine Strasser).
That history matters because Sierra Leone paid an enormous price for military rule. The country’s subsequent Truth and Reconciliation process documented grave abuses committed during the civil war and periods of military government. Amnesty International’s reporting from the period also documented arbitrary detention, abuses in military custody, torture and killings.
Therefore, when former members of that military establishment return to the commanding heights of government, the public is entitled to ask: What changed? What lessons were learned? What principles now guide them that were absent when they wielded military power?
FROM FOREIGN AFFAIRS TO FINANCE
The Finance Ministry is not an ordinary cabinet department. It is one of the most powerful economic institutions in the Republic. The finance minister sits at the centre of decisions involving national budgeting, public expenditure, taxation, borrowing, debt management and the allocation of scarce public resources.
Putting Kargbo there therefore deserves more than a ceremonial welcome. It deserves scrutiny. Supporters will point to his experience. Indeed, recent profiles describe him as an experienced politician, diplomat and accountant with decades of public-sector and financial experience. That’s fine but experience alone is not the ultimate test.
What kind of experience? And, more importantly, what lessons did that experience teach? Sierra Leone has had enough governments that ask citizens to trust personalities instead of institutions. We need institutions that can survive personalities.
THE BIO-KARGBO CONNECTION
There is an especially interesting dimension to this appointment. President Bio and Kargbo share a political history that goes back to the NPRC era. Bio was one of the principal figures in the military regime. Kargbo was also part of that establishment. Historical accounts of the January 1996 coup identify Kargbo among the senior NPRC officers who supported Bio’s removal of Strasser.
That history makes today’s appointment politically significant. The question is not whether people should be allowed to change. Of course they should. The question is whether political leaders who once participated in unconstitutional military government have sufficiently demonstrated a commitment to the constitutional principles that today’s Sierra Leone is supposed to represent.
If the answer is yes, then let the evidence speak. If the answer is no, then Sierra Leoneans have every reason to remain vigilant.
SIERRA LEONE MUST NOT HAVE SELECTIVE MEMORY
One of the greatest dangers in African politics is selective historical memory. Politicians remember the parts of history that serve them and conveniently forget the parts that embarrass them. When the opposition is involved, yesterday’s military coup becomes an unforgivable crime. When one’s political allies are involved, the same history suddenly becomes “experience.” That cannot be the standard. (Photo: Karefa Kargbo).
A coup is a coup. Undemocratic government is undemocratic government. And the suffering of citizens under authoritarian rule does not become less painful because former participants eventually become cabinet ministers. Sierra Leone must therefore reject the dangerous idea that political loyalty can erase historical responsibility.
WHAT LESSONS DID THE NPRC TEACH?
This is perhaps the most important question of all. Did the NPRC teach today’s leaders that power without constitutional accountability is dangerous? Did it teach them that political institutions must be stronger than individual personalities? Did it teach them that the military must remain subordinate to civilian constitutional authority?
Did it teach them that detention without due process destroys public trust? Did it teach them that economic management cannot be separated from transparency and accountability? And did it teach them that once governments lose the confidence of their citizens, no amount of propaganda can permanently repair that relationship?
If those lessons were learned, then today’s government should demonstrate them, not merely talk about them.
THE FINANCE MINISTRY CANNOT BECOME A POLITICAL REWARD
There is another question President Bio must answer. Was Kargbo appointed because he is the best person for the economic challenges facing Sierra Leone, or because he is a trusted political associate with whom the President has decades of history? Those are two very different propositions.
A finance minister must be accountable first to the Republic of Sierra Leone, not to a president, political party or personal network. The Treasury belongs to the people. The Consolidated Fund belongs to the people. The country’s natural resources belong to the people. Taxpayers’ money belongs to the people. And therefore, the person entrusted with managing those resources must be subjected to the highest level of parliamentary, professional and public scrutiny.
THIS IS NOT ABOUT PERSONAL VENDETTA
Karefa Kargbo deserves the opportunity to prove himself in his new position. But that opportunity must come with scrutiny. His supporters should welcome questions rather than attack those asking them. If he has the competence, let him demonstrate it.
If he has the integrity, let the records demonstrate it. If he has learned from the failures of the NPRC era, let his administration of the national treasury demonstrate those lessons.
And if President Bio believes that his former NPRC colleague is the right person to manage Sierra Leone’s finances, then the President should be prepared to explain why. Not with slogans. Not with political insults. Not with accusations against the opposition. With facts.
THE APC QUESTION
As an opposition voice, the All Peoples Congress should not merely oppose this appointment because it comes from an SLPP government. That would be too easy. The APC should demand something much more powerful: Transparency. Accountability. Competence. Constitutionalism.
Let Parliament scrutinise the nominee. Let the public examine his record. Let his previous public-service decisions be evaluated. Let the country’s economic performance be measured against objective indicators. And let every Leone spent under his stewardship be capable of being traced and accounted for. That is how a serious opposition behaves.
FROM THE NPRC TO THE REPUBLIC
There is a profound historical irony in seeing former NPRC actors occupying senior positions in a constitutional government. It is not necessarily wrong. People can change. History can teach. Former adversaries can become democrats. Former soldiers can become statesmen. But reconciliation does not mean forgetting. And forgiveness does not mean abandoning accountability.
The ultimate test of Karefa Kargbo’s appointment will therefore not be his résumé. It will be whether he can demonstrate that the lessons of Sierra Leone’s painful past have genuinely been absorbed. The Finance Ministry must not become a monument to old political friendships. It must become an institution of fiscal discipline. And President Bio must understand that Sierra Leoneans are watching. (Photo: Retired Brigadier Julius Maada Bio).
The country has travelled too far from the days of military coups to accept the argument that yesterday’s rulers automatically deserve today’s power simply because they have survived long enough to return to government. Sierra Leone needs economic competence, but it also needs institutional memory. It needs experienced leaders, but it also needs accountability. It needs reconciliation, but reconciliation without truth is merely political amnesia.
So, President Bio, the question remains: Why Karefa Kargbo? Why now? Why Finance? And above all: What lessons did you and your former NPRC colleagues learn from the years when guns replaced ballots, military decrees replaced constitutional government, and ordinary Sierra Leoneans paid the price?
The people deserve an answer. And this time, history should not be rewritten to make today’s political convenience look like yesterday’s virtue.
Be the first to comment