There is nothing special about bondo bush. It is a place where old people fidget with little girls vaginas. If you want to teach girls culture send them to school. Again, we don't need any bush cultural barracks. FMG is harmful to little girls and an anachronistic cultural practice. Our inability to accept that and change is indicative of a general developmental stagnation and unprogressiveness in our society. 

You should stop senzationalising bondo bush. There is no cultural ...

Photo: Umaru Fofana

In Sierra Leone, victim always languish in their victimization. From our civil war victims to ebola survivors and orphans, the Freetown mudslide victims should have known that in this country their suffering is purely their burden. When the funds are raised and the immediate tragedy ends, our government is not in the habit of caring for those for whom its coffer is filled by those who care.

Among the odd constitutional changes recommended by the Sierra Leone Constitutional Review Committee is the undemocratic idea of constitutionalizing the power of a president to remove her/his vice president without due process. Including this provision in the future constitution will enshrine the recent unconstitutional decision of our president to remove his vice president because of issues arising within their party, hors the power of parliament to impeach.

Sierra Leone has endured an unfair existence since the death of Sir. Milton Margai, the only post-independence Sierra Leonean leader who governed with an unwavering commitment to the rule of law and the welfare of his people. Sir Milton insisted on establishing a post-independence political foundation based on a government of the people, for the people, and in service for the people. Sir Milton died without completing his vision for our new nation and thereafter it survived at ...

When Alexander Falconbridge, agent of the Sierra Leone Company (SLC), a business venture established to facilitate commerce between Britain and Sierra Leone, renegotiated a land contract for the reconstruction of Freetown, which had been recently burnt down by Chief Jimmy, the presiding sovereign, King Naimbana of Robana, added to the new land grant a request for Falconbridge to take his son, Prince John Frederic, to London to receive Western education under the guardianship of the British ab...

Whenever religious leaders in Sierra Leone unite on a political issue, the people, especially women, are bound to be on the losing side. The new cause célèbre of these sultans and deacons is their objection to the Safe Abortion Bill, which will allow a pregnancy of up to twelve weeks to be terminated without reason. It is curious that these sacred apostles (mostly men), do not come out in their cassocks and turbans against the extreme poverty, human rights violations, and ina...

Photo: WHO

On November 6, 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Sierra Leone ebola free, joining Liberia in the free zone and leaving Guinea with one case. The emergency in Sierra Leone and Liberia has ended, but the ebola crisis is not yet over.  As long as one country is carrying the disease and a vaccine has not yet been found, all countries are at risk.  I have written before that ebola, like all other diseases perpetually killing people in that region, will con...

Good Evening:

It is a wonderful opportunity for me to here with you tonight.  I am delighted by the efforts of institutions such as Skidmore College and the World Awareness Children’s Museum for granting you this privilege to participate in constructive conversations about the militarization of boys, a situation affecting thousands of your peers around the world, some of whom are child soldiers in rag-tag militias and vigilante forces.  According to Child Soldiers Internatio...

Lion Mountains

By Joseph Kaifala

In the Lion Mountains I was conceived
In her absence I have redefined myself
I was compelled to leave you Romarong
But I am strengthened by your blood
The blood of free blacks mixed with natives
On the western side of a continent
A home for Africa’s abandoned children

How I long to coil in your black belly again
And smell the aroma of foufou and tola
Cooked with hog-foot and canya pepe
And the tang of Mama Jeneba’s pemahun
Dispersed by the smell of ken...

In the past few days I have seen a few unscrupulous individuals disseminating gruesome images of our violent civil war on social media in order to intimidate those who are taking to the streets to protest a recent government violation of our constitution. I urge those using such irresponsible fear-mongering to desist not only because the country cannot afford another war, but also in solemn respect for the memories of those who were killed, raped, tortured, and traumatized duri...

When the first bullet was fired at Bomaru on March 23, 1991, I had just gotten out of prison with my father and walked back to Sierra Leone from Liberia. We had been arrested by Charles Ganghay Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) rebels and incarcerated on the outskirts of Voinjama. I was only about eight or nine years old and as a child I had no idea why we were in jail. Years later I would come to learn that Ganghay Taylor was retaliating for Sierra Leone’...

According to the BBC, a recent audit report from Sierra Leone has revealed that 30% of internal ebola funds has not been properly accounted for by authorities. According to the report, $5.7 million dollars worth of spending has no supporting documentation showing where or how the money was expended. The government has not yet responded to these outrageous revelations in a time of unprecedented health emergency in the country. That, too, is evidence of their utte...

In a region of extreme poverty and underdevelopment, religious occasions such as Ramadan and Christmas are usually the only times that most people enjoy the joy of life rightly embedded in these festivities. Christmas and Ramadan in Sierra Leone are not only about the religious meanings of these events; they are also a social opportunity for the haves to share with the have-nots, for families to reconcile their differences, and for neighbours to entertain each other through parties an...

The ebola emergency in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia has led these countries to temporarily close schools in order to manage the spread of the disease. It has been estimated that the closure of schools affects estimably five million children in the region, and fears that some of these children might not return to school after the emergency have caused some NGOs to call for the reopening of schools in the region. As founder of the Jeneba Project Inc. and someone who has provi...

One of the greatest pleasures of traveling around the U.S. on public transportation to give presentations and attend fundraisers for the Jeneba Project Inc., a nonprofit I founded to provide educational opportunities to the children of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea after more than a decade of civil war in that region, is the privilege of talking to ordinary Americans about these countries and the work we do. In my experience, when Americans are interested in an issue, they a...

Experts are stating that while there is considerable progress towards some form of ebola vaccine, a cure may not be available until sometime next year. What this means is that the fight against the deadly disease must proceed as if there was no vaccine in order to halt its projected exponential spread.

Now that many of the myths have been dispelled and the lackadaisical attitudes of Western countries and international organizations have been checked, it is time to provide conc...

The Ebola outbreak in West Africa has plagued mostly Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia. The most recent estimate is that the disease has killed nearly 5,000 people and continues to spread exponentially. In fact, the New England Journal of Medicine has found that at current rate of infestation, the toll could reach 20, 000 by November, if more robust actions are not taken to curb the disease. The question people are asking is why has it been so difficult to contain a disease that is no...

Sierra Leoneans love nicknames. The fun of defining people by character traits and unique personalities is part of our endearing nature. Though some nicknames may not be particularly appealing to the bearer, individuals are usually christened out of charm not malice. Our friends are usually cognizant of the individual idiosyncrasies that characterized our behaviors and are often more adept at placing labels on them. Some people are instantly remembered by their nicknames rather...

March 5, 2014 marks the closure of the United Nations Integrated Peacebuilding Office in Sierra Leone (UNIPSIL) and a transition to a standard UN presence through a Country Office. But as we celebrate almost fifteen years of UN commitment to lasting peace in Sierra Leone, it is important to note that many lives could have been saved and perhaps a decade of carnage prevented in the country had the UN intervened earlier. Sierra Leoneans, like we are currently witnessing in Syria,...

The question of limited girls’ education in Sierra Leone is not an issue of misogyny as experienced in other parts of the world; it is mostly about pragmatic investment in a poor and underdeveloped country. Like every shrewd investment, poverty often forces parents to make hard choices concerning their children’s education. Most Sierra Leonean parents understand the value of education and would like both their boys and girls to go to school; however, the economic realities many parents fa...

When old John Quincy Adams undertook the defense of the Sierra Leonean Amistad mutineers, he had been a diplomat, lawyer, lawmaker, and president (In other words, he knew the heck he was talking about, especially as to the international law arguments). He accused the government of discrimination against the Africans in favour of the Spanish and also what he referred to as  "Lilliputian trickery," after exposing the government’s plan to clandestinely deport the Africans to Cub...

I recently spoke to a gathering of young people determined to lead and make the world a better place. Among other things, I offered them six bullets that have governed my young life so far. There is more to life, but it begins with understanding that each of us has a meaningful role to play in the process of straightening this rough garment that is the world we live in.

1. We are young and that is our advantage in making the world a better place

2. We cannot allow cynicism to...

January 2014 marks twelve years since the end of the Sierra Leonean civil war and reparation for victims remains an unfinished business of our reconciliation process. In addition to the Special Court for Sierra Leone, which was established to try those who bear the greatest responsibilities for violations of International Humanitarian Law and Sierra Leone Law committed between 1996-2002, the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission was also setup to “to create an impa...