38 •
The Lion King
• July - September 2017
A resilient country
like no other
Feature
By Bola Atta
Everyone passes
through Freetown
temporarily but never
leaves”
T
his is what you hear in the broad-
cast publicity as you board the
boats which transport you to the
mainland in Sierra Leone.
Sierra Leone is the special country in
the West African sub-region that is
known for the slaves who were freed
in the 18th century. Freetown, the
capital of Sierra Leone was founded
for free people who came first from
England and then from North America
and the Caribbean. It became very
famous for its rich natural resourc-
es especially diamonds. The world
knows about the long fought civil war
that ravaged the country in the 90s.
Images of amputees and people in
despair flashed across the media all
through the decade. It was bloody.
But the resilient Sierra Leoneans pulled
through.
The country began a path of recov-
ery and the world was happy. Truth
and reconciliation commenced and
some of the guilty were punished
even though this did not in any way
appease the lives lost or soothe the
grieving and the deprived. It didn’t
bring back limbs or erase the night-
mares of the violated. But Sierra Leone
was going to move on and be healed.
Fast forward to March 2014 and a mys-
terious illness begins to ravage Africa.
This is one that nobody seems to com-
prehend. Scientists are looking for a
cure and there is world-wide panic. It
only took a couple of months for it to
spread to Sierra Leone. The country is
at the centre of the Ebola crisis. That
this beautiful country of the free could
once again be devastated was scary
to the inhabitants. Scary to the region.
And the world was frightened.
Sierra Leone is a resilient country. The
good people were able to curtail the
scourge of Ebola and were back to
good health.
This month, Sierra Leone is once again
in the news. This time with mudslides
that resulted from the rains. There are
hundreds dead and many more hun-
dreds missing.
How many lives can one country
have? This is what I am thinking as we
spend a most turbulent 30 minutes on
a boat ride going into Freetown after
landing in Sierra Leone. The sea was
so rough, it seemed like it was mourn-
ing and very angry about the losses.
This month of August is the month with
the highest amount of rainfall in Sierra
Leone and the mudslides had come
as a result of heavy rainfall.
The UBA Group chairman, Tony O.
Elumelu had decided he must visit the
country after reading and watching
the plight of the Sierra Leoneans. On
the way there he kept saying: ‘How
about the women and their children?
Photo Credit: flickr.com/marfilynegro
