‘No Sacred Cows’ in Sierra Leone

President Koroma - 'No Sacred Cows'

Last week, the President of the Republic of Sierra Leone , H.E. Ernest Bai Koroma, said there would be “no sacred cows” in his government.  That means that he would not protect those in his government who are found to be corrupt.  He did not say he would ‘kill sacred cows’.  He implied it, though!! One is left to guess what would happen to the sacred cows once the president excommunicates them from his holy temple of State House . Would the president allow them to be taken for slaughter by the butchers in the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC)? If the president is courageous enough, or, callous enough, or, forgetful enough….to allow these sacred cows to be the objects of national carnage, what will be the reaction of the millions of people who almost literally worship these sacred cows?

To begin to answer some of those questions, it will be helpful if we understand the epistemology of the term “sacred cow”.

The term “sacred cow” is sourced from the Indian sub-continent where cows are believed to be sacred, and has passed into the English language to mean an object or practice which is considered immune from criticism; or, a person who no action can be taken against by state legal authorities, no matter the extremity of his/her illegal actions. There is another interpretation of sacred cow which President Koroma may not have had in mind when pronounced last week he would pull  the carpet under ‘sacred cows’.  This is what I would term as ‘institutional or group sacred cows’.  These are groups that find any form of criticism of their group reprehensible or unacceptable – like the way too many Muslims react at the slightest criticism of anything Islamic.  Among some APC partisans, there is such ‘group sacred cow mentality’.   They react with acidic vehemence against any criticism of the APC.

Do we applaud the president  for his intent to shoo sacred cows out of his government? Where would these sacred cows go to?  Infect Civil Society?  Can the president reflect on his imagery and realize that he is dealing with ‘cows’, and, sacred cows or profane cows, cows not only give us steak, but, can also produce milk and cheese for a long time; hence a reason why Indians generally have made them into ‘sacred cows?

Cows are considered sacred in various world religions, especially Hinduism in India .  In India which has one of the most sophisticated and enduring civilizations among humanity, the cow has been a symbol of wealth since ancient  Vedic times.  In the deep  past, cows were neither inviolable nor revered in the same way they are today. The cow was possibly revered because the largely pastoral Vedic people and subsequent generations relied heavily on it for dairy products (milk and cheese). Or for tilling the fields (better than tractors in the marshy fields where rice is mainly grown in India ).  The cow dung is used as fuel (for cooking food, and lamps). Cow dung is also used as fertilizer. There are edible mushrooms which naturally grow out of cow excrement. In Hinduism, cows are believed to be reincarnated humans; therefore, Hindus do not eat beef or kill cows and they are left to wander aimlessly through city streets and across busy roads – sacred cows.

Our sacred cows in Sierra Leone have been born by the parents of the Tribal War Mentality and the attitude of Predators in the Public Service.  I have written dozens of articles on this over the past few years.  Different ethnic groups in Sierra Leone have  still not really imbibed the concept of ‘country’ in the land carved out for them by the British Colonialists a century ago. The Temne man sees himself as Temne first, and being Sierra Leonean is mainly a symbolic badge.  This is the same for the Mende, Gissi, Fullah, Madingo, Susu etc. who give loyalty and passion to his/her own ethnic group before embracing the foreign creation of “ Sierra Leone ”.  With this mindset, democratic elections in the Western sentence are really a pretence game.  Elections are really ‘tribal wars’ among these ethnic groups.  The tribe, or, regional block of tribes, that win a presidential election is thus the victor in a ‘tribal war’.  Moving to the center in Freetown , the victorious tribe feels it is entitled to ‘legitimate war booty’ – hardly different from what ancient Romans would do as they sack a territory they would conquer.  The white man has been denouncing this attitude, this stance, as “corruption”; but, deep down among the political class and the citizenry, it is not regarded as corruption, as stealing.

When the ethnic leaders  in the provinces invest time, energy, and money to get a political leader elected as president, and they are rewarded with cabinet positions or senior positions in government, ‘since the tribal war had been war’, they naturally expect to take  their war booty – to pay themselves. And, they naturally  expect the president and the political party in power to protect them!!. They expect to be sacred cows!!  A president who denies the sacred cows this protection could be seen to be indulging in political treachery.   Ernest could be under pressure to rein in the corrupt in his government from the very British who created the country called Sierra Leone .  If Ernest yields, and  sends too many sacred cows to the slaughter house, he could very well be, politically, shooting himself in the feet.

Even if they are engaged in flagrant corruption, the majority of the people in the provinces who vote governments into power do not generally see their ethnic elected leaders, or, societal leaders, who are empowered with ministerial or director positions, as  thieves.  They are perceived as ‘war heroes’. They are expected to take some of the ‘war booty’ they get in the center to empower their kinsmen back home; or, to ensure that their kinsmen get jobs, or contracts in Freetown .  All over Negroid Africa, this is the deep-seated thinking. Accepted!!  If Ernest  shoves his sacred cows away, and allows them to be slaughtered by the ACC, he will be taking a calculated political risk – in the hope that the majority of voters in 2012 would NOT be bowing down to worship these sacred cows anymore.  Except with massive sensitization using all media available in an unprecedented intense blitz, I doubt whether Sierra Leoneans would make the quantum leap from showing more loyalty to country than they would to their ethnic groups, and abandon worship of their ethnic sacred cows.  Ha, the President needs urgent help here.

Together with the ACC, the Office of National Security, and other intelligent agencies, the bank accounts of all senior government workers – and middle and juniors ones in positions where traditionally big money would be stolen – should be probed. And, also, the accounts of their relatives, and lovers.  I reliably learned that the ACC would periodically do this when they suspect corruption in certain agencies.  No one would be surprise to see government workers who earn no more than $300 a month, having accounts of half a million dollars.  The Freetown City Council, the lands ministry, and hundreds of APC youth, would do a property survey in Freetown .   This will help to bring out the property that have been built with corruption money. (95% of them!!).  Now, with such information in hand…Here comes the novel part…

The government should prepare a lot of business proposals – and even search out for seasoned business managers. And encourage the forming of partnerships, and cooperatives by these people with corruption money.  Emphasis should be investments on  the agricultural and agro-industrial sectors.. Preference, even, incentives, should be given to those businesses that would create employment for the teeming and dangerously volatile unemployed youth. If for example, government sees Le900,000,000 in a government worker’s account, and that worker clearly cannot prove he/she earned the money legitimately, then the government should give the person a choice: Invest Le600,000,000 of this money in a business of your choice, with partners of your choice, or, we get the ACC to prosecute you.

When my innovative solutions are adopted, we will greatly energize the indigenous business sector.  We will not be killing our sacred cows.  We will not be slavish in having foreign solutions imposed on us which will be politically unwise.  Encouraging most of the wealth in indigenous hands to be invested in Sierra Leone would show ‘confidence’ in the system, and would help create a magnet for foreign investors.  Then, the APC government of president should draw a line on the ground– and that line should include, for example, paying ministers and senior government officials average salaries of $5,000 a month.  Then, the president can credibly bark: “Starting February 20, 2010, all those who are corrupt in government would face the full force of the law. No sacred cows”.  Only then, can the President thunder about “zero tolerance for corruption” policy without arousing a disparaging smirk of ‘ba nya fakie’ among the citizenry.   Only then, will killing of sacred cows not be political suicide.

The salary of government ministers, and nearly all civil service and public service officers is so sorrowfully small that were they to live on their salaries alone, they would not be able to even put on decent clothes for state functions. Surely, the president would not want his ministers to look beggarly when they are appearing in public.  98% of even senior government workers would not even imagine that they would build houses with their legitimate incomes.  Only babies in the country are not aware of these realities. So, for the president to be chanting “no sacred cows” without a revolutionary overturn of the public service system manifest a slavish mentality, an inclination to dance and rumba to the dictates of the foreign donors in Europe .

Ernest Koroma deep inside himself knows, all adults in Freetown know, that Ernest is only railing against his sacred cows to placate foreign donors.  In this article, I am suggesting a way out of the political conundrum for Ernest.  Let the sacred cows live!!!   As Indians have learned, a sacred cow killed, can only get you some pounds of steak. A live sacred cow kept alive, can get you milk and butter for between 10 to 15 years.  And, produce milk and cheese for our hungry majority.   The majority of people who vote governments into power in Sierra Leone would prefer live sacred cows to dead sacred cows. When the first SLPP was overthrown in 1967, when the first APC was overthrown in 1991, the military juntas institution commissions of enquiry for senior government officers to explain their unexplained acquisition of wealth.  Whatever happened to the findings of such probes?

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