Homecoming One Drop in ‘One Dropian’ Style

Concord Times (Freetown)

Mohamed Sankoh

19 May 2011

analysis

Freetown — The last thing I did on Friday 15 April 2011, before boarding the car that was to take me from Charles Street, in central Freetown, to the Freetown International Airport at Lungi, was to kiss my lovely daughter, Medsilakeh, goodbye. She asked me to buy her bootees and “picture” books in “Yingyan” (her pronunciation of England), while her mother bade me safe journey.

And the journey was indeed safe. I arrived at the Heathrow Airport tired with sleep-starved eyes, clutching Con Coughlin’s “Saddam: The Secret Life” in my left hand and dragging my hand luggage in my right. Because I am somehow claustrophobic; I hardly sleep in an aeroplane or helicopter. So each time I am travelling in either I take a book or magazine or any reading material along. And because I nearly froze when I made my first visit to Britain in 2007 (I wore very light linen then), I had a thick jacket carelessly slung on my left shoulder to scare off the unpredictable British weather. And because I was putting on a 50th Anniversary memorabilia to proclaim my Sierra Leoneness, I entered the Immigration lounge with a swagger.

The lady at the Immigration cubicle was a fair-skinned five-feet-something-ner, whose spoken English had traces of someone who spent her childhood in the Caribbean. Holding my passport with a conscious self importance, the first question she asked was what my name was. I politely asked her to look it up in my passport. But she told me she wanted to make assurance double sure and that it was the normal procedure. So I told her that I am Mohamed Sankoh, the eldest son and second child of my parents and that I am an ultra-nationalist Sierra Leonean. She let out a quizzical smile like a champion who it had suddenly dawn on him that he had finally met his match. She then asked where I would be putting up. I told her that I didn’t know yet because I would be picked up at the “Arrival” lounge. She asked for the name and telephone number of the person that would be picking me up. I fished out my pocket notepad and scribbled a name and number on the paper provided me. She then asked me if I had any intension of studying in the United Kingdom. I replied with an emphatic No! She then asked how long I would be staying in Britain. “Just two weeks, not a day more”, I retorted. She then stamped my passport and asked me to go, followed with an advertorial grimace: “enjoy your stay in Britain”.

My return trip to my ‘native Freetown’ (I deliberately used this phrase because I am a typical and unadulterated ‘Freetongian’–born, bred and educated there or here–and a classical detribalised Kontriman–can’t speak or hear the Temne language) on 1st May 2011 was full of nostalgia. The Freetown I left behind was in a festive mood. And the Freetown I met was getting out of her celebrative eerie. But as I was pondering on what awaited me on my return, I thought of the three 50th Anniversary musketeers. “How are they now feeling when what they were tasked to do had been done by others because their honesty and integrity are now under the microscope?” Again, I pondered: now that the “fifth finger [has been] licked”; now that the hangovers have ebbed; now that the musicians have stored their instruments back in their places, and now that the dignitaries have left, can the Anti-corruption Commission (AC) tell the nation how far it has gone with its investigations into the three former signatories to 50th Independence Celebration Committee’s accounts who allegedly behaved like cookie-lovers suddenly given custody of the cookie jar?

In the court of public opinion, Dr Julius Spencer, Dr William Konteh, and what that lady’s name (never mind) are guilty until either the AC’s investigations or the courts of law prove them innocent. This has suddenly made them tragic figures; because with their passports and other travelling documents seized they could only now walk the streets of Freetown with bowed heads. As I see it, Dr Konteh in literary terms could be compared to the protagonist in Achebe’s “No Longer At Ease”, while Dr Spencer always reminded me of those critics in the Byzantine days who when given the chance committed the same crime like those they were criticising. And of the lady? She has always reminded me of most presenters at the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Corporation (SLBC) television who are very much meticulous about phonetics but very careless about the subject-verb agreement side of English grammar. But as the nation awaits the findings of the Anti-corruption Commission (AC), let us observe the rule of law by regarding them innocent until the law finds them guilty after the AC would have come out with its findings!

And of the National Revenue Authority (NRA)? Have no doubt about it; the NRA is in a pretty prickle. A fine mess, I mean? Never mind that English idiom. The apt epithet of the NRA is: a headless elephant struggling towards a cliff. That institution’s acting, or is it deputy, Commissioner General seems to be running that place like a professional carpenter suddenly made foreman of a welder’s workshop. There seems to be a breakdown in that institution’s command structure, as senior officers are sidelined in favour of their junior colleagues. The NRA’s finance department could be compared to an army of ants disturbed with hot coal. Imagine such a money making institution at some point going without receipt books for almost three weeks! And the entire NRA stinks of saboteurs! If there is any time that the NRA needs a complete overhaul and clean sweep, such a time is now.

And of the Sierra Leone Roads Authority (SLRA)? The Office of National Security (ONS) and that other institution (here, we need to play the childish “tin, tin, tin, udo da dorti tin”) that are still tribally and regionally imbalanced, despite those very people are accusing the Koroma-led administration of being northern dominated? I will not traverse this sensitive area least some old goats accuse me of tribalism and regionalism in their songs of goats (sorry John Pepper Clark).

Those were the thoughts that impregnated my mind as I ascended the pier at Government Wharf from the “Allied Ferry” on 1st May 2011. And as it was in the beginning so shall it be in the end: the car that took me to the airport waited for me at the Government Wharf and took me home where I woke up my lovely daughter, Medsilakeh, with kisses on her cheeks.

But what have I been doing since I came back? Attending a funeral there; a wedding here; a naming ceremony there, and a million-and-one activities here, there, and everywhere in a crucible of human existence.

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