The destruction of traditional
rule in Sierra Leone
By Syl Cheney-Coker
Photographs by Vera Viditz-Ward
Sierra Leone has experienced brutal, murderous and bloody internal warfare since 1990. In this period, tens of thousands have been killed; over a million have been exiled and the state has all but collapsed. Young men and women who joined the rebel cause were from communities where years of political interference and military conflict had compromised the paramount chief's authority.
"In the past, a young man used to bow in front of a chief," one observor said to me. "Now, armed with an AK-47 rifle, it is the young man who is ordering the chief around."
If the loss of their authority was not bad enough, many chiefs became linked with the corruption and unchecked violence that was attributed to the national government. Not all of Sierra Leone's paramount chiefs enjoyed privilege and affluence, but many who did became hated symbols of the worst aspects of the central government, and targets of revenge. The list of paramount chiefs who were assassinated is long. Believed to be the first on the list was Chief Bunduka, of Kailahun District, a chiefdom on Liberia's border from which many guerilla attacks were launched. When Paramount Chief Bonai Fei of Bo, in southern Sierra Leone was captured, his assassins cut off his head. There is irony as well as tragedy in the political history that records the killing of some of the paramount chiefs: one of the chiefs who died is the father of the current vice-president of Sierra Leone, Dr. A. Demby.
Recent events in Sierra Leone-the ghastly mutilations of innocent civilians, the rapes and the near collapse of the state-have made Sierra Leone a by-word for anarchy in Africa. In their coverage of events there, U.S. newspapers have given differing versions of how the country descended into anomie; but few, if any, have looked at one important constituency in Sierra Leone's volatile post-independence politics: the paramount chiefs. Those who have held political power and then lost it often bear on their backs the weight of history, a history which, in the case of the system of paramount chiefs who once governed much of my country, emerges in a moral as well as a political dimension for the custodians of that power.
Chief Gulama talked with me for two hours about the tragedy that has befallen her own chiefdom and all of Sierra Leone. When the rebel war raged throughout the country, Madam Gulama's chiefdom was attacked and her compound was burned down. Luckily, she was able to escape, although she is taciturn about the route she took into exile. Her personal reminiscences gave me a greater understanding of the horrors committed in Sierra Leone in the last 10 years. In addition, they illustrated for me many of the failures of the political process in the country.
The future of the nation's paramount chiefs now depends very much on the political ethos to emerge out of the chaos of the last decade. In almost 30 years of mismanagement, corruption and, lately, barbarism, nearly all the institutions of a civil society were destroyed or compromised. In some cases paramount chiefs were drawn into the web of political chicanery to preserve a modicum of power. As many of them later found out, power without respect is meaningless. On the other hand, given the collapse of the state itself, it was inevitable that one of its most ancient institutions would be affected. Yet, hopefully, it is because of its historical importance and composite nature that the institution will survive. Unlike the modern political party that is still finding its form in African societies, the traditional forms of government embraced many components: the epochal, moral, mystical, cultural, and sacred.
These are all part of the political suture that Sierra Leone badly needs. If the institution of the paramount chieftancy were to be restored to its respected past, we might draw one step closer to rebuilding a civil and orderly society, the bedrock of any nation's democracy.
Before colonialism, a great deal of Sierra Leone, including the capital, Freetown, was really a collection of small kingdoms. The Portuguese named the area Sera Lyona, in 1462. In the late 18th century, the British bought some land from two local kings, King Tom and King Jimmy, as a settlement for the descendants of freed slaves who had fought for the British during the American war of Independence. In 1806, the British declared that area and its environs a crown colony, effectively under the control of the British monarch. They introduced to it British laws and education.
The rest of the country beyond the crown colony was left more or less in the hands of traditional rulers, or kings, until 1896, when it was declared a protectorate, and British imperialism expanded throughout much of Africa. Under a policy of indirect rule that survived for many decades and through the introduction of national independence, British colonial rulers governed the protectorate through the offices of traditional rulers, who were answerable to the British governor residing in the colony. Many rulers opposed the usurpation of their powers, so the British engaged in a policy of breaking up these kingdoms into chiefdoms. They exiled rebellious rulers, replaced them with pretenders to the throne, and, finally, appointed political district commissioners-all of them British-with powers over these rulers.
The fracturing of the kingdoms into chiefdoms naturally led to a policy of divide-and-rule, for among the so-called paramount chiefs of the new regime were some untitled rulers and claimants with no hereditary rights to the title. Moreover, local subjects who were clever enough to see how the policy was undermining a local ruler could always curry favour with the district commissioners, in clear violations of the traditional ethos.
The ownership of land in Sierra Leone was historically vested in the power of the ruler: a practice much what existed amongst Native American peoples. As custodians of the land they controlled, Sierra Leonean rulers were custodians of morality and other customary laws. As such, they had great powers, although that supremacy was subsumed within a common notion of democratic values that even the king had to observe. We find some of those democratic values in many modern states. There was a council of elders who were appointed by the people, advisers who could overrule the king in matters deemed too important for the decisions of one man or woman. A judiciary based on traditional beliefs and interpreted by "wise men of court" kept the king from exercising dictatorial powers. Lastly, the council of elders could depose the king simply by inviting him to a meeting within a room in the palace and locking him inside.
In 1961, the role of the paramount chief in Sierra Leone underwent a major political change. In a loose copy of the British political system, under which there are two chambers in parliament-one for commoners and the other for the lords-the British created a system that granted 12 paramount chiefs the right to sit in the new Sierra Leone parliament. If the idea was to give a democratic representation to all constituencies in the country, it failed. The failure was not so much in implementing the system but that it was opened to manipulation. Whereas the paramount chiefs had previously held sway over their chiefdoms, events during the 1967 general elections gave them a taste of national power. The events rekindled the ever-present division between the absolute rights of a national parliament elected by universal adult suffrage and the potential of those rulers to act in tandem with the undemocratic wishes of a national ruler. Moreover, a taste of national power by traditional rulers was what eventually undermined their once-sacrosanct image.
The results of the 1967 elections produced a "hung" parliament, with the two main political parties tied neck and neck in elected members. Prime Minister Albert Margai, convinced that he should continue as leader, hoped to persuade the governor-general to give him a renewed mandate. On the advice of constitutional lawyers, the governor-general decided to first consult all parties, including some independent members of parliament who had not declared their support for either of the two major parties. Fearing a missed opportunity in his bid for the premiership, Sir Albert approached and reportedly got the backing of some of the 12 nonelected paramount chiefs in parliament. The governor-general decided to invite opposition leader Siaka Stevens to form the next government.
Constitutional experts and political writers were united in their opinion that the governor-general had acted in compliance with the constitution. Their view was that the paramount chiefs were not in parliament as representatives of people who had voted for them, but as hereditary rulers, and as such were bound by the decision of the governor-general, in accordance with the constitution. Of the 12 paramount chiefs entitled to sit in the national parliament, two maintained a neutral stance during the national leadership debacle. One was Paramount Chief Bai Koblo Bana II, a northern ruler, and Paramount Chief Tamba M'briwa, of the diamond-rich Kono district in eastern Sierra Leone. Both men were distrustful of Albert Margai and regarded him as an ethnically based leader.
The ruling party of the day, the Sierra Leone Peoples Party, which recently returned to power under the leadership of President Ahmed Tejan Kabba, had built its early power base by crossing ethnic lines. However, under Sir Albert, the party appeal was strongest among the Mende-speaking people, the nation's largest ethnic group that predominates in southern and part of eastern Sierra Leone.
Paramount Chief Gulama was one of those who backed Albert Margai's claim to the prime ministership. She was a minister in his cabinet, and may have backed Margai for that and other reasons. Up to the last minute, Margai was convinced that the governor-general would back his claim. Once that claim was rejected, however, politics in Sierra Leone took its first ominous turn, and one from which it has not recovered. As the governor-general administered the oath of office to Siaka Stevens, the army stepped in.
Brigadier David Lansana, the army commander who was related by marriage to Albert Margai, declared martial law and prevented Stevens from leaving the governor-general's residence. It was widely known that Madam Gulama was also related by marriage to the brigadier. Moreover, all three were ethnic Mendes. Moved, it is believed, by this potent mix of politics, culture, and ethnicity, the brigadier staged the coup. The success of the coup, however, was short-lived, and Lansana was overthrown within two weeks by a group of army colonels.
It is now generally accepted that Siaka Stevens was the clear winner of the 1967 elections. And because it was the first time in Africa that an opposition leader had defeated a sitting prime minister, there was widespread opposition to the military. A deepening sense of outrage over the part played by some chiefs during the maneuvering for power by Sir Albert was also evident. With the military effectively in control, the major players-Albert Margai, Siaka Stevens, and Governor General Sir Henry Lightfoot-Boston-were sent into exile.
One year later, the colonels were themselves overthrown by a group of noncommissioned officers. Siaka Stevens came home to a triumphant welcome. One of his first acts as prime minister was to convict and hang Brigadier David Lansana on treason charges.
Siaka Stevens was and remains Sierra Leone's most controversial leader. He was seen by many as a hero when he came to office in 1968, but when he left office 17 years later, he was the subject of widely differing opinions. Some people remember him as the Huey Long of African politics: an avuncular figure, whose folksy pork-barrel deals kept everyone happy. To others, he was the architect of the plunge into lawlessness, kleptomania, and social immorality that have undermined the Sierra Leonean political system. There was no doubt, however, that he was a strong leader in the first 12 years. Several coup attempts were made against him, but he put each of them down and hanged the ringleaders. Many people, including some who hated Stevens, have wished for his tough-guy approach over recent years as rebel forces and "sobels"-soldiers by day and rebels by night-turned Sierra Leone into a nightmare: cutting off the hands and arms of innocent children, raping women, plundering communities and destroying a third of Freetown. Stevens, they say, would have taken swift punitive action, had he stayed in power.
Nineteen-sixty-eight marked a turning point in the history of paramount chiefs in the national politics of Sierra Leone. When Siaka Stevens became prime minister, he set about squaring the score with those paramount chiefs he felt had opposed him, while rewarding those who had been neutral. He ordered the arrest of Madam Gulama and locked her up at Pademba Road Central Prison in Freetown for more than a year on charges of being involved in Brigadier Lansana's short-lived coup.
"Can you imagine what it was like to be detained for well over a year?" she said to me during our interview in Lawrenceville. It is a period she has not forgotten.
In another of the many political ironies that have shaped recent Sierra Leone history, Madam Gulama found herself in the opposite camp of her husband, Bai Koblo Bana II, a paramount chief who had voiced support for Albert Margai. When his wife was sent off to prison, Bai Koblo was appointed to a cabinet position in the new Stevens government.
For the next 10 years Siaka Stevens set about further undermining the traditional role of the paramount chiefs. He removed from government office all chiefs whose loyalty was in question and appointed outsiders to the throne. In addition, he abolished the old British offices of the district commissioners and replaced them with provincial secretaries, his own, young political stalwarts from Freetown and other districts who, in some cases, treated the paramount chiefs as political lackeys who served only at the pleasure of the central government.
The chiefs' once-unquestioned moral and cultural umbrella, the political structure that embraced his or her subjects, slowly collapsed. The chief who could no longer give favours and who was newly seen as a tool of bigger politics, could no longer guarantee a loyal following. It was a loss of prestige from which many of them did not recover.
