By Umaru Fofana
First of all I owe you an apology for the long hiatus without writing. It has been a very busy few months for me. In the last one month, for example, I have been travelling the length of the world – from Africa to Europe and to Asia. But I have also extensively travelled across Kailahun district where I have been following the trail of the Ebola virus in Sierra Leone for NHK TV or Japan TV to be able to determine a few things.
In the coming weeks and months I will bring you my experiences on the suffering of mostly Sierra Leonean women abandoned in Nigeria by their ECOMOG boyfriends and husbands, how and why we lost the race for president of the African Development Bank in such ignoble fashion despite having an outstanding candidate, and how I became the first Sierra Leonean visitor to our embassy in Seoul, the capital of a country that shows what good leadership can accomplish.
But today I will concentrate in part on the abuse of one particular power given to the National Ebola Response Centre (NERC) in dealing with the virus that has claimed the lives of countless numbers of Sierra Leoneans – the power to deny people the right to bury their loved ones how and where they wish to lay them to rest. I say countless numbers because during my visit last week to Kailahun district it was very evident that scores, perhaps hundreds, of people had died of Ebola before the first two confirmed cases were recorded on 24 May 2014 – Victoria Yillah and Mammie Lebbie. This, despite the foreboding that it was a matter of when – not if – the virus would get here. And it came from the obvious routes because no action had been taken – or measures put in place – by the government. It is a dark chapter in our country’s history which illustrates how a government lets down its people. And some of it is perfectly illustrated by Falla Jusu, the Chiefdom Speaker of Kissi Teng chiefdom.
He said to me: “The [rebel] war started here and it hit the rest of the country. Ebola began here and it is still battering the rest of the country. They must develop this place or the whole country is doomed. Our soldiers and our police don’t even have bicycles to patrol the 66 border crossing points with Guinea and Liberia while those across have armoured tanks and 4x4 vehicles”.
We all know about the emergency measures put in place to ward off the Ebola virus, including depriving us of that long-held and cherished tradition of being able to wash, bury, communally mourn the death and celebrate the life of our lost loved one. That entitlement was taken away and handed over to the several Burial Teams, through NERC. We all understand and support the rationale behind this – to stop the spread of the virus which has far more times the speed of infection through an Ebola corpse than through a sick person. It was a worthy reason to be denied that last respect however painful, however sometimes unbearable.
What is even more painful and unbearable is to see yourself denied that right when you know your loved one did not die of Ebola, yet some other person is accorded the right – sorry privilege – simply because they have connections and are close to those given that power in trust which is very open to abuse because exemptions are not clearly outlined, they yet are granted.
On Saturday my 13-year-old nephew was hit by a Poda Poda around Deep Eye Water on the side of the Freetown-Waterloo highway. Being the ever helpful boy that he was, he had volunteered just after school to accompany a friend to buy something down the road. They had crossed the highway on their way back home and were metres away when the minibus knocked him down hitting his head on a rock. He would later die at the Emergency Hospital. You can imagine how we still feel as a family.
Now his corpse lies at the Connaught Hospital mortuary. While the authorities have granted permission to bury him on Friday as the family wishes, they have not allowed them to lay the boy to rest at Jui which they consider closer to home. As by law, the authorities say he must be buried at the Waterloo cemetery. I have to say that the new cemetery at Waterloo is a very convenient and peaceful place to take eternal rest. No doubt about that. But I need not preach to anyone about how we wish our loved ones were sometimes laid to rest as close to where we live as possible.
While I was at the mortuary exploring the possibility of securing an exemption to allow for the boy to be buried in Jui – and I kept stressing that such exemption should be given within legitimacy – I saw an impressive presence of soldiers and health workers doing their best to respect the rules however respectful they spoke to me. While some of those junior workers were busy doing what was right, their bosses were busy granting exemptions arbitrarily and in a manner that was an open abuse of power. Effectively, it was clear there was one set of rules for one set of people and another for the others.
A lady, clearly to my hearing, was yelling at the soldiers that a senior official at NERC, whose name she called out, had approved that her brother’s corpse be handed over to them. That was crosschecked and the body was allowed to be buried at her determination.
While at the mortuary also I saw a letter written by a senior police officer – an AIG in fact – appearing to almost demand that a corpse be handed over to a bereaved family for them to bury. The young soldiers insisted that the exemption should come from NERC which was very impressive on the part of the non-commissioned soldiers, but it also clearly proved exemptions were still being given despite assurances that no one was above the law.
Methinks to avoid such abuse of the power to grant burial rights to bereaved families, there must be set criteria for such. For example, whoever dies in a road accident, their family should be allowed to make a determination as to where to be buried, after a swab test. Whoever dies in a hospital where they had been admitted for more than three weeks for an illness otherwise than Ebola, their family should be able to determine their place of burial even if the Burial Team must inter them. Otherwise the abuse by some NERC officials and senior police officers will only continue. And it could boil over and breach the peace.
Heads can hang to be able to come up with a determination as to when and why exemptions should be granted. Leaving it open as it is, in a country where people worship the authorities instead of questioning them, leaves us at the mercy of unscrupulous state officials who have the power, and elements involved in the process at the margins who have the propensity to take a bribe.
Tomorrow I will give my musings and reasons as to why our foreign minister got so ignominiously defeated at the first of six rounds in the race to become the president of the AfDB.
(C) Politico 23/06/15
