By Mabinty M. Kamara
Pan-African campaigners in Sierra Leone have urged the government to “decolonize” Sierra Leone by removing colonial symbols and renaming major edifices that were renamed after colonizers.
In a statement, the Administrative Committee Member of the Pan-Africanist Movement, Abdul Malik Kamara said their call was part of the broader global call for the African continent and its people to “break free from the shackles of White supremacy”.
The consortium of organisations is calling for streets, schools and other sites to be renamed while also urging the government to take down statues of colonial figures and replacing them with indigenous heroes.
He said: “Our great freedom fighters and nationalists are largely invisible on our streets and public places or only minimally recognized. Among the great Sierra Leonean freedom fighters who are either not recognised at all or not adequately recognized include Sengbeh Pieh, Thomas Peters, ITA Wallace-Johnson, Bai Bureh, Bai Sherbro Kpana Lewis, Nyagua, Africanus James Horton, Emmanuel Cole as well as Sierra Leonean early state/nation builders – Farma Tami, Mansa Kama, Alimamy Foday Tarawaly, King Nemgbana, Kisimi Kamara (who invented writing he called the Ki-Ka-Ku) and Kai Londo among others”. He said that even the name “Sierra Leone” symbolised colonialism as it was given by a Portuguese sailor.
The statement noted that honouring colonial masters, slavers and pirates in our history books and streets and public places demonstrated that Sierra Leone’s rulers were still fundamentally committed to the continuation of foreign domination and white supremacy.
Some of the most prominent schools and streets in the capital Freetown are named after prominent British officials, they said.
“We also see that most of the Sierra Leoneans who were recognized by the colonial regime such as Sir Samuel Lewis, Sir Milton Margai, Sir Albert Margai, Sir Banja Tejan-Sie, Madam Yoko, Ella Koblo Gulama, Kandeh Bureh, Chief Alhaji Bai Shebora Yumkella, among others, were local collaborators to slavers and colonizers in the society and must therefore be exposed to the current generation of Africans for selling our their people,” the statement stated.
It continues: “In view of the above therefore, pan-Africanists, freedom loving people, social, economic justice and democracy activists wish to re-affirm what we have been saying for decades now that we need a true cultural and historical revival in Sierra Leone.”
The activists say that as “global consciousness about the role of names of public places and statues in perpetuating injustice, indignity and white supremacy” they wished to make demands to the government of Sierra Leone and the mayor of Freetown.
They want the government to revisit the essence of the country’s historical symbols in the wake of the Black Lives Matter campaign that started in the US and has spread across the world.
“It is rather natural that Sierra Leoneans in particular and Africans in general stand in solidarity with the now global struggle against institutionalised racism epitomized by the Black Lives Matter protests gripping the world. This movement that has erupted around the world should be understood within the context of the latest stage of the continued Western domination and imperialism that started over 500 years ago,” the statement added.
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