By Mohamed Sankoh (One Drop) Two professions which I always find interesting to the point of amusement and uncontrollable muffled laughter are those of Religious Leaders and Lawyers. Both the Bible and Koran are hundreds-and-hundreds-year-old books but every day most Men of the White Collar and Cassock, or Bearded Men of the […]
Two professions which I always find interesting to the point of amusement and uncontrollable muffled laughter are those of Religious Leaders and Lawyers.
Both the Bible and Koran are hundreds-and-hundreds-year-old books but every day most Men of the White Collar and Cassock, or Bearded Men of the Turban, will pretend to find new prophetic verses in those two holy books which they will feign have never been there before. Their sermons from the pulpit, or “khutbah” from the “minbar”, sometimes bring some newness in those books’ oldness that I always marvel at the ingenuity of these Men of God or Men from Allah on how they constantly try to keep their congregations in line or in check.
And many Sierra Leonean lawyers are not different from the seemingly deceptions of some of those Men of God or Men from God. Though “The Constitution of Sierra Leone 1991” has 146 pages; yet most of our lawyers will pretend to find new hidden issues in it every day which they will pretend their learned colleagues have not found or incapable of finding them. With some memorized archaic Latin phrases (which some are still struggling to understand) many of them will argue in Magistrate Courts, counter-argue in the High Court and Court of Appeal, and counter-counter argue among themselves in the Supreme Court of Sierra Leone for interpretations on issues which an intelligent layman can easily interpret without thinking twice!
Despite one profession is mainly concerned with the supposed preparations for life in the hereafter and the other with legal matters of this world; countless practitioners of both professions appear to prosper through the clientele of fools! Through tithes and offerings; some Pastors and their families seem to be witnessing alarming prosperity while majority of the fools who tithed and offered offerings appear to be wallowing in abject poverty (Some Imams and Sheiks with their congregations are no different.)! And most lawyers, it is often conjectured, prosper through the foolishness of the fools! And when someone decides not to play the fool like a foolish fool; some lawyers may bring up this quote: “A man who is his own lawyer has a fool for a client”. The inference, or rather warning, here is that there is the “potential risks of self-representation and the need for professional expertise to navigate the complexities of the law”.
But today’s One Dropian dropping is not about the complexities of the law or about religious issues in their religiosities. It is about how the Sierra Leone Bar Association (SLBA) appears to have lowered the bar in the manner in which it is now running its affairs or intends to run its affairs in the near future.
Partisan politics appears to have disfigured the once enviable Bar Association that those who are now seeking to represent it seem to be more concerned about safeguarding the interests of the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) than the welfare and interest of its members. That Association appears to have been so heavily politicized that it is now very difficult to draw a line between it and the SLPP government.
It seems to me that the most defining issue between some of those who have shown interest in steering the next Bar Association executive is about establishing their SLPP credentials than their “standing” at the bar. It is shamefully shameful how some of these aspirants are displaying their SLPP-ness in a professional association as if they are vying for a position in the National Executive of the SLPP.
The current mess in the Sierra Leone Bar Association appears to be the post-script of its 18 May 2024 Annual General Meeting (AGM) held in Kenema, eastern Sierra Leone, where the entire process seemed to have been Konneh-nized. For the first time in the Bar Association’s history while the cameras were still rolling, sane and decent Sierra Leoneans witnessed how some so-called “civilized” and “learned” compatriots reduced themselves to uncivilized situations and provoked scenes that could be likened to a group of “ray boy” and “savisman” conducting an impromptu election inside a “pote”! But that seemingly Kaifala-ian script seemed to have been deliberately scripted to have a Konneh-nized ending.
That Konneh-nization of the last Bar Association’s AGM led to two former Bar Association presidential aspirants, Augustine Sorie-Sengbeh Marrah and Wara Serry-Kamal, breaking away from the main Association to become the nucleuses of the Lawyers’ Society. And Legal-dom in Sierra Leone has never been the same again as lawyers, generally, are now speaking with two voices! At present, instead of hearing sweet melodies from an organized orchestra as it used to be; all that are coming from the Sierra Leone Bar Association which seems to have lowered the bar in a “rum bar” (pardon my Krio-nized Krio) are cacophonous cacophonies!
Now it’s déjà vu all over again as there are allegations and counter-allegations that the current Bar Association executive plans to further the seemingly Konneh-nization of the coming AGM. A purported “leaked Sierra Leone Bar Association bank statement”, in relation to the AGM registration process and alleged involvement of a government institution—DSTI, appears to indicate that as it happened in 2024 so it might be in 2026! And just as Marrah and Serry-Kamal shouted atop the Bintumani Mountain (figuratively) about “irregularities”; so are the anti-Tuma Jabbi-rites doing now. Except that even if they are Konneh-nized in 2026; they might only lick their wounds as they might not have the courage of Marrah and Serry-Kamal to breakaway.
What is now happening in the Sierra Leone Bar Association is indicative of the partisan rot which has infested almost all professional associations or bodies in Sierra Leone. Had it been members of the Okada Riders’ Association or even the Cassada Leaf Sellers’ Association at the Dove Cot market behaving in such a manner; it would have been understandably understandable. But for an Association whose members are one hundred percent educated and professed to be “highly civilized” and “learned”; behaving the way they are now behaving is disappointingly disappointing!
