By Umaru Fofona
Justice Dr Abou Bhakar Binneh Kamara was my friend and mentee who eventually surpassed his mentor. His death yesterday hit me hard. I am still devastated by it! I visited the family home today. No parent wants to bury their child so you can understand why I met his mother looking as bewildered as she was inconsolable.
The Dean of the Law Faculty at Fourah Bay College was a towering figure in academia and in jurisprudence. My relationship with him dates back to the late 1990s and deepened into the naughties – in his formative years. He started off as a print journalist and admired my writing and voracious reading habit. He later became a real bookworm in ways that I can only dream of. He was close to completing his second PhD degree when he passed away.
He would visit me at my humble residence in Calaba Town and later at Pump Line. When he did he had books which he sometimes clutched under his armpit. We discussed his ambition to be well read. How he accomplished that! He read about anything and everything and could sustain a discussion about things unrelated to his discipline. He became one of the most educated Sierra Leoneans yet he didn’t gloat about it outside his classroom. When he did to his students it was to inspire them.
Sometime this year he visited me at my Kingtom residence after he’d wrapped up his weekend workout. We discussed our families and how he strongly believed that I’d have made a good lawyer – to which I respectfully disagreed. His modesty in a highly materialistic society was a breath of fresh air; so much so that he didn’t clamour for the glamour of earthly possessions – excepting university degrees.
I last saw the newly-appointed Justice of the Court of Appeals last month at his Mountain Cut residence. We talked about his health challenge and how he hoped to be back on his feet again doing what he loved most – dispensing justice and imparting knowledge.
Sierra Leone has lost a huge asset – one of its brightest brains. May Allah grant him Jannatul Firdaus.
