By Alpha Amadu Jalloh
In Sierra Leone today, our dreams have wings, but they are broken. Our hopes are boarded onto a bus driven recklessly by a man who seems more obsessed with the sound of the engine than the direction it’s heading. President Julius Maada Bio, the self-proclaimed “new direction” leader, has turned Sierra Leone into a battered, broken vehicle, careening toward a cliff while pretending to fly.
Our so-called Independence has become nothing but a painful reminder of how far we have fallen. Sixty-four years after colonial rule, we remain shackled, not by foreign oppressors, but by our own leaders. Sierra Leoneans today suffer under the crushing weight of poverty, hopelessness, and disillusionment. They ask: “What does it mean to be independent if we have nothing to celebrate?”
President Bio’s tenure is a textbook case of missed opportunities, staggering waste, and unforgivable betrayal. While millions of Sierra Leoneans scavenge for their next meal, he and his wife, Fatima Bio, gallivant across the world in luxurious private jets, staying at five-star hotels, organizing glamorous shopping sprees, and holding meaningless ceremonies, all billed to the people’s already empty purse. In a country where hospitals lack gloves and life-saving drugs, our leaders cruise the skies like monarchs while the people drown in despair.
Sierra Leoneans do not even have the basic amenities to mark Independence Day with dignity. Water runs dry from the taps, if they exist at all. Electricity is a luxury; blackouts are the norm. Roads crumble, schools rot, and hospitals resemble death traps more than places of healing. In Freetown, the capital that should be a symbol of national pride, garbage mountains tower over broken communities, and the stench of abandonment lingers in the air. Rural Sierra Leone, meanwhile, might as well be another forgotten planet.
Instead of working to fix these tragedies, Bio has built a monstrous government of excess. Every friend, cousin, and campaign financier has found a place in the bloated administration. Nepotism has been institutionalized. Meritocracy is an alien concept. Ministries are duplicated, special advisers multiply like locusts, and salaries for the well-connected climb higher, even as inflation suffocates the ordinary man and woman.
The very youth who were once told they were “the future” now find their future stolen. With no jobs, no opportunities, and no leadership to inspire them, they turn to dangerous drugs like KUSH, a synthetic drug ravaging a whole generation. KUSH is not just a drug; it is a national crisis. Young men and women who should be building Sierra Leone now wander the streets like zombies, victims of an absent government and a society that has given up on them.
How can our leaders parade themselves on international stages when the heart of Sierra Leone is bleeding out? How can they commission “prestige projects” while entire communities beg for clean drinking water? How can they celebrate “Independence” when Sierra Leoneans are shackled by poverty, disease, and despair?
The painful truth is this: for the average Sierra Leonean, Independence Day is a reminder of betrayal. The dream of freedom was supposed to mean empowerment, dignity, and the ability to shape our own destinies. Instead, it has come to mean survival against insurmountable odds. It has come to mean watching politicians grow fat off our suffering. It has come to mean learning to live without the most basic things a human being deserves, food security, access to health, education, and opportunity.
President Bio is the driver of this national disaster. But he imagines he has wings. He believes in lofty slogans and grand international appearances, arriving and departing in private jets with grand motorcades, can substitute for real leadership. He thinks branding himself as a “reformer” can mask the rot that festers under his administration. The sad irony is that, even as he dreams of flight, he cannot keep the wheels on the ground moving.
There is no roadmap. There is no destination. There is only waste, incompetence, and a shameless pursuit of self-enrichment.
Meanwhile, ordinary Sierra Leoneans, who should be the engine of the nation’s prosperity, are dying in silence. Children walk miles barefoot just to attend dilapidated schools with no teachers. Pregnant women pray not to die during childbirth because the clinics around them have no drugs, no equipment, and no doctors. Farmers struggle with outdated tools while ministers’ children study abroad in some of the world’s best institutions. Life expectancy drops. Infant mortality rises. And the rich political class congratulates itself on imaginary achievements.
The truth is brutal: Sierra Leone today is a country where the leaders live in a different reality from their people. They talk about GDP growth, while the average Sierra Leonean cannot afford a cup of rice. They boast about human capital development, while universities shut down for lack of funds and strikes paralyze basic services. They brag about “attracting investments,” but all the profits are siphoned off before they reach the communities that need them most.
President Bio promised transformation. What he delivered is degeneration.
He promised a new direction. What he delivered is confusion.
He promised hope. What he delivered is heartbreak.
The First Lady, who was expected to support the empowerment of Sierra Leonean women and children, has instead become a symbol of extravagance and arrogance, using every opportunity to flaunt luxury while the mothers she claims to champion die in childbirth for want of a simple $5 treatment. Lavish parties, red carpet events, and social media photo shoots are now the currency of leadership.
It is a tragic comedy: a government drunk on its own self-importance while the people choke on hunger and despair.
Sixty-four years after Independence, Sierra Leoneans should be celebrating a nation on the rise, a country of innovation, resilience, and prosperity. Instead, they mourn a dream deferred, and wonder if they are truly free at all.
Are we independent when we cannot feed ourselves?
Are we independent when our leaders view us as tools for their enrichment?
Are we independent when hope itself has become a luxury?
The bus President Bio is driving is overloaded with corruption, incompetence, and deceit. And although he claims to have wings, every day it becomes clearer that he is steering us toward disaster, with no parachutes for the poor, no lifelines for the desperate.
Independence without accountability is a lie.
Freedom without leadership is a nightmare.
Sierra Leone needs to wake up.
Our youth deserve more than KUSH and hopelessness. Our farmers deserve more than empty promises. Our teachers deserve more than empty classrooms. Our mothers deserve more than abandoned maternity wards. Our country deserves better than a bus driver with broken wings.
As Sierra Leoneans, we must demand more. We must refuse to celebrate illusions. We must hold our leaders to account. We must reclaim our independence not with fanfare, but with purpose.
The time for blind loyalty is over. The time for pretending is over. The time for action is now.
Until then, the bus will keep speeding toward the abyss, piloted by a man who believes he is flying, but who cannot even see the road beneath him.
And we, the passengers, we, the people, must decide whether we will stay aboard… or demand a new driver.
Alpha Amadu Jalloh is a human rights advocate, award-winning author of Monopoly of Happiness: Unveiling Sierra Leone’s Social Imbalance, and recipient of the Africa Renaissance Leadership Award.
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