Concord Times (Freetown)
Alusine Sesay
14 October 2008
opinion
As far as I know Kalangba is one of the highly politically charged chiefdom headquarter towns in Sierra Leone. The small but lively subsistence farming community is located some fifteen miles away from Makeni in the Bombali district. It is predominantly a Loko settlement; however, it is also occupied by Madingos and Fullahs, with a few inhabitants of Temne business people. The pastoral Fullahs, like always, settle here as herdsmen. They also do some business.
The political life history of the township could be traced way back to the early 1980s when the 'Muana Gbati' club was formed. In Loko the nomenclature 'Muana Gbati' means 'we still exist together.' This organization, which was going to narrow, as it were, the apparently widening tribal gap, was conceived and by Dr. Sheku Baba Saccoh, former Sierra Leonean Ambassador to Guinea and formed in partnership with the late Paramount Chief Kandeh Osaio Kamara III of Gbendembu Ngowahun chiefdom. Because its purpose of existence in the first place was to unify the two major groups (Loko and Madingo), Muana Gbati had had its general membership drawn from the grassroots.
Dr. Saccoh, whose mother is a Loko and father a Madingo, thought it wise to form the club simply to unify the two tribes and to also bring progress and development to the township. The unity was however achieved to a large extent. Both tribes had highly considered and respected the symbolic relevance of the union by working hand in glove to promote the township and its people. This was later manifested in the erection and management of the Kalangba Agricultural Secondary School. This lone secondary school, outside Kalangba town, still serves the township and its environs after it was built in 1985 by the 'Muana Gbati' club.
The club had its base in agriculture, a major source of revenue anyway. So, as agricultural activities flourished 'Muana Gbanti' had undertaken huge farming ventures and consequently participated in almost all national agricultural shows ever held in the country.
Sadly though politics with all its rare tendencies had held the 'Muana Gbati' effort from the rare, first with proofs that were never thought to be as devastating as they later turned to be. I am sure they were all taken by surprise. National party politics started taking a hostile dimension when Dr. Saccoh was appointed resident minister North in the late 1980s under the All Peoples Congress. Before that, PC Kandeh Osaio Kamara had subjected and continued to hold his subjects down to communal labour. The onus was with Dr. Saccoh to intervene appropriately. Whether by coincidence of design, Dr. Saccoh was now minister and by the power vested in him he decided to put a stop to what was fast becoming an inhumane treatment; action which the late chief viewed as an infringement on his right as a tribal authority.
The advent of the 1996 presidential elections, hotly contested by Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) and the United National Peoples Party (UNPP), brought with it the unthinkable. Showdown, characterized mainly by bloody countenances had drawn the line of grief and grieve in the grievance that was held against Dr Saccoh for actions he took against PC Osaio Kamara chief while the former was resident minister.
In the run up to the elections the feud became evidently evident simply because Dr. Saccoh was SLPP and was actively campaigning and the late PC Kandeh Osaio positioned himself with the opposition UNPP's position in the township. Apart from the dangling sense that the UNPP leader Dr. Karefa Smart was a Loko by tribe, it was easy to know that the majority of the Lokos had broken away from the Dr. Saccoh canvass on resentment. They were disappointment and dissatisfied. They had alleged that Dr. Saccoh told a 1996 political rally in the township that "the Lokos will eat up their shxx if the SLPP were to win the elections. It was at this juncture that political violence, intimidation, oppression, tribalism, malice and all the odds erupted in the town. Some twelve years on and even as I write this piece the rage rages.
The Madingos and other followers of Dr. Saccoh were brutally handled by supporters of the UNPP and many were forced to go into exile until after the defeat of the UNPP. Some of the Lokos, including sons of the late paramount chief were sent into the Makeni prisons for actions against their political opponents, the Madingos. As it is, the town is characterized by a sharp political divide with a potential to become a scale 'clan dispute.' Why would people declare no go area for others and live a life full of malice for one and other? The Madingos, especially the Saccoh view some of the Lokos, sons of the Paramount Chief as a threat to their existence.
Though the present counselor is working assiduously to bring oneness to the community by electing a youth leader to organize deal with the young, the problem still persists. Claims were that the youth leader has never been accepted by the majority if the youth population. Many youth are saying that the man elected is above youth age and that he was elected by majority of the older folks who were not supposed to have participated in such elections. Also, some youth had commented that the man elected as youth leader was egocentric, self centered and could not go the extra mile to unify the youth of the town.
As a 'dreaded' son of the soil, I must conclude by calling on all stakeholders within the township to put their heads together and preach oneness to the people of Kalangba town. Politics should not lead us apart because intermarriages had taken place between the Madingoes and the Lokos. Let us try to accept and understand each and everybody's political views and live a peaceful life like it used to be before so that children yet unborn could enjoy the benefit of our true labour. As the great reggae legend Bob Marley says and I quote "one love -- as it was in the beginning -- one love... so shall it be in the end -- one love." "Let us get together and then feel alright."
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