Commentary
By Gbaksondo Kloiloi, Freetown, Sierra Leone
James Cleverly is the current Foreign Secretary for the United Kingdom. This is huge. No Sierra Leonean has ever climbed to the top of such a tremendously high mountain anywhere outside Sierra Leone.
Cleverly (seen in Sierra Leone in photo with British High Commissioner Lisa Chesney behind him) made us forget the barbarous civil war and all the sadness asociated with it. He made us forget the Blood Diamonds Hollywood created with a country that does not look like Sierra Leone and whose actors did not look like or talk like Sierra Leoneans. No wonder it (the movie) soon dropped out of sight.
Now we have James Cleverly, whose mother was born in Sierra Leone but lived in the UK for quite a long time. Cleverly can have a Sierra Leone diplomatic passport if he wants it. But I do not think he needs one, his DNA is enough for him.
Cleverly visited Sierra Leone for the first time a couple of days ago. His family in Bo, the second largest city in Sierra Leone, must have wept loudly. But they must also have hugged him with joy. And those old enough to remember his mother will weep again. It is the African way.
Cleverly is participating in the ongoing restoration of the dignity and past glory of Sierra Leone as the country that was home to the first university in Africa south of the Sahara, the first to have a railway, a radio station, a newspaper, pipe-borne water, cars, schools and so on. It was the headquarters of British West Africa and the Governor for the whole of Anglophone West Africa lived there. Think about that.
Cleverly said the UK government is interested in helping women and children. That is exactly what the current Julius Maada Bio government is doing in Sierra Leone and many other things. The two brothers will therefore have many shared goals and objectives.
Cleverly is a blessing and a gift from God. Welcome, brother.
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