A version of this article was originally published at Al Jazeera English on January 26, 2013.

Freetown, Sierra Leone – Leaning against a wall, his eyes red and glazed over, Patrick Hindowa described how he spends his days getting high. “I got no job here,” he explained. “Whatever [drugs] I’m going to be able to do, I’m going to do. Because I really don’t have nothing.”

Huddled at the end of a narrow alleyway downtown, Hindowa and two friends shared stories of addiction and life on the street.

“My mother died, my father died,” recalled Bakar Sesay. “Since then – since I was a kid – I chose the street life. Coke and all that.” The 20-year-old said that he has used drugs since he was seven.

The group listed heroin as their favourite, with freebased cocaine a close second. When hard drugs were not available, they turn to marijuana, alcohol, amphetamines, or prescription pills – anything, really. “From the time we wake up, ’till the time we go to sleep,” one said.

Substance abuse has long been a problem for the impoverished West African country. Throughout the 1990s, a civil war gained international notoriety for the role played by drug-fuelled teenagers, who committed atrocities and launched an anarchic attack on the capital. The effects of marijuana, alcohol, and amphetamines contributed to the violence. When the conflict ended in 2002, many combatants returned home addicted to those substances.

In recent years, harder drugs – cocaine and, to a lesser extent, heroin – have become increasingly available, authorities and health practitioners say. They blame West Africa’s growing role as a transit route for the global narcotics trade. Cocaine comes from Latin America and heroin from Southeast Asia, officials explained, and through such countries as Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. The drugs then continue on to Europe and North America.

In one high-profile case in 2008, for example, Sierra Leone’s Minister of Transport and Aviation was dismissed for his alleged involvement in the landing of an airplane carrying 700 kilograms of cocaine. And in December 2011, police seized a shipment of cocaine reportedly en route from Ecuador.

Spillover effect

As smuggling activity has increased, there’s been a spillover effect. According to the United Nations’ 2012 World Drug Report, “increasing trafficking of cocaine through the coastal countries of West Africa is leading to an increase in cocaine use… with cocaine use possibly emerging alongside heroin use as a major problem”.

Dr Edward Nahim, an adviser to the Sierra Leone National Drug Enforcement Agency, explained that it is common for drug handlers to be paid with portions of the product they’re moving, which is contributing to a growing proliferation of those narcotics in Sierra Leone.

“These international traffickers don’t work with money; that is the problem,” Nahim said. “They pay people with the drugs, and that is how these drugs stay behind.”

The only certified psychiatrist in the country, Nahim estimated that 80 percent of the patients he sees are suffering from “drug-induced psychotic disorders”. He noted that for now, the majority of those cases stem from heavy abuse of alcohol and high-grade marijuana, but that he is also observing an increase in the use of cocaine and heroin.

Ibrahim Samura, assistant superintendent for Sierra Leone’s national police force, also said that drug abuse is on the rise. He described the situation as “alarming,” and linked it to “an increase in gangsterism”.

“They use [drugs] more than is necessary, and it spurs them to behave abnormally and do things they wouldn’t do in their right senses,” he said. “They kill, they rape, they smoke marijuana, they carry weapons and do criminal activities.”

Samura called attention to legislation passed in 2009 that created stiffer penalties for drug trafficking. In March 2010, the UN secretary-general’s representative to Sierra Leone praised such efforts, but argued that to effectively tackle Sierra Leone’s drug problem, the country’s high unemployment rate for young people must first be addressed. Some seventy percent of youth were unemployed or underemployed in 2010, according to government statistics.

Hidden in a congested area of downtown Freetown is the so-called “Lumley Street Cartel Ground”. Down a narrow entrance, barely visible amid a throng of market stalls, the collection of shacks is a hub for the distribution and use of drugs in the capital city.

Sitting on a chair off to one side of the unadorned space was an old woman – reportedly the wife of a police officer – with a long scar running down one side of her face. She refused to speak to journalists, but directed two of her dealers to act as escorts. For the next 30 minutes, the men moved though a labyrinthine network of alleys and side streets, to join a small group of youths who were willing to talk about how drugs were affecting their lives and communities.

‘I gotta do drugs … to wake me up’

Alimu Kamara said that everything he has goes to drugs. “I won’t come out of there [drug dens] with one penny,” the 24-year-old said. “All I do is smoke smoke smoke da brown-brown [heroin].”

Kamara and two childhood friends shared tattoos marking them as members of a gang called “Cens Coast Hood”, which they said distributed drugs across the country. The young men said they didn’t know where the relatively recent influxes of cocaine or heroin were coming from. “By plane, by boat – I don’t know,” one shrugged. Their only concern was the immediate need to get high, a priority they said was common among street-level dealers.

“I gotta do drugs to move around, to wake me up,” Kamara complained. “When I don’t have something, it’s hopeless.”

Asked if there was anything he would like to say on behalf of young people struggling with drugs, Kamara politely declined to answer. “I don’t feel like I can,” he explained. “I want to change myself first. Then I can say something.”

Though few options exist, there are places in Sierra Leone where individuals struggling with drugs can get help.

One is Nahim’s clinic in Freetown, though the psychiatrist noted that treating severe cases remained difficult. He explained that in a poor country such as Sierra Leone, medicines used to treat addiction, such as methadone, are prohibitively expensive. Nahim said he therefore employed the “cold turkey method”, despite it often entailing painful withdrawal symptoms. “We restrain you physically,” he said. “Then we give you very strong tranquilising drugs that will keep you asleep during that period, maybe for one or two days.”

Another option is “City of Rest”, the only dedicated mental health facility in Sierra Leone. There, Pastor Morie Ngobeh has helped men and women struggling with addiction and other disorders since 1985. He said that 25 of 40 beds provided for in-patient care were currently occupied by people with problems related to drugs and alcohol.

“In the 1980s, drug problems were very rare,” Ngobeh said. “Now, all kinds of drugs are in this country.”

Nahim and Ngobeh each have decades of experience working with addiction. In separate interviews, they both cited a lack of options for meaningful work as a primary factor driving young people to drugs.

“They are in the ghettos all day long, and for hours at night as well,” Nahim said. “And that’s on a regular, daily basis.” He argued that to begin to solve the country’s drug problem, it is this group of especially vulnerable people that must be made a priority.

Ngobeh echoed Nahim’s words. “When these young people are frustrated or depressed, they easily go to drugs,” he said. “They want to forget their problems. But they don’t forget… and that’s how most of them become addicted.”

More photos at my Flickr stream.

A version of this article was originally published at Al Jazeera English on January 26, 2013.

A version of this article was originally published at Al Jazeera English on December 12, 2012.

Freetown, Sierra Leone – Harry Kargbo barely slept the night before Sierra Leone’s recent election for president. “I was so excited,” he said. “I was up until 1 AM the night before. I was thinking, ‘What will happen tomorrow? What will tomorrow look like?’”

Four hours later, Kargbo was up and out the door. Armed with nothing more than a mobile phone, he spent the next 10 hours navigating his way through a vehicle ban and police checkpoints, observing voting at polling stations around this West African country’s capital, Freetown, and reporting on what he saw using the basic text messaging function on his phone.

“It was an inspiration for me to cover the election of my country,” Kargbo said. “People’s perception of Sierra Leone is to know it as war-torn – the place of blood diamonds… So it was to change perceptions.”

The 24-year-old student was one of 45 citizen journalists who filed reports for Radar, a UK-based organisation that ran a training and monitoring project for Sierra Leone’s election on November 17. The text messages sent by volunteers such as Kargbo were directed by a Google Labs project to a Gmail account, where they were received and analysed by Radar’s team in the UK. The reports sent via SMS – the technology on which text messages are carried – were then posted to a Tumblr website, pegged to a Google Map, and disseminated on Twitter.

“I think it [SMS] is one of the most powerful tools that we have for transparency and accountability,” said Libby Powell, Radar’s founder. “Everybody has a phone in their pocket and therefore has the ability to send messages out. And on a digital, global level, it gives a chance for everybody to read about what is happening in places that they can’t easily visit.”

Electronic monitoring

Radar’s project is one of many examples of how a diverse range of information in sub-Saharan Africa – on everything from elections to regional drug shortages – is increasingly being monitored electronically. SMS and web-mapping services such as Google Maps are favourite tools for these efforts.

A larger project similar to Radar’s is the “Citizen Situation Room“, which mapped reports from more than 9,000 observers spread out across Sierra Leone. That initiative, implemented by National Election Watch (NEW), drew on technologies previously deployed during elections in Senegal in February 2012 and Liberia in November 2011. And those efforts drew on the experiences of earlier observation missions in Nigeria, Uganda, and Kenya, among others.

There’s a growing list of high-profile supporters for these types of activities. Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, described the Senegal initiative as “perhaps the most sophisticated monitoring program ever deployed in Africa or anywhere else”. And media critic and Twitter all-star Jay Rosen called the Radar project “incredible“.

Perhaps the best-known example of a crowd-sourced SMS-mapping project in Africa was also one of the first. In a story told and retold in media outlets around the world (and discussed in more than one TED Talk,), a Kenyan blogger worked with a small team to develop an open-source piece of software called Ushahidi – Swahili for witness – which was originally designed to track 2008 post-election violence in Kenya. Ushahidi has since been adapted for a variety of projects that range from mapping Wi-Fi hotspots in India to corruption in Macedonia. (It was also used by Al Jazeera English to report on Israel’s 2008-09 attack on the Gaza Strip, and in 2012 in a project called “Somalia Speaks,” which presented the views of civilians affected by instability in the region.)

Ushahidi’s founder, Ory Okolloh, is now Google’s policy manager for sub-Saharan Africa. On the phone from Johannesburg, South Africa, Okolloh said that the goal of Google’s participation in election monitoring is to present information in a way that reduces uncertainty, and therefore promotes stability.

“What we’ve seen recently – in Liberia and then with the election in Sierra Leone – are projects where people are finding ways to use SMS and plug into tools like Google Maps and Fusion Tables to help visualise data,” she continued. “It’s an interesting example of combining high tech and low tech.”

Okolloh noted that more advanced technologies are also being employed. Ahead of December 7 elections in Ghana, candidates engaged voters using video services such as YouTube and Google Hangouts. “The quality of the data can be fantastic,” she said. “We had 50,000 people on a live stream for the first presidential debate for Ghana.”

Mobile phones for mapping

Some of these countries are among the world’s least developed. Of 187 nations listed on the Human Development Index, Sierra Leone ranks 180 and Liberia 182. (Uganda is 161, Senegal and Nigeria place in the mid-150s, and Kenya is 143.) Within them, there are significant disparities in rates of internet penetration. According to data made available by the World Bank, Nigeria and Kenya, for example, have roughly doubled the percentage of their populations online as the sub-Saharan average, and more than 10 times that of Sierra Leone and Liberia. But a similar data set for mobile phone users in Africa shows that populations’ access to simple technologies such as SMS is more equal.

At the core of these election monitoring projects are Nokia or Samsung handsets that sell for less than $30. It’s thought that more people in Africa have a mobile phone than access to electricity. And in 2012 – which happens to mark the 20th anniversary of the SMS – the proportion of the world’s population that owned a phone exceeded two-thirds.

Sierra Leone’s Citizen Situation Room (SaloneVote.com) is an enhanced version of the Senegal project praised by Hillary Clinton. At that website, thousands of detailed reports that all originated as a simple text message are presented on a Google Map and available for citizens to explore.

James Lahai, national coordinator for National Election Watch, explained how the system works. Trained observers were deployed to nearly 3,000 polling centers across the country, carrying checklists that listed numerical codes for specific observations, such as whether a polling centre opened on time. Those reports were accompanied by codes representing observers’ identities and locations, and sent to NEW’s head office in Freetown. The text messages were then digitally analysed for irregularities or conflicts with other reports. If a problem was identified, the message was directed to a “panel of experts” for investigation. If the software found no issue with the information, it continued on to a database and from there, was translated into a format that would see it displayed on the website and embedded in a Google Map.

“We were able to capture data rapidly from the field, and be able to inform the public about what was happening at every individual polling station across the country,” Lahai said. Information presented on the website was also communicated to local newspapers and radio stations so that it was available in areas of Sierra Leone where internet is not easily available.

NEW’s monitoring efforts were conducted in partnership with a number of organisations, including One World and SMAG Media, which were previously involved in similar projects in Senegal and Liberia respectively.

Jeffrey Allen, a programme coordinator for One World, explained that the organisation launched an SMS-based program in Senegal in 2010 that let people anonymously submit and receive answers to questions about reproductive health. They combined aspects of that model with monitoring activities focused on the February 2012 election, and the result was Sénégal-Scrutin (SeneVote2012.com).

“We didn’t want to do anything with smart phones or tablets,” he said. “We wanted to work with the phones that people already know. That’s why we used basic SMS. So it was out job to build a complex system that allows people to keep things simple.”

SMAG Media’s president, Sando Johnson, described a similar system employed for the November 2011 election in Liberia. “The results came in via SMS, hit the system, went into the database, and moved up the servers,” he said. “That whole process happened within a 15-minute interval.”

Lawrence Randall of the Liberia Media Center (LMC) – with which SMAG Media was partnered – described the election as “a day that I will never forget for the rest of my life.” He recounted working for 22 hours without a break while fielding phone calls from the likes of Al Jazeera and CNN.

“It is what now defines the LMC,” he said. “It is what we are known and remembered for.” The LMC has since gone on to employ similar technologies to track government projects and the spending of the federal budget.

One World and SMAG Media connected through mutual acquaintances in Sierra Leone and formed the partnership with NEW and the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) that culminated with the launch of the Citizen’s Situation Room, the most-sophisticated of any of the projects on which representatives of these organizations say they have worked.

Possible limitations

Pat Merloe, director of electoral programs at the Washington-based National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), described such efforts as an “advance in transparency in Africa and around the world”. But he called attention to the limitations of web-based efforts to monitor elections.

“People who don’t have access [to the internet] don’t get to see it,” he noted. “So the digital divide remains an important factor. But the penetration of mobile telephone technologies – including smart phones – is a great equaliser.”

Google’s Okolloh also emphasised the shortcomings of both low and high-tech resources. While the basic mobile phones ubiquitous in developing countries give people the ability to contribute to crowd-sourced websites, they do not provide access to the visual and dynamic representations of data that those contributions become.

Okolloh added that that is something Google is working on. Kenya is scheduled to hold general elections in March 2013, and Google is planning on lending support to monitoring efforts.

“The focus for us will be on our strengths in terms of making information more accessible, but doing it in a way where it is more accessible to local developers, media, and civil society groups who can then build more localized tools,” Okolloh said. “I think this contributes to the story of Africa for the last few years, where we are getting better at adapting technology in ways that make sense for us as African users.”

A version of this article was originally published at Al Jazeera English on December 12, 2012.

On November 17, 2012, Sierra Leone held national elections that were largely peaceful and without major incidents. In the weeks before, during, and after the vote, I conducted dozens of interviews with every sort of stakeholder. Here are three memorable conversations that never made it into published articles.

“On election day, I was so excited. I was up to 1:00 a.m. the night before. I was thinking, ‘What will happen tomorrow? What will tomorrow look like?’ I was thinking about it until I fell asleep. At 5:30 a.m., I got up with my iPhone. I had charged it all night and it was fully charged. And then I went out. The first [polling] center I went to, I saw a large number of people in the queue. And it was 6:00 a.m. I said, ‘Wow, people are very happy to come out and vote. That is lovely. Because I can recall – in 1996, I was a very young boy. But I can recall that people were afraid to vote because they said that if you went out there to go and vote, your hand would be cut off. Because during that time, we were in the rebel war. But this time, a lot of people were out there….It was an inspiration for me to cover the election of my country.” – Harry Kargo, 24 years old, election observer for On Our Radar in Freetown.

“What will I remember? There was an old man. When he came, he said, ‘Madame, my eyes are turning. I’m feeling bad. Please help me.’ So I went to the PO [polling officer] and I said, ‘PO, this man is not feeling well, and he wants to vote.’ So the PO too helped him. He took his ID card and went and found the right station where he should vote. And when he found out, he came back and said, ‘Let the old man go over there.’ And he went there, and they accepted him. And after he had voted, he came back to me and said, ‘Madame, thank you. I’m going.’ And I said, ‘Okay, no problem.’ ” – Gloria Mani, 45 years old, election observer for National Election Watch in Freetown.

“It’s smooth. People actually came here too early. 2:00 a.m., 3:00 a.m. So people have been waiting and they are frustrated. There is some anxiety. But so far, from what I’ve seen, it’s a walk in the park. People might be frustrated. But it’s better than Florida.” – Ato Brown, employee of the World Bank, on a polling station located next door to his home in Freetown.

A transcript of remarks by Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma delivered on the occasion of his swearing-in at the State House on November 23, 2012. The speech was made shortly after it was announced by the National Electoral Commission that Koroma was elected to a second term in office.

Related content: “High hopes for Sierra Leone president’s second term,” published on November 24, 2012, at Al Jazeera English.

“Honorable Speaker of the House, my lady, the Chief Justice, members of the diplomatic and consular core, fellow Sierra Leoneans, by the grace of God, I have again been elected as your president. The people have spoken. And their collective will has prevailed. I give praise and thanks to the almighty god for the great honor bestowed upon me to lead this great nation for a second time.

“This is a win for every Sierra Leonean. And I thank Sierra Leoneans for bringing about this victory for the land that we love. Sierra Leoneans displayed maturity, patience, and tolerance during the elections. These are enduring Sierra Leonean values. And we must continue to display them to sustain our peace, our democracy, and our development.

“We deeply appreciate the commitment of the National Electoral Commission, the Political Party Registration Commission, and the security forces. Through the Constitution of this country, and the sacred tenants of democracy, peace and security. We also applaud the many other state agencies, domestic and international monitors, civil society groups, and the media, for their positive contributions to ensuring credible, transparent, and peaceful elections in the country.

“My fellow Sierra Leoneans, you have given me and my party – the All People’s Congress – the mandate to govern our country for the next five years. You endorsed the achievements we made with the Agenda for Change, and asked us to continue on with the Agenda for Prosperity. This is my new contract with you.”

“We will focus on creating jobs for the youths and on training our youths to seize the immense employment opportunities we are creating in the construction, mining, agriculture, and other sectors.

“We will continue with the infrastructure development programs. We will continue to attract investment. We will continue to fight corruption. We will continue to protect and promote the rights of every woman, every man, youth, child, journalist, and civil society activist. The time for politics is over. The moment for continuing the transformation has come. This is the time for all of us to embrace each other. In the name of Mama Sierra Leone, let all APC supporters embrace every SLPP [Sierra Leone People's Party] supporter and supporters of other political parties. I am inviting the leadership of the SLPP and other political parties to join the leadership of the APC in moving this country forward.

“The job at hand requires the goodwill and positive energy of the membership of all political parties. Fellow Sierra Leoneans, democracy respects divisions. Good governance transcends divisions. I will make sure that the fruits of the Agenda for Prosperity are equality-distributed in every district and every region of the country. Our creation of jobs will be for the youths all over the country. Our focus on skills for employment will be for the youths of every political party. We will construct roads in every region, continue to bring electricity to every district, develop agriculture in every chiefdom, and provide free healthcare for mothers and children in every village. The work starts today.

“We know Sierra Leoneans everywhere are celebrating this victory. But let us celebrate within the law. Let us celebrate with grace, tolerance, and goodwill, that must be the cornerstone of the job at hand. Let us, as we celebrate, be mindful that work starts today. And every Sierra Leonean, from all political parties, regions, ethnic groups, age, and religion, is central to our Agenda for Prosperity. We must therefore embrace each other as we march forward with action, bravery, commitment, discipline, empathy, and fortitude. I assure you all that with tenacity of purpose and with great courage and determination, we will sustain our peace, democracy, and development. The future beckons with high hopes for a prosperous Sierra Leone, who’s sons and daughters will live together in peace, harmony, and enjoy the abundant fruits of our labor.

“God bless you all.”

Related content: “High hopes for Sierra Leone president’s second term,” published on November 24, 2012, at Al Jazeera English.

A version of this article was originally published at Al Jazeera English on November 24, 2012.

Freetown, Sierra Leone – Ernest Bai Koroma generally appeared at ease during his campaign for a second term as the president of Sierra Leone. Even when pushing crowds breached his entourage of bodyguards, the 59-year-old maintained a smile.

That confidence proved well-founded. Late Saturday, it was announced Koroma won 58.7 per cent of the vote – enough to avoid a runoff many anticipated he would have contest with opposition frontrunner Julius Maada Bio.

“You have given me and my party…the mandate to govern our country for the next five years,” Koroma said in a speech made shortly after results were released. “We will focus on creating jobs for youths and on training our youths to seize the immense employment opportunities we are creating.”

Koroma, a former insurance executive who entered politics in 2001, largely campaigned on the accomplishments of his first term in office.

His government is credited with rebuilding roads and restoring electricity to the capital and other cities after an 11-year civil war left infrastructure devastated. Foreign investors have started to return in recent years, promising much-needed tax revenue for the state and jobs for the country’s impoverished population of 5.5 million. And an initiative providing free healthcare for pregnant women, new mothers, and children under five has also proven popular.

Speaking at the State House, Koroma said that his government would continue with infrastructure projects and use his second term in office to bring paved roads and electricity to every region of the country. He also listed foreign investment and agriculture as priorities, and repeatedly emphasized a need to focus on youths.

Youth projects

“Five more years will mean very much for young people,” said David Sesay, president of the Sierra Leone Commercial Motor Bike Riders Union. The group boasts a membership of nearly 170,000 people, the vast majority of which are below the age of 35.

Sesay said that he’s watched foreign investment begin to return to Sierra Leone, and anticipates that those businesses will create jobs. “We are expecting a lot of young people to advance and prosper,” he added.

Nimata Majeks-Walker was a founding member of the 50/50 Group, which has promoted women’s rights in Sierra Leone since 2000. “President Koroma has made many promises saying that there will be improvements in gender equality,” she said. “We want to see results. He has made all kinds of promises and we have believed him. But we have not yet achieved what we have set out to.”

Majeks-Walker wants to see a bill passed setting a quota for women to hold 30 per cent of decision-making roles in government. She said Koroma has voiced his support for the idea. “We now want him to work with us and actually deliver this,” she said.

The National Electoral Commission reported that voter turnout was just over 87 per cent.

The election – the third since the end of the conflict and the first held without international assistance – was viewed as a crucial test for Sierra Leone’s fragile democracy. It was also a winner-takes-all contest for the country’s natural resources, which include iron ore, gold, diamonds, timber, and oil.

‘Largely calm and peaceful’

International observers including a European Union mission and the Carter Centre praised the vote as fair and largely peaceful. The EU did note what it described as an “unequal playfield,” where the governing All People’s Congress (APC) “clearly benefited from the advantages of incumbency by making use of state resources.” And all 10 political parties were criticised for failing to enhance female participation in politics. However, the consensus among observers was that the vote on November 17 was a landmark moment in Sierra Leone’s transition to a stable democracy.

“There was a widespread fear of violence,” said EU chief observer Richard Howitt. “There were some small-scale isolated incidents. But the campaign and polling day itself were largely calm and peaceful.”

Kevin Lewis, managing editor of Sierra Leone’s Awoko newspaper, said that the electorate is thought to have voted along tribal and geographic lines, as it did in 2007.

The APC secured the votes of the Temne and Limba peoples in the north and west, and Maada Bio’s Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) took the support of the Mende in the south and east. Where the APC is understood to have picked up the swing votes that it needed to secure an absolute majority was Freetown, which has often shifted its allegiances, and the eastern region of Kono. The diamond-rich area has historically sided with the SLPP, but this year, is home to Koroma’s wife and vice president – connections that helped the APC overcome tribal loyalties.

“It worked well,” Lewis said. “It seems that Kono’s vote has taken the APC to a win.” But Lewis stressed that the vote should also be viewed as an endorsement of the last five years. People should therefore expect more of the same, he continued. Mainly, a continued push to provide basic services.

Wilfred Sam-King, an entrepreneur building a chain of six hotels, described roads and electricity as “the bedrock of economic development.” He cautioned that Sierra Leone is still years away from a real tourism industry, but maintained that the first steps are being taken.

The businessman said that he’s also observed progress in the mining sector, and expects foreign investors’ interest in Sierra Leone to increase now that a president they know has been elected for a second term.

“I’m looking forward to a stable government that will support such business,” he said. “I look forward to seeing conditions for greater prosperity for the private sector.”

Long-term goals

Koroma has said he will continue courting multinational corporations. But critics argue that the profits of such agreements are failing to find their way to the masses. People are increasingly-complaining about bread-and-butter issues, on which the APC’s record is not as strong.

“Look at the price of a bag of rice,” said Kindo Samura, a businesswoman who was disappointed with Koroma’s win. “Now we buy it for so much more. And it is the same for my children going to school. The cost of living is now exorbitantly high.”

The main challenge the Koroma government could face in the years ahead is keeping a young and idle population content. An estimated 73 per cent of Sierra Leone is under the age of 35. According to a 2010 government report, 70 per cent of that group is unemployed or underemployed, and 50 per cent is illiterate and unskilled.

One week before the election, Peter Penfold, former British High Commissioner to Sierra Leone, warned that unemployed youths are fueling a growing drug trade. “If, as one hopes, democracy has firmly taken root in Sierra Leone and the disaffected youth no longer consider taking up AK-47s and going into the bush a viable option, they may well increasingly turn to the drugs trade to fill the gap left by no alternative means of profitable employment,” Penfold wrote.

In the hours following the announcement of Koroma’s victory, any challenges ahead were the last thing on people’s minds. In the streets of Freetown, government supporters banged pots and pans, sang APC party anthems, and danced late into the night.

Chernor Bah, an 18-year-old who volunteered at a polling station the day of the vote, emphasized that this year’s contest marks the third democratic election since the end of the conflict. “People only talk about Sierra Leone and the war,” he remarked. Bah noted that with a winner officially declared, people’s worst fears of violence were proven unfounded.

“The war don don,” he said, referencing a popular Krio expression. “This shows it’s forever finished.”

More photos at my Flickr stream.

A version of this article was originally published at Al Jazeera English on November 24, 2012.

Today the people of Sierra Leone voted in a democratic election that passed without any major incidents. It was the third national contest since the country emerged from an 11-year civil war that ended in 2002.

Hundreds of volunteers slept overnight at polling stations and people began lining up to vote as early as 2:00 a.m.

“I’m doing this to help my country,” said Chernor Bah, one of those volunteers who, since he is just 19 years old, was voting for the first time in his life. “This is for development. It is for our prosperity.”

When we started the day at 6:30 a.m. in Freetown’s west, the woman at the very front of the line was Degba Sesay, 74 years old. “Today, we feel fine,” she said. “No violence.”

Here’s a selection of photographs from around the capital city.

More photos at my Flickr stream.

A version of this article was originally published at Al Jazeera English on November 16, 2012.

Freetown, Sierra Leone – Bashiru Conteh was one of thousands of child soldiers unwillingly drafted into a civil war that saw more than 50,000 people killed. It was 15 years ago and he was just a boy when he was forced to fight, but Conteh said that he remembers everything.

Ahead of elections on November 17, the young man recalled encounters “in the bush” with Eldred Collins, one of ten candidates running for president of Sierra Leone. During the war, Collins was the spokesperson for the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), the most notorious of several rebel groups that terrorized much of the country from 1991 to 2002.

The thought of Collins takes his mind back to the war, Conteh said.

“I see him with the red beret on his head, I see him in an open jeep, I see him with a couple of RUF fighters behind him, with their RPGs and their guns,” he recounted. “I still see him punishing fighters who refused to take commands. I see him giving orders to fighters to carry out attacks, and even commit atrocities like amputations, the burning of houses, and killings.”

Conteh, who lost his mother and father in the conflict, argued that the political manifestation of the RUF – the Revolutionary United Front Party (RUFP) – has no place in the country’s fragile democracy. “It rekindles the bitterness, the pain, the agony that people went through during the 11 years of civil war,” he said.

From fighters to politicians

The political transformation of the RUF began in 1999, with the signing of the Lomé Peace Accord. That agreement between the government of Sierra Leone and the RUF granted the latter a role in the country’s transitional government. At the same time, it created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).

The TRC’s final report catalogs crimes committed by every side in the conflict, but singles out the RUF as “responsible for the largest number of human rights violations.” Detailed are the RUF’s roles in “indiscriminate amputations, abductions of women and children, recruitment of children as combatants, rape, sexual slavery, cannibalism, gratuitous killings and wanton destruction of villages and towns.”

The RUF was also heavily involved in the illicit trade of so-called “blood diamonds,” largely through the support of former Liberian president Charles Taylor. On April 26, 2012, Taylor was found guilty at The Hague of aiding and abetting war crimes in Sierra Leone. The court’s verdict states that Taylor sold diamonds and purchased weapons on behalf of the RUF, and that his support for the rebel group contributed to the longevity and brutality of the war in Sierra Leone.

At an upscale hotel in Freetown, Eldred Collins maintained that the RUF fought the war with the specific objective of bringing democracy to Sierra Leone, and that that goal was achieved.

“When the truth comes out, you will know that most of the things that have been said about the RUF are wrong,” he said. “It is because of the RUF that we have democratic parties in Sierra Leone.”

Collins argued that the two leading parties – the incumbent All People’s Congress (APC) and the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), which led the country from 2002 to 2007 – have been slow to bring development and have failed the country’s youth. If the RUFP were elected, Collins continued, it would bring free education for children and training for youth in sciences and technology.

“2012, we are going full-swing into the election,” he emphasised. “We want power. We want to give the people what they need.”

‘Most parties have blood on their hands’

The RUFP remains on the fringe of Sierra Leone politics. It failed to see a single representative elected in both the 2002 and 2007 elections, and this year, is expected to garner no more than three percent of the vote. However, 2012 has seen the RUFP expand party infrastructure across the country. According to statistics supplied by the organizations headquarters in Freetown, the RUFP now boasts an estimated 8,000 members – the most since its inception. It’s also opened party offices in 10 of 14 districts, and is running 56 candidates for seats in the country’s 124-member parliament, plus 81 aspirants for local councillorships.

Where the RUFP could see its voice amplified is in the situation of a runoff election, which many expect will be required after the vote on November 17. If neither the APC or SLPP secures an absolute majority, the RUFP’s percentage of the vote could go far in helping one of the larger parties secure the 55 percent of the electorate needed for a victory.

Despite the RUF’s atrocities committed during the war, most Sierra Leoneans are content to see them take part in elections.

Kabba Williams was captured by the RUF in 1991, when he was just six years old. He said he has little doubt that Collins committed war crimes. Yet in the next breath, Williams mounted a strong defense for Collins right to participate in elections.

“Most of these parties have blood on their hands,” he explained. “But the reason why we are encouraging them to participate is because we have talked about the need to forgive and forget. To make the peace more sustainable, let’s involve them.”

Amputations

At a community outside Freetown called Amputee Village, three men with “long sleeve” cuts below their elbows told the sorts of stories for which the war in Sierra Leone is so well known. They recounted being organised into lines and, one by one, subjected to crude amputations. Two said that they walked through forests with severed limbs that went without medical attention for several days.

The mention of the RUFP led Mohamed Tarawallie to shift his gaze to the ground. “We’re not ready for them to exist again in this country,” he said. Tawarwallie has never met Collins, but recalled hearing his voice on the radio during the conflict. “Of course we all remember him,” he said.

Yet Tarawallie and other victims of the RUF’s amputations defended the political party’s right to take part in elections. The men said that they didn’t want to see the RUFP have a say in government, but argued that the former rebel group’s inclusion is crucial to maintaining peace in Sierra Leone.

Memunatu Pratt is head of peace and conflict studies at Sierra Leone’s Fourah Bay College. She emphasized the significance of the “backdrop of social malaise” from which the RUF emerged.

“The history of the RUF is a history that came about as the result of economic, social, and political decadence of the state of Sierra Leone, right from 1967 up to 1991,” she explained. “There was a need for change to the extent that Sierra Leoneans were saying that if they did not fight for their country, there would never be change.”

Pratt recalled that one of the key factors that gave rise to the RUF was the exclusion of groups from politics. She argued that the same mistake should not be made twice.

“It is very difficult for people to associate with the RUFP because of the trauma of the war and the legacy of the violence,” Pratt said. “But Most Sierra Leoneans you talk to are happy that the RUF is participating.” She added that support for the RUFP is so low that it’s unlikely they’ll ever play a significant role in the politics of the country.

However, Pratt called attention to the possible role of a “third force” in the election. If a second round of voting is required for the APC or SLPP to win the presidency, the support of minority parties will be very important, she noted. And with the RUFP strongest in the eastern districts of Kono and Kailahun, Collins’ support would be especially useful to the APC, which is based in the west of the country.

“The RUFP could be valuable to the APC,” she said. “But I don’t think they have the numbers.”

Collins was more optimistic. “We know, come one day, we will take power through the ballot box,” he said.

More photos at my Flickr stream.

A version of this article was originally published at Al Jazeera English on November 16, 2012.

A version of this article was originally published at Think Africa Press on November 16, 2012.

Freetown, Sierra Leone – In 2009, Elizabeth Torto ran in an election for paramount chief of Kono District, Sierra Leone. Her father held the position before he passed away, as did his father, and Torto’s great grandfather before that.

“It was my inherited right that I be paramount chief,” she tells Think Africa Press. But there had never been a female chief of Kono. “There was violence,” Torto recalls, “the community divided. The United Nations intervened because of what they were hearing on the radio.”

Media reports from that time describe incidents in which members of the all-male Paro Society blocked roads leading out of the district capital of Koidu and attacked vehicles suspected of carrying Torto. The UN hastily facilitated a helicopter evacuation to Freetown.

Torto refused to give up, and took the matter to the courts. There, she encountered the same sort of opposition that had interrupted her campaign in Kono. “There was a judge. He said, ‘My hands are tied. This one comes from above,” Torto continues.

Reflecting on the situation, Torto says she wished she had known women in positions of power who she could have called on to assist her. “It would have made things much easier,” she concludes.

On the ticket

Tomorrow, on November 17, Sierra Leoneans have an opportunity to elect such a person.

In what is expected to be a tight race between the incumbent All People’s Congress (APC) and the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), the SLPP’s Kadi Sesay could become the country’s first female vice-president.

Sesay has been the first woman to fill a number of high-profile positions in Sierra Leone. She was the first woman to head a department at Fourah Bay College, the top educational institute in the country. She then went on to head the National Commission for Democracy, which was instrumental in Sierra Leone’s transition to a multi-party state. Soon after, she was Sierra Leone’s first female Minister of Development and Economic Planning, and then Minister of Trade and Industry.

“I have always played a role that is not the typical, stereotyped role for women,” Sesay explains at her home in Freetown. “It’s been a little difficult…there have been quite a few people who are not sure whether the country is ready.”

On the SLPP ticket alongside Julius Maada Bio for president, Sesay said that if elected, she will work to open up political and economic space for more women to secure positions of power in Sierra Leone.

The SLPP is widely viewed as the underdog to President Ernest Bai Koroma and the APC. But there are ten political parties, and many observers speculate that the vote will be close enough to deny the APC an absolute majority. Without 55% of the electorate, a second round of voting will be required. In that situation, the SLPP could stand a realistic chance of securing enough of the smaller parties’ supporters to take a surprise victory.

Women under-represented

Such a win would arrive at the end of a tumultuous year for women’s rights in Sierra Leone.

On September 25, time ran out on efforts to pass legislation that would have required 30% of candidates for the 2012 election to be female. The private-members bill could have been passed with a package of eight other bills voted through parliament just before the session’s close. But the quota for women’s participation in government was shelved for a future sitting.

“It was set up to fail,” claims Nimata Majeks-Walker, founder of the 50/50 Group, which has promoted women’s rights in Sierra Leone since 2000. She speculates that male parliamentarians view the bill as a threat, and argues that women are being systematically kept out of politics.

“We feel that women have played a very active part in bringing peace to Sierra Leone,” Majeks-Walker continues. “If we played a very active part in bringing peace, we have a right to take part in managing the peace.”

But even if a bill requiring 30% of policy-makers to be women had passed, it is unlikely that political parties would have met that quota. According to the National Electoral Commission, just 38 of 586 parliamentary nominees registered for the 2012 election were women – or 6.5%. According to a September 2010 report by the Institute for Development Studies, women currently hold 13.5% of seats in Sierra Leone’s parliament. If voting patterns follow political parties’ nominations of women therefore, the upcoming election could reduce female representation by nearly half.

The SLPP slate for 2012 includes more spots for women than average – roughly 20%, according to Sesay. But APC officials conceded that as few as 5% of their candidates are women.

“We could have done better,” says Elizabeth Mans, president of the APC’s National Women’s Congress. “But at the end of the day, it comes down to one thing: you have to win the election. To win an election, you can’t have just any female candidates; you have to have the right female candidates.”

Mans says that part of the problem is men nervous of sharing power. But she argues that it is also a challenge to convince women to leave roles assigned to them by a patriarchal society.

“Bringing in women, from that culture, that background – it takes time,” she says. “It is about making the women step up.”

Pushing for change?

Barbara Bangura is a lead consultant with the Women’s Situation Room, which promotes dialogue for peaceful elections. She cautions against assuming a female politician will work for women simply because of their sex.

“One of the challenges we’ve had is we have not been able to access our female politicians,” Bangura explains. “They’ve either been busy or there’s been a gap in terms of accessing them.”

A complaint repeated by APC-supporters is that during Sesay’s two terms as a federal minister, she neglected women’s issues and ignored women working at a grassroots level.

But Bangura says she has high hopes for Sesay. “We have access to her, which I think is very important,” Bangura explains. “She’s contacted people before to talk about issues and things like that. So I think it will be to our advantage if we have a woman as running mate.”

In addition, Sesay has weathered political opponents’ attacks on her character, the nature of which are a major concern for women contemplating public life in Sierra Leone.

“That is one of the reasons that women here are scared to come forward, because the men will concoct all kinds of stories,” Sesay says. She explains that it is common for female candidates to have to cope with rumours of sexual misconduct, and that even the possibility of such accusations dissuades many women from entering politics.

“This is a way of dampening the spirits of women, this is tantamount to violence against women,” Sesay charges. She notes that she has experienced such attacks, but has not been embarrassed.

“The more they insult me, the more they are going to lose votes,” she says. “I believe that, so it doesn’t matter. I am not intimidated.”

A version of this article was originally published at Think Africa Press on November 16, 2012.

A version of this article was originally published at Al Jazeera English on November 2, 2012.

Freetown, Sierra Leone – At the edge of a rally for Sierra Leone’s largest opposition party, a group of teenagers harassed people exiting taxis on their way to the march. The youths shouted slogans in support of the ruling All People’s Congress (APC) and attempted to block their rivals’ way.

Mohamed Kaigbo, an 18-year-old dressed in the APC’s colours of red and white, said that all of his friends are planning to vote for President Ernest Bai Koroma when the election is held on November 17.

“We have light, water, and all these things that APC brought us,” Kaigbo continued. “We like APC. They take care of us.” The young man also said that he expects to receive SL$80,000 ($18) for each political rally he attends ahead of the vote.

Kaigbo explained that money, food, and alcohol, are provided by a local representative of the APC; in exchange, he ensures that his group of friends make a public show of their support.

Youths play one of the most-visible roles in Sierra Leone political campaigns. They run at the front of parades, host concerts where crowds dance to party anthems, and this year, took the lead in voter registration drives. They’re also widely blamed for violence during election seasons.

Youths throwing stones

On October 27, ten people were injured in what the opposition Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) described as APC youths throwing stones. The incident occurred in the diamond-rich area of Kono, a key swing district. The SLPP has also claimed that APC supporters stabbed two of its members in Freetown, the capital, as they made their way home from another party function held on the same day.

The European Union Election Observation Mission in Sierra Leone has identified possible violence as stakeholders’ ‘”main concern” threatening the electoral process. Advocates for youth argue that young people are not at fault. They maintain that political elites take advantage of a marginalised segment of society struggling with high rates of unemployment and poverty.

A decade after the end of a civil war that attracted international attention for its proliferation of child soldiers, Sierra Leone’s youth remain vulnerable.
A 2010 government report states that 70 per cent of youths are unemployed or underemployed and 50 per cent are illiterate and unskilled. The document notes that these conditions mean youth are prone to engaging in political violence.

“Youths have always been used,” said Barrie Abubakarr, national program coordinator for Africa Youth for Peace and Development (Sierra Leone). “They give them drugs, give them alcohol, and organise them to perpetrate violence, to disturb the election process. The purpose is to benefit political parties.”

Abubakarr argued that once youths have played their part for the campaigns, they are forgotten and receive little attention from the state. “It is a clear manipulation,” he said.

‘Potent force’

Sierra Leone has a long history of youths’ involvement in election-related violence.

An April 2011 report by the Africa Research Institute (ARI) states that since independence in 1961, every major political contest in the country has been marred by some level of hostility. “Youth groups have become a more potent force in Sierra Leone’s elections than ethnicity or regionalism,” the document reads. “Young men are brought into the party youth wings – for token payments or promises of future benefits – to intimidate voters and break up opposition rallies.”

The ARI report notes that during the 2007 presidential election – just five years after the end of the civil war – political parties including the APC used “high profile ex-combatants” to fill the ranks of personal security units. Campaigns became so violent that the vote was nearly suspended and a state of emergency declared.

More recently, in March 2009, five days of clashes between supporters of the two main parties climaxed with an attack on the SLPP’s headquarters in Freetown. And in September 2011, SLPP presidential candidate Julius Maada Bio suffered a head injury in an assault allegedly made by APC supporters; tit-for-tat violence followed. A public inquiry into the latter episode found that attacks were not spontaneous but premeditated and orchestrated by a small group of individuals.

Efforts are underway to promote youths’ peaceful participation in campaigns. There have been “no nonsense” carnivals and concerts aimed at bringing together young people from all political parties. And on October 23, an NGO called Restless Development launched a “Youth Manifesto,” which presents the views of young people and seeks to counter a “negative discourse around youth and governance”.

Thea Lacey, partnership manager at Restless Development, said that their research found a high level of enthusiasm for the election, but a lack of political awareness and meaningful participation.

She noted that while 93 per cent of eligible youths surveyed reported to have registered to vote, only 23 per cent were aware of policies influencing their wellbeing. When the study was conducted in 2011, 75 per cent of those who intended to vote had already decided who they would support. Lacey said that many young people feel their views are not taken into account. When politicians do engage with them, she said, it’s often only for partisan gains.

“A lot of people are saying that they feel politicians have historically, and continue to, use young people in a negative way,” she said. “Groups of young people…are basically formed into mobs. And I think people very-much assume that that is still a risk.”

Representatives for the two leading parties rejected responsibility for violence attributed to youth.

Violence-free election

Sulaiman Tejan-Sie, secretary general for the SLPP, said that every Sierra Leonean is asking for a violence-free election, and that is what the SLPP will do its part to deliver. He criticised the ruling APC for allegedly continuing to bribe young people for their support.

“That is what the party in power is known for, giving kids handouts like t-shirts and money for votes,” Tejan-Sie argued. “We say ‘no.’ We believe in giving them a hand up.”

Peter Mansaray, executive secretary for the APC’s Youth League, acknowledged that some perceptions of young people as political actors are not positive. “Youths have, over the years, been used as political tools, as perpetrators,” he said. “Ironically, they have been the victims of this.”

According to Mansaray, the APC is making concerted efforts to improve youth’s role in government. For the 2012 election, the APC aimed for 10 per cent of its candidates to be men and women aged 18-35, he said, claiming the party exceeded its goal by a wide margin.

Sitting on the outskirts of a traditional festival sponsored by the APC, Eniel Kamara, a youth programmes coordinator for a group called the Hermad Foundation, said little would change for youth, regardless of who wins the November 17 vote.

Down the street, thousands of young men and women draped in the APC’s red and white drank alcohol and danced to songs calling for a second term for President Koroma.

“At the end of the day, when one of these two parties comes into power, the youths will not have a voice,” Kamara said. “The same thing happened in 2007. The same youths came out in large numbers for the past government and since then, they haven’t benefited in any way. Nothing for the youth.”

More photos at my Flickr stream.

A version of this article was originally published at Al Jazeera English on November 2, 2012.

A version of this article was originally published at Journalists for Human Rights on October 25, 2012.

Zwedru, Liberia – Joseph Tahyor recalled one day last August when he and some 600 other residents of B’hai Jozon were asked to leave their homes. Men, women, and children, set out first-thing in the morning, and travelled from the Liberian side of the border with Côte d’Ivoire to the relative-safety of Toe Town, some 10 kilometers east.

“They all walked on foot,” Tahyor recounted. “We left for three days before we came back here….when it was no-longer serious fighting.”

Tahyor said that soldiers with the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) facilitated the move, and that everything went smoothly enough. But he noted that roughly a quarter of those who left have yet to return to B’hai, afraid of another outbreak of violence related to ongoing unrest in Côte d’Ivoire.

Security has returned to the area, residents agreed. But life is more difficult than it was before. It’s the conflict’s impact on trade that is felt most acutely. Even basic staples have become scarce, residents reported. “We have children who are suffering,” one woman complained. “No food.”

The situation is the same in many villages in Liberia’s eastern border region. The Government has stated that it is aware of such complaints. But most crossings have remained closed for more than four months now, since a June 8 attack killed seven UN Peacekeepers and eight civilians.

In November 2010, former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo lost a democratic election but refused to concede defeat. In the ensuing months, clashes between Gbagbo supporters and those of the new President of Côte d’Ivoire, Alassane Ouattara, left more than 1,500 people dead. Gbagbo was eventually captured and sent to the International Criminal Court at The Hague. But sporadic violence has continued, with most attacks occurring in Côte d’Ivoire’s east.

On June 9, 2012, the Government of Liberia launched Operation Restore Hope, which aims to secure the porous border that runs for hundreds of kilometers through dense forest. People in B’hai said that they feel safer since the deployment of soldiers to the area. But they also unanimously complained of economic hardships that have come with the military’s deployment.

Joanna Zeah, a business woman and mother of six, explained that B’hai residents’ primary trading partners were towns in Côte d’Ivoire. When the AFL arrived, they sealed the border, which has remained closed ever since. Links to suppliers and markets were severed.

“From Ivory Coast, we could get food,” Zeah said. “But the border is closed. When they open the border, then our children can eat.”

Grace David, another merchant, said that the situation has forced the town’s women to search for food in the surrounding forest.

“We go in the bush but it is scary,” she added. “You can be in there and people can come and no one will know. Even to be there for just one hour’s time is scary. If something will happen to you, who will know? Nobody.”

The economic situation in B’hai Jozon is just one of many ways that the low-grade conflict in Côte d’Ivoire is spilling over into Liberia, noted Peter Solo, superintendent for Grand Gedeh, one of four Liberian counties that border Côte d’Ivoire.

In the county capital of Zwedru, Solo described how repeated influxes of Ivorian refugees have become a preoccupation for social service providers previously aiding Liberian communities in need. At the same time, he continued, the economic impact caused by the closure of the border means such assistance is in greater demand.

“We think the government in Côte d’Ivoire needs to fast track a sincere reconciliation process there,” Solo said. “We would greatly benefit from that.”

At B’hai’s closed border crossing, residents emphasized that they were grateful for the improved level of security. But everybody stressed the need for economic assistance, and said that fears of further attacks remain.

“It is two times that this has happened,” said Neeinwley Cooper, vice principal for B’hai-Nicko Elementary and Junior High School. He recounted a second incident, when villagers had to run away in the night.

“The rebels started shooting randomly, heavy guns. And so the whole town left,” he said. “Maybe we will have to run away again. Who knows what will happen tomorrow.”

A version of this article was originally published at Journalists for Human Rights on October 25, 2012.