SIERRA LEONE: Honeymoon Between President Kabbah And Students Ends

By Lansana Fofana Reprint | | Print |

Lansana Fofana

FREETOWN, Nov 12 1998 (IPS) - The honeymoon between President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah and university students, who played a major role in getting rid of the Sierra Leone’s military junta in February, appears to have ended.

The students have for the first time publicly criticised Kabbah’s government for refusing to address the grievances of the university lecturers and workers.

The lecturers and workers, who number over 1,000, are demanding salary arrears running in backlog of five months.

The strike has crippled normal academic functions and rendered campus almost uninhabitable. The students are particularly angry with the university administration’s inability to clear up the accumulated heap of rotten garbage and clean up the toilets, which have not been attended to since the industrial action began over a week ago.

“Students have paid colossal amount in tuition fees and other charges and so we cannot sit idly by and allow this disruption of our academic programmes to continue for long,” warns Alimamy Baba Silla, President of the Student Union of Fourah Bay College, part of the University of Sierra Leone.

“If the workers’ grievances are not addressed immediately, students will have no choice but to join the strike,” Silla warns.

Mendi Bangura, who is president of the Supporting Staff Association of the University of Sierra Leone, is equally adamant. “We will not call off the strike until the government pays every single cent of our salary arrears,” he says. “We have no choice but to take this course of action, so as to remind government of its obligation”.

Throughout the struggle for the restoration of Kabbah’s government, which was overthrown in a military coup in May 1997, students played a pivotal role. A massive student pro-democracy demonstration against the military junta of Johnny Paul Karoma, in August 1997 resulted in the deaths of ten university students and the rape and detention of over 50.

“This government could least afford a showdown with students, who have suddenly become a strong base of support,” says political commentator, Bai Sandi.

“If the government allows the situation to degenerate further, then it risks the possibility of confrontation with students,” he says.

The government doesn’t appear to have enough money to pay the striking workers. “The government simply doesn’t have the money to pay up,” a ministry of education official told IPS this week, and urged “the university workers to exercise some caution.”

The government returned from exile in Guinea in March only to find the state coffers pillaged by officials of the defunct military regime. It also is battling with troops loyal to the deposed military junta and rebels of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) operating in the mineral-rich districts of Kono and Kailahun.

The inability to control the two districts has affected the government’s cash-flow. Besides, the government is trying to combat the growing corruption in the West African country.

Universities have also been affected. Rebels have burnt down the provincial campus of Njala university college, and vandalised Fourah Bay College.

Right now, students are learning under difficult circumstances. And there have been calls for the overhaul of the country’s higher institutions of learning.

“This is no surprise because what we see at the university is a mere reflection of the wider national problem,” says final-year student Amadu Wurie.