THE OSWALD HANCILES COLUMN The ‘tin-gods’ are not “God”, of course (Article published October 4, 2010) On Tuesday, October 26, 2010, the indictment by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) of the Commissioner-General of the National Revenue Authority (NRA), Allieu Sesay, set all the electronic and human airwaves in Freetown into a gossipy cauldron. That was even before – I reliably learned – some staff in many public sector institutions he had worked in had started downloading from the internet and printing out the news flash on Allieu’s indictment by the ACC, and gleefully circulating it like a war trophy. That was before the news flashed around Africa through BBC radio. Some would call it fame earned through notoriety – as all global anti-corruption, human rights, freedom of information, governance institutions would turn their searchlights on Allieu’s case – but, Allieu Sesay always had, and would continue to have, ‘Pop Star Quality’. Those who went to university with, or, were taught in Fourah Bay College-University of Sierra Leone by, or, worked under Allieu Sesay when he was Commissioner-General of the National Revenue Authority between early 2008 and late 2009 would bemoan his arrogance, denounce his spasmodic harshness, but, there is a consensus among even his most caustic critics – “Allieu is intellectually brilliant!!!”. One serious-minded NRA staff with economics Masters degree from an European university, even in the throes of Allieu Sesay’s current legal problem, could not disguise his awe for Allieu’s intellect: “Allieu is a genius!! He is erudite, articulate, and persuasive (with the salesmanship glib that could get a salesman to sell sand to Arabs in the desert); and his writing skills are first class….(Allieu, though an economics graduate, has powerful writing skills, and would be more sensitive to the nuance of the English language than most English Language graduates, having a professorial eye to spot any missing comma, semi colon, and would slam a subordinate staff with an intimidating glare)”. The main business of a football coach is to train his team to score goals and win games, and he would not be rewarded for how much his team is able to stylishly dribble on the football field; a politician is determined successful if he wins elections, not how articulate he is on the campaign stumping; a revenue head has to be judged as being successful based on the “bottom line” of revenue increase in an institution he manages. In that context, even with the 57 count Anti-Corruption Commission indictment hanging over his head, objective writers, and historians, would judge the tenure of Allieu Sesay as Commissioner-General of the NRA based on the ‘bottom line’ of revenue figures. Highly successful!!!! As C-G of the NRA, the IMF and Government of Sierra Leone gave Allieu a target of Le638,868 billion in 2008 – the fresh-on-the-job just-38-years-old Allieu almost scaled through that hurdle by energizing the NRA to collect Le615,645 billion. In 2009, the sharp-minded Allieu, who was for almost a decade Director of Revenues in the finance ministry, having learned the ropes of practical revenue collection, was given a target of Le668,343 billion – and confounded the skeptics by collecting, during a year of global economic crisis, revenues of Le700,32 billion!!! Applaud, ye dispassionate objective citizenry!!! ‘Micro-look’ the figures: In the Income Tax Department under Allieu in 2009, target set by the IMF and GoSL was Le213,023 billion – Allieu’s NRA collected Le228,988: he got lawyers, doctors, engineers…etc. who used to evade taxes to start paying their taxes. (The only comparison to Allieu’s achievement in the NRA took place only in ONE YEAR, 2004, when the Dr. John Karimu-controlled NRA, with a revenue target of Le314,896 billion – actually collected Le319,231 billion). In highlighting the strong points of Allieu Sesay at this point in time, my aim is to give journalistic objectivity to appreciating the looming tragedy that could face this world-class FBC and Japanese-trained intellectual who just two years ago was ensconced in that gilded world where he daily would hobnob with IMF and DfID experts at highest levels…. but now has to face prosecution for crimes that would make his name forever easy to be googled whenever the ignoble act of “corruption” are searched for. So, what lessons are we to learn as regards the title of this piece on ‘tin gods’ who think, talk, and act as if they are “God”? Ethical reasons rein me from going into too much specifics. But, you can read between the lines as I comment on what ‘tin gods’ are. It is a term for those who when they get power tend to abuse power; are inclined to be arrogant, thinking themselves ‘God’, while all others who they deal with are worms who can be squashed without any compunction from them, and with impunity in their administrative and political space. When one scans the wider geographical horizon of history, one sees ‘tin gods’ who grew into monstrous proportions. Too distant are ancient pharaohs, kings, and shoguns, queens from ancient China to ancient Egypt and ancient Rome, from Dark Ages Europe to the European colonialists using the logic of the Bible to commit genocide as they conquered the Americas five hundred years ago; monarchs who would chop off the head of their victims, enslave millions – for self aggrandizement, or, for fun. Looking closer, one can identify tin gods in the former Soviet Union – Lenin and Stalin – whose reign of terror is chronicled in the book by Russian dissident, Alexandar Sozhelnitysn, “Gulag Archipelgo” – with over twenty million Russians exiled, tortured to death, exiled in freezing cold Siberia, brilliant scientists locked up in psychiatric asylums over a fifty year period. There was China’s Moa Zedong, who was almost literally perceived as ‘God’ by hundreds of millions of Chinese – and had over 40 million Chinese killed in a forty year ‘Great Leap Forward’ era. That figure disguises the literal horrors of the Cultural Revolution in China where people would be publicly harangued by mobs that would end up chopping up their bodies and cannibalizing their flesh – in public. No mention of tin gods who became monsters would be complete without mention of Nazi Germany’s Adolf Hitler, whose genocide on 6million Jews is one of the greatest holocausts in human history. In Africa, we had famous tin gods like Uganda’s Idi Amin – whose grotesque comedy has been featured in Hollywood films, with his victims been kept in freezers in his kitchen for his mirth or ritual, while he quench his thirst on their blood. Next door to us was the Liberian President, Master Samuel Kanyan Doe. And, last for this piece, last, but, certainly not least, is our own Corporal Foday Sankoh, leader of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) - who fought a ten years war with a unique signature of amputated stumps of its victims. Such ‘grand tin gods’ could hardly exist if there wouldn’t be ‘petty tin gods’. Still lurking in our private and public institutions are those ‘petty tin gods’ who are managers, managing directors, director-generals, cabinet ministers, etc. Some of them before they became tin gods would be humble teachers or university lecturers being affable with all their friends, with door men and messengers. Some would be small time accounts clerks in small time NGOs in the U.K. or U.S. Give such ordinary people the power and title of ‘minister’ or ‘managing director’….And….: aha!! They change!!! They become tin gods!!! Suddenly, they would insist that all within their administrative domain should shiver when they see them. If they summon a manager under them, for example, “the MD wants to see you”; they expect that manager to almost pee in his trousers before going to face them. These tin gods demand that their managers stay in their waiting rooms for two hours waiting to see them to sign documents that would take two seconds to sign. They promote their staff almost largely based on a ‘policy’ of reward to those staff who are sycophants, who inflate their egos. These tin gods are disdainful of productivity. They are almost oblivious of innovation. They punish a staff for a staff not going to say hello to them when they return from their foreign trips. These tin gods are likely to plunder state resources; or they would actively give express support, or, turn a blind eye to staff working under them who steal money from state coffers. Within a short period of their ‘rule’ in government institutions, these tin gods would polarize public institutions they head – into ‘those for the tin god’ and ‘those foolish enough not to bow down to the tin god’. The tin gods would sap the vital energy of state institutions. Individually, they appear innocuous. But, when the antics of the tins gods are accumulated, like we experienced during the 1980s, an entire country could implode. And, worse, there would be an exorable drive towards the explosion that we experienced in Sierra Leone during the rebel war in our country between 1991 and 2002. That is why the ‘abuse of office’ clause in the Anti-Corruption Commission’s legislative mandate has to be as widely publicized as the stealing of public funds which most people think is only the responsibility of the ACC. A managing director in a public sector institution who humiliates his senior managers in public on the flimsiest of excuses has abused power. A managing director who ‘malice’ his senior managers (refuses to talk to them), marginalizes them, and outsource work that his managers can do far better simply because he does not like his managers….has abused power. A managing director who pronounces his senior managers corrupt without any investigation and asks his board to sack all of them has psychologically tortured his managers and has abused power. A managing director who sends on study tours managers who have no business to do on a study tour while those who can best perform are left out, who usurps the role of senior managers and bungles up their role…has abused power. A managing director who publicly threatens all staff, who sends out threatening messages to staff who only want to perform their professional roles, would be abusing power. Such managing directors manifest the trait of tin gods who assumed the role of ‘Gods’. We have to note that in the public sector tin gods as managing directors exist, and continue to grow, into demons only because there are boards of directors who, directly, or, unwittingly, nurture them. Because there are sycophantic and fearful senior managers (tin gods, typically, would give their subordinates the impression that they have the powers to sack them, and let them live in poverty forever if they don’t cave in to their whims) who lose their humanity by bowing down to tin gods instead of having faith in the one and only omnipotent “God”. As we goggle at the unfolding drama of the prosecution of the NRA’s C-G, Allieu Sesay, let us look all around us at the tin gods in our public and private lives and reflect on these salient points. Collectively, every human being contributes towards giving birth to, and rearing, a tin god. Collectively, once tin gods grow into being Great Evils, all of society gets caught up in the fiery furnace they would kindle – ranging from Germany’s Adolf Hitler’s triggering the Second World War, Liberia’s President Samuel Kanyan Doe plunging Liberia and Sierra Leone into cataclysmic war – and would have to face great horrors. Even presidents would not escape from the cataclysm that collective tin gods are sure to unleash – like late President Joseph Momoh (a ‘nice guy’, really) was caught up in the maelstrom of his soft nine year rule. Standing up against a tin god, and reforming, or, neutralizing, him would mean implicitly giving reverence to a true God. That is why our President Ernest Bai Koroma would receive accolades from historians for not sparing ‘sacred cows’, or, in this context, not allowing tin gods to grow into ‘God’ head. .
Posted on: Tue, 02 Dec 2014 06:20:56 +0000