By Marcus Bangura
When Sierra Leone gained independence in 1961, the national mood was one of celebration and hope. The Union Jack was lowered, the green-white-and-blue flag was raised, and Sierra Leoneans rejoiced in the belief that they were finally free to control their own destiny. But over six decades later, that promise of self-determination remains unfulfilled. The oppressors may no longer speak with foreign accents, but the tools of exploitation remain in full use. Today, the greatest threat to Sierra Leone’s sovereignty is no longer colonial rulers, but the country’s own political and economic elites.
This betrayal is not loud or bloody, it is silent and calculated. It is a coup not against the government, but against the people. It is a coup against the rights of citizens to land, dignity, and economic opportunity. And it is being carried out under the deceptive banner of “development.”
Across Sierra Leone, land is quietly being seized, leased, or sold off, often without consultation or consent of the communities who have lived on and cultivated that land for generations. These deals are frequently negotiated in secret, signed behind closed doors, and enforced with coercion or legal manipulation. The beneficiaries? A narrow class of local elites and their powerful foreign partners, especially from China.
Nowhere is the crisis of land control more evident than in Tonkolili District. In August 2025, Salone Compass reported a disturbing incident where a senior government minister allegedly deployed armed military and police personnel to enforce a lease agreement in favour of the Sierra Leone Mines and Minerals Development Corporation (SLMMDC), allegedly working on behalf of a Chinese mining company. The lease directly conflicted with an existing agreement held by prominent indigenous businessman Mohamed Gento Kamara, Founder and CEO of Gento Group, who had lawfully secured mining rights for the Tonkolili North Iron Ore deposit in Kasafoni, with documented support from Paramount Chiefs and landowning families in Sambaia, Dansogoia, and Diang Chiefdoms. The incident was described by Salone Compass as a “land grab at gunpoint” a stark phrase that captures the creeping authoritarianism surrounding many foreign-backed investment projects.
But this is no isolated event. A similar controversy erupted over control of key rail and port infrastructure, involving Leone Rock Metal Group, formerly Kingho Investment Company and the local entrepreneur Anthony Navo, head of ARISE Integrated Industrial Platforms (ARISE IIP). In a shocking move, the government abruptly revoked Navo’s lease and redirected the assets to the Chinese-backed entity Leone Rock Metal Group. This decision not only sparked public outrage but also raised serious questions about the erosion of national sovereignty and the systemic sidelining of Sierra Leonean businesses in favour of foreign interests. Originally, Kingho Investment Company Limited, rebranded in October 2021 as Leone Rock Metal Group, held the lease to operate the Pepel–Tonkolili railway and port.
In the coastal village of Black Johnson, the story is the same. Ancestral land belonging to the Krio community, descendants of freed slaves was nearly leased to Chinese investors for a fish harbour project. Community members resisted fiercely, citing lack of consultation and the cultural importance of the land. Despite the outcry, the government continued to push the project forward under the pretence of economic development.
Whether in Tonkolili or Black Johnson, the message is consistent: land is being taken from Sierra Leoneans and handed over to foreign corporations, often with the enthusiastic support of government officials who should be protecting their citizens.
This systematic dispossession represents a new form of internal colonialism, where African governments, under the guise of independence, replicate the very extractive systems once imposed by colonial powers. The difference is that the administrators now speak local languages, wear national colours, and fly the same flags that once symbolized liberation.
The pattern extends beyond rural chiefdoms. In Freetown, petty traders and market women are being evicted from informal markets to make way for elite-driven infrastructure projects. These citizens are not criminals, they are survivors in a crumbling economy. Yet their stalls are demolished, their goods confiscated, and their protests ignored, all in the guise of development.
The same state institutions that once resisted colonial occupation are now being weaponized against the very people they were meant to serve. Laws are manipulated, opposition is silenced, and public resources are redirected to benefit a privileged few.
As Chinua Achebe once wrote, “The trouble with Nigeria [and much of Africa] is simply and squarely a failure of leadership.” In Sierra Leone, that failure is no longer just political, it is moral. Leaders who once spoke of freedom and justice now broker deals that leave their people landless and voiceless, while foreign investors extract profits from the soil.
The first president of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah, foresaw this danger when he warned, “Neocolonialism is the worst form of imperialism… for those who practice it exploit the resources of the people under the cloak of independence.”
Indeed, the cloak of independence is proving to be thin. But all is not lost. Resistance is growing. Community members, youth activists, civil society organizations, and investigative journalists are beginning to challenge these silent deals. Protests have stalled projects in Sierra Leone and beyond. From Nigeria to Senegal, citizens are reclaiming their voice.
As Thomas Sankara once said, “He who feeds you, controls you.” Today, Sierra Leone must ask: who controls us? And at what cost?
Until the country reclaims control over its land, its resources, and its leadership, the dream of independence will remain just a dream. Because today, Sierra Leone’s land is not being stolen by foreigners with guns. It is being handed away by its own, in boardrooms, under flags of convenience, and often, in silence.
During the years prior to 2018, Sierra Leone experienced a wave of controversial resource deals that laid the groundwork for today’s struggles. Foreign companies, particularly in the mining sector, were granted sweeping control over land and mineral-rich territories, often at the expense of local communities. Protests were met with violent crackdowns, and entire villages were displaced to make way for foreign-backed projects. These actions, masked as development, exposed a troubling pattern: state institutions were being used not to protect citizens, but to broker away national wealth. It was a silent coup in motion, Sierra Leone quietly sold out by its own.
The colonial era may be over, but its logic persists in boardrooms, parliaments, and cabinet offices. True liberation requires more than the removal of foreign flags; it demands honest leadership, economic justice, and people-cantered governance.
Until that day comes, Africa’s greatest threat may not be external forces, but internal actors, leaders who sell their nations piece by piece, cloaked in patriotism, but driven by profit. Because today, Africa’s new colonizers no longer arrive on ships. They arrive in suits, often with African passports.
