By Dadson A. Musa

Inequality has been flagged as a societal evil as it creates malaise and discontent among citizens. Nelson Mandela, a great leader of our time once believed in and advocated for’ equity’, as a way of truly growing a country. The national wealth, when evenly spread has the tendency to unite and create peace and stability in a country. The gap between the haves and have- nots when allowed to widen is also not healthy for the country’s economic growth. The national wealth is skewed to favour only few citizens while the majority wallow in penury and poverty which in itself is not good for the markets as it creates a situation where purchasing power parity is lost. So, it creates a situation where majority do not have the ability to purchase, only few do which creates economic imbalance. Economists have argued against this inequality as it is healthy for economic growth at all.

The social ills that this inequality creates are real and many. A typical case in point is the Arab spring which erupted in north Africa especially in countries like Algeria and Egypt. In Algeria back then in 2016, a young poor graduate after looking for job and couldn’t find one decided to set up a small business but was further frustrated by the authorities stopped him from going ahead on the grounds that the location is prohibited. He set himself on fire in anger and despair which he died from. This resulted in uprising across Algeria which shifted the political landscape.

In Egypt, the Mobarak family entrenched themselves in power for over three decades and did not want to hand over but to continue as a family dynasty which was resisted and lead to another uprising which led to regime change in Egypt and Hosni Mobarak was removed from power. In Sierra Leone, it is not about tribalism, it is the few people in power who circulate wealth among themselves and create a social malaise. They hide behind the cloak of tribalism to keep themselves in power and remain rich at the expense of the majority. This in itself lead to our eleven- year rebel war which saw looting, killing, raping, burning of property which rendered Sierra Leone almost a failed state. So, the powers that be must try as best as they should not to alienate the majority of their citizens from the spread of national wealth, freedom and other benefits.

Democratic tenets, when not skewed can solve this age- old human problem. As human beings by nature tend to be greedy, self- centered and indifferent to the plight of fellow human beings. Other forms of governance like oligarchy, fascism, Nazism etc have proven not to solve the growing problem of inequality where the system favours only the rich and famous.

So far, we have seen this current regime attempt to solve this inequality problem by introducing Skills Development Fund for youths who cannot make it to university, car wash facilities across the country, launch of 200 kekeh tricycle for youths, feed salone which aims to develop badly deprived rural communities and empower the marginalized youths and the initial agenda of free quality education to reduce illiteracy and dropout rates in the country, etc. Whatever impacts these projects may have created to address this issue of inequality will have to be looked into to assess if aims and objectives have been achieved. But to live in a peaceful, united and progressive country, every citizen equally deserves every opportunity in the country to ensure sustained prosperity.