By Chernor M. Jalloh

Lecturer of Governance & Development Studies

IPAM – University of Sierra Leone

“Political independence was only the first chapter. The unfinished task is institutional independence.”

More than six decades after independence, Sierra Leone continues to govern many of its most important public institutions through structures, laws, and administrative philosophies inherited from the British colonial era. Although these institutions have undergone periodic reforms, their intellectual foundations remain largely colonial. This raises a difficult but necessary question: Can Sierra Leone achieve sustainable development while relying on governance systems that were originally designed to administer a colony rather than empower an independent nation?

This is not a call to reject everything inherited from Britain. The principles of judicial independence, professionalism, due process, and administrative accountability remain invaluable. Rather, it is a call to examine whether our institutions genuinely reflect Sierra Leone’s constitutional values, cultural realities, religious diversity, and development aspirations.

Nowhere is this debate more urgent than in the judiciary.

The Judiciary: Whose Justice?

The Sierra Leonean legal system is rooted predominantly in English common law, supplemented by statutes, customary law, and constitutional provisions. While this framework has provided continuity and legal certainty, it also raises important questions when it intersects with family life, inheritance, marriage, and community norms.

Consider, for example, marital disputes involving legally recognized customary or religious marriages, including polygynous unions. In practice, courts often face the difficult task of applying legal principles that developed within a predominantly monogamous English legal tradition to family structures that may differ substantially. This can create uncertainty regarding property division, inheritance, maintenance obligations, and the rights of multiple spouses and children.

The issue is not whether one legal tradition is inherently better than another. Rather, the challenge is whether the law adequately reflects the realities of Sierra Leonean society while protecting the constitutional rights and dignity of every individual involved. A justice system commands legitimacy only when citizens believe that it understands their social realities as well as their legal rights.

Education: Teaching Africa through Someone Else’s Lens

The colonial imprint is equally visible in education. For decades, our schools have excelled at preparing students to pass examinations, yet they have often been less successful in preparing graduates to solve Sierra Leone’s own development challenges. Too much of our curriculum continues to privilege foreign historical narratives, imported case studies, and external policy models while giving insufficient attention to indigenous knowledge, local governance systems, agricultural innovation, entrepreneurship, civic responsibility, and African intellectual traditions.

Decolonizing education does not mean rejecting global knowledge. It means placing Sierra Leone at the centre of Sierra Leonean education.

Countries such as Rwanda have redesigned curricula to emphasize national identity, reconciliation, innovation, and competence-based learning. Singapore has similarly adapted international best practices to its own context rather than copying foreign systems wholesale. Sierra Leone can do the same.

Health: Building a System that Reflects Local Realities

Healthcare presents another important frontier. Our health system remains heavily dependent on donor financing, externally designed programmes, and imported policy models. While international partnerships have saved countless lives, long-term resilience requires stronger domestic ownership.

Decolonizing health governance means investing in locally driven research, strengthening primary healthcare, expanding preventive medicine, integrating scientifically validated traditional knowledge where appropriate, and training professionals to address Sierra Leone’s unique disease burden rather than relying primarily on external priorities. A health system should first respond to the realities of its own people.

Decolonization Is Not Isolation

Critics may fear that calls for decolonization amount to rejecting international standards or abandoning universal human rights. That would be a misunderstanding. The most successful countries have not become prosperous by copying another civilization wholesale. They have adapted global knowledge to local realities.

Japan modernized without abandoning its identity. Botswana combined traditional institutions with democratic governance. Rwanda redesigned public administration after genocide to reflect its own national priorities. These examples demonstrate that institutional reform is strongest when it is locally owned.

The Conversation Sierra Leone Must Have

Decolonizing governance should not become a political slogan. It should be a national conversation involving judges, lawyers, religious leaders, educators, traditional authorities, healthcare professionals, universities, civil society, women’s organizations, and young people.

Several questions deserve careful consideration:

• Which colonial institutions continue to serve Sierra Leone well?
• Which laws require reform to better reflect contemporary constitutional values and social realities?
• How can legal pluralism be managed while ensuring equal protection under the Constitution?
• How can education become more relevant to national development?
• How can healthcare become more self-reliant without sacrificing quality or international cooperation?

These are questions of governance—not ideology.

The Road Ahead

Sierra Leone does not need to erase its history. Nor should it romanticize every pre-colonial institution. The challenge is to build a governance system that is authentically Sierra Leonean—one that preserves the strengths of inherited institutions while courageously reforming those that no longer serve the nation’s needs.

Political independence gave Sierra Leone its flag. Institutional decolonization may yet give it its future. The real question is no longer whether we inherited colonial institutions. The question is whether we have the courage to redesign them for the Sierra Leone we aspire to become.

Copyright –Published in Expo Times News on Wednesday, 8th July 2026 (ExpoTimes News – Expo Media Group (expomediasl.com)