by Chernor M. Jalloh
There are moments in public life when a statement—casually issued yet ideologically loaded—transcends personal opinion and hardens into a political signature. Such utterances do not fade; they endure. They trail their authors across offices, borders, and diplomatic postings, shaping how history remembers them. Mr. Sitta Turay’s recent remarks on Fulani political participation belong to this category. (see box).
When a public official, let alone a diplomat, advances the claim that an entire ethnic community is inherently unfit for national leadership—on the premise that power under them becomes ethnically monopolized—we are no longer engaged in political analysis. We have crossed into the domain of political bigotry, a domain history has repeatedly exposed, punished, and discarded.
Mr. Turay attempts to shield his argument with a familiar disclaimer: “This is not tribalism.” Yet history teaches us that prejudice rarely announces itself honestly. It often arrives clothed in the language of realism, strategy, or national interest. Colonial administrators spoke of “civilizing missions.” Post-independence autocrats spoke of “national discipline.” Today, exclusion is rebranded as political pragmatism. But words do not absolve ideas. Substance does.
The Sékou Touré Syndrome: When Collective Suspicion Becomes Doctrine
The logic underpinning Mr. Turay’s claim echoes—whether consciously or not—the ideological tradition perfected under Sékou Touré, where ethnic suspicion was elevated into state policy and collective guilt became a governing principle. In that era, entire communities were surveilled, punished, and excluded not for what they had done, but for who they were presumed to be.
The consequences were devastating: fear replaced trust, exile replaced citizenship, and economic stagnation replaced innovation. History has already rendered its verdict on that experiment.
To resurrect this logic today—by suggesting that Fulani leadership is inherently prone to ethnic capture—is to exhume a political ghost that West Africa has already paid dearly to bury.
The Great Institutional Lie
Let us confront a central fallacy head-on: Sierra Leone, Guinea, Mali, and Liberia did not fail because of the Fulani.They failed because of weak institutions, personalized rule, militarized politics, patronage networks, and repeated elite betrayals of the social contract. These failures occurred under leaders from multiple ethnic backgrounds. Ethnicity neither saved these states nor condemned them.
If ethnic origin were destiny, governance outcomes would be predictable. They are not. What shapes political performance are institutions, incentives, accountability mechanisms, and civic culture—not surnames, languages, or lineage. To attribute institutional collapse to a single ethnic group is not analysis; it is abdication of intellectual responsibility.
On Contribution, Not Conspiracy
There is another truth that ethnic alarmists prefer to ignore: across West Africa, Fulani communities are among the most economically productive. They dominate key sectors of trade, livestock economies, transportation, and cross-border commerce. They are, by every empirical measure, net contributors to domestic revenue—often the most reliable taxpayers in states where fiscal compliance is notoriously weak.
To benefit from a community’s economic productivity while questioning its political legitimacy is not merely unjust; it is morally incoherent. Citizenship cannot be divisible—full in taxation but conditional in leadership.
Democracy Does Not Require Ethnic Clearance
Perhaps the most dangerous implication of Mr. Turay’s argument is the normalization of ethnic pre-disqualification—the idea that some citizens must first prove they will not “ethnicize power” before being allowed to aspire to leadership.
This is the quiet death of republicanism.
Democracy does not ask:
What tribe are you from?
It asks:
What is your program? What is your record? Who can hold you accountable?
The moment a republic begins to ration political legitimacy along ethnic lines, it ceases to be a republic in any meaningful sense.
A Warning from the Future: Sierra Leone and 2028
If Sierra Leone is to learn anything before the 2028 elections, it is this:
The gravest mistake would be to allow ethnic anxiety—rather than civic reason—to determine leadership choices.Rejecting a candidate solely because he is Fulani would not protect national cohesion; it would corrode it. It would send a devastating message to millions of citizens—that equality is provisional and belonging negotiable.
Nations do not fracture because minorities seek leadership.
They fracture when majorities abandon democratic principles out of fear.
Conclusion: The Verdict of History
History does not remember political bigots by their intentions, but by their consequences. It matters little how often one insists “this is not tribalism” if the argument rests on collective blame and inherited suspicion.
The Fulani do not require rehabilitation.
Democracy does not need ethnic gatekeepers.
What our states urgently need are institutions stronger than prejudice and politics deeper than fear.
For history is unambiguous on this point:
Every republic that excludes its own citizens eventually collapses under the weight of its contradictions.
That is not ideology.
That is record.
