Tribes and Turmoil: The Unhealed Wounds of Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone is a nation of remarkable resilience and profound pain. Beneath its beauty lie fractures that have never fully healed: tribal divisions carved deep by colonial rule, widened by political manipulation, and bloodied by a decade of civil war.

In Tribes and Turmoil, Rev. Dr. Victor Fakondo Sr. takes an unflinching look at the forces that have kept Sierra Leone from becoming the united nation it was meant to be. From the Mende-Temne rivalry that has shaped every election and every government appointment, to the educated elites who weaponize their credentials against their own countrymen, to the unresolved trauma of the 1991–2002 rebelwar, Fakondo names what others dare not: tribalism is not a relic of the past. It is alive, systemic, and dangerous.

Drawing on history, personal testimony, and comparative lessons from Nigeria’s Biafran War, Fakondo traces how British colonial policies planted the seeds of ethnic hierarchy, and how successive Sierra Leonean governments watered them for political gain. He examines the complicated legacy of the Krio, the quiet heroism of women peacemakers, and the urgent hope carried by a younger generation determined to define themselves as Sierra Leoneans first.

But this is not a book of despair. It is a call to honest reckoning and to action.

Fakondo charts a path forward through truth-telling, inclusive education, faithbased healing, and the kind of visionary leadership that places nation above tribe.

Sierra Leone’s wounds need not define her. Addressed with urgency and honesty, they can become the very foundation upon which a more peaceful, prosperous, and united nation is built