You can't talk about Sierra Leone without hitting the name Siaka Stevens. Honestly, he’s like the ghost that still haunts the country's banks, roads, and courtrooms. Some people call him "Pa Shaki" with a weird mix of nostalgia and regret. Others? They’ll tell you he’s the reason a once-prosperous nation, the "Anthem of West Africa," basically fell apart.
He was the first Executive President. He stayed in power for 18 years. That’s a long time to hold the steering wheel, especially when you’re driving the bus off a cliff.
The Man Before the Myth
Siaka Probyn Stevens wasn’t born into royalty. He came up from the mud, born in Moyamba in 1905. His dad was Limba, his mom was Mende. That mix matters. It gave him a foot in two different worlds in a country where tribal lines usually dictate everything.
He was a worker. A real one. Before the suits and the presidential palace, he was a police sergeant. He worked on the DELCO railway. He even helped start the United Mine Workers Union in 1943.
The guy was smart, too. He grabbed a scholarship to Ruskin College, Oxford, to study industrial relations. You’ve got to imagine this former policeman from Sierra Leone sitting in the halls of Oxford, soaking up how labor and power actually work. It’s kinda ironic, really. He learned how to protect workers, then spent his presidency making sure no one could challenge his own power.
Why Siaka Stevens and the APC Changed Everything
In the early 60s, Sierra Leone was actually doing okay. We had the "Athens of West Africa"—Fourah Bay College. We had a working railway. We had diamonds coming out of the ground like water.
But Stevens was restless. He co-founded the SLPP but got kicked out because he was too radical. Or maybe just too ambitious. He famously refused to sign the Independence Agreement in London in 1960. His reason? He claimed there was a secret defense pact with the British. He wanted "Elections Before Independence."
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He didn't get them. But he did get his own party: the All People’s Congress (APC).
1967 was the turning point. The APC actually won the election. This was huge. It was basically the first time in post-colonial Africa that an opposition party beat the guys in charge through a regular ballot box. Stevens was sworn in as Prime Minister.
Then, thirty minutes later, he was arrested.
A military coup happened before he could even finish his first cup of coffee in office. He spent over a year in exile in Guinea. When he finally got back in 1968 after a counter-coup, he wasn't the same man. He was paranoid. He was ready to fight. And he wasn't going to let go of the chair ever again.
The One-Party State and the Internal Security Unit
By 1971, Stevens officially made the country a Republic. He became the first Executive President. This is where things get dark. To keep control, he didn't just use laws; he used "Vanguards."
He created the Internal Security Unit (ISU). People used to joke that ISU stood for "I Shoot U." It wasn't actually funny. These were mostly unemployed city kids, often high on whatever they could find, acting as his personal muscle. They were the ones who made sure people didn't protest.
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In 1978, he went all the way. He held a referendum to make Sierra Leone a one-party state. The results were... suspicious. Like, 97% "Yes" suspicious. Even in places where everyone hated the APC, the records showed a landslide for Stevens. If you were in Parliament and didn't join the APC, you lost your job. Period.
The Railway and the Diamond Curse
This is the part that still makes economists cry. Sierra Leone had a great railway system. It connected the diamond mines and the farms in the south and east to the port in Freetown.
Stevens tore it up.
He literally had the tracks pulled out of the ground and sold the metal for scrap. Why? Because the railway served the regions that supported his rivals, the SLPP. He wanted to punish them. He didn't care that he was destroying the country's backbone. He just wanted to make sure nobody could move against him.
And then there were the diamonds. Under Stevens, "illicit" mining became the national sport. He basically ran the diamond trade like a personal piggy bank. He once said, "The only real division in this country is between those who do and those who do not make money out of illicit diamonds." He wasn't lying.
By the time he "retired" in 1985, the treasury was empty. The lights were going out in Freetown. The schools were crumbling. He hand-picked Joseph Saidu Momoh, a military general, to take over. It was like handing someone a grenade with the pin already pulled.
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What We Can Learn From the "Pa Shaki" Era
Look, it’s easy to just say he was a "bad guy" and move on. But history is messier than that. Stevens was a master of "patron-client" politics. He knew how to buy people. He’d visit markets, talk to the common man, and make them feel seen while he was emptying the vault.
He did manage to keep the country from a full-blown civil war while he was alive. He played the ethnic groups against each other so perfectly that nobody could unite to stop him. But that pressure cooker had to explode eventually. The civil war in the 90s? Most historians, like those cited in Why Nations Fail, trace the roots right back to the institutional rot Stevens started.
Actionable Insights for Today:
- Watch the Institutions: The lesson of Siaka Stevens is that one man can destroy decades of progress if the "guardrails" (courts, press, parliament) are weak.
- Economic Diversification: Relying on one resource—like diamonds—is a recipe for corruption. When the leader controls the resource, he controls the people.
- Infrastructure is Sacred: Tearing down the railway for political spite is the ultimate example of "short-term gain, long-term pain." Leaders who destroy infrastructure to punish rivals are never the good guys.
If you want to understand why West Africa looks the way it does today, you have to look at the 1970s. You have to look at the man who turned a "shining star" into a personal fiefdom. Siaka Stevens wasn't just a leader; he was a warning.
To truly understand the modern political landscape of the region, research the "Mano River Union," which Stevens helped create. It shows that even the most controversial leaders often leave behind complex international frameworks that still function today.