ABSTRACT
Sierra Leone has seldom caught the attention of international commentators or the world press. It has not been devastated by the drought which affected several African countries including Ethiopia, Sudan, and others in the Sahellian region. Neither has it achieved the strategic or international political influence and significance of states such as Algeria, Angola, Egypt, Kenya, Nigeria, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. While it has had its share of political violence, this has been on a much lower scale than in Chad, Equatorial Guinea, Mozambique and Uganda. And looking back to the 1950s and 1960s, it was not led to independence by the charismatic persona of a Kwame Nkrumah, who hoped to achieve the rapid transformation of Ghana to a modern industrial economy and society; or by a romantic such as Julius Nyerere, who hoped to turn Tanzanian peasants into citizens of modern communes. 1
