By Mohamed Kamara
Associate professor of political Science and African History at the Tasmania University in Hobert Australia , Dr. Cyril Kargbo has critically responded to an interview on Truth Radio in which the Minister of Local Government and Community Affairs, Mr. Tamba Lamina, said he has presented his recommendations to President Julius Maada Bio who himself hails from a Paramount Chieftaincy Family cannot support any intention to disown the integrity of the chieftaincy tradition and now left with the option as to whether to divide Biriwa Chiefdom in Bombali Distract Northern Region of Sierra Leone because of what he claimed emerging demands by some Mandingo families resident in Karene town of the chiefdom without which he Forsee violence.
Dr. Cyril argued that the ancestral hegemony or ethnic belonging based on Native laws of thousands of years’ standing cannot be tampered with overnight especially when the history of the people are defined to support their unquestionable existence as a human race. He said before colonization and after it, Biriwa chiefdom has four Ruling Houses, recognized BY OUR colonial masters before independence, he said the ruling housing are: The Pompoli of Bumban, Kalawa of Bumban, Kalawa of Kamabai where the present Paramount Chief PC Salifu Manneh Kalawa III, hails from and the Sheku Ruling House of Kamabai.
He said these four Ruling Houses had all along being the contending ruling houses until the 2006 Paramount Chieftaincy elections when the then late President Ahmed Tejan Kabba favored the Sheriff family of Karene town to take part in one of the most controversial elections without a ruling house because he was a Mandingo. On the 14 November 2006, the Supreme Court of Sierra Leone over ruled and declared the election of Dr. Issa M. Sheriff according to Section 72(5) and Section 38 of the Constitution of Sierra Leone as invalid, Null and Void because “any person who does not belong to a ruling house, is not eligible to contest for and be elected as Paramount Chief of any Chiefdom in Sierra Leone”.
Dr. Cyril said in the history of Biriwa chiefdom itself, the first chief was P/C Sankallay who gave birth to the P/C Alimamy Suluku in 1820. He said Suluku was a powerful ruler who objected to the British colonial rule and helped Bai Bureh in the 1898 rebellion in the Hot Tax War. He said Suluku was war captain and crowned king in 1872. He opposed the European slave trade and passed away in 1906. He advised that this issue which began twenty years ago be laid to rest given the ultimate right to the Limba to exercise their franchise more so being the first ethnic to live in Sierra Leone
