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Sierra Leone was once known as the "Athens of West Africa," because it is the home of the area's oldest institute of higher learning, Fourah Bay College. Today the country is more like an ill-run Sparta. Since he took over as President, Stevens—who is 74 by his own reckoning, but may be as old as 85—has gradually molded Sierra Leone into a tightly controlled one-party state. Two years ago he pushed through a new constitution outlawing all opposition to his All Peoples Congress (A.P.C.). Although he served as opposition leader during the government of his predecessor, Prime Minister Sir Albert Margai, Stevens now claims that the idea of competitive politics is alien to Sierra Leone's people. Says he: "We don't understand the concept of a loyal opposition." In December the governor of the central bank, Samuel Bangura, objected to what he described as Stevens' plans to pocket a large portion of Libya's $5 million contribution toward defraying the costs of the O.A.U. summit. Bangura was found dead outside his mansion. Police at first called his death suicide, but after an outcry they charged a 17-year-old girl, two gardeners and a night watchman with his murder.
A few days before the opening of the O.A.U. conference, police combed the streets of Freetown, rounding up every potential dissident in sight. When the Tablet, the only opposition newspaper, published a vivid account of the story, a band of rock-throwing toughs assaulted its offices. Though police witnessed the attack and failed to intervene, Stevens claims no responsibility for the assault. "These are just small boys," he says of the Tablet's editors. "I can't be bothered with them."
Stevens may find it more difficult to brush off the mounting criticism within his own party of the exorbitant costs of the O.A.U. summit. Two years ago his government pledged that it would spend no more than $100 million on preparations for the conference; Western diplomats believe that the total bill may come to twice that figure—a heavy burden for a country with a per capita gross national product of $210. Moreover, there is widespread suspicion that the Pa personally profited from the meeting. Lebanese businessmen who chipped in to a $3 million fund that was supposed to help underwrite the summit charge that Stevens pocketed a large amount of the money. Says a Western diplomat in Freetown: "He often confuses the national bank account with his own."