The Impact of Autocratic Rule on Individual Freedom, Peace and Security in Sierra Leone

This paper focuses on the impact of autocratic rule on individual freedom, peace and security in Sierra Leone based on the Lockean idea of ‘‘Social Contract’’. The author argues that Locke had lost fate in the peaceful co-existence of men in the state of nature in which Lock claimed many things are wanting. The society is said to be more peaceful when there are means to maintain freedom, peace and security. To achieve this end, society of men must come into agreement with each other in order to ascribe roles and responsibilities to people in manning the affairs of the state. The work contends that the political thoughts provided by Lock served as a revolutionary tool for radical political thinkers in history and modern times. It set the platform for the causes of most civil disobediences and political revolutions especially, when men of the legislative order failed to deliver the good for which they were elected. Reviews of equally similar scholarly writings suggest that these revolutionary trends continue to have serious grip on the role of the state in recent times. The paper investigates the areas where states have gone wrong in living up to their tasks and concludes that states that have bridged the social contract have been plunged into conflict leading to the complete dissolution of the autocratic order as in the case of the Sierra Leone’s civil war, 1991 – 2002.