The Justice Dr Binneh-Kamara Students Did Not Meet

The late Justice Dr Abou Bhakarr Binneh-Kamara and I first met in the late 1990s when both of us were Certificate-less, Diploma-less, and Degree-less reporters working for the Independent Observer newspaper which was then headquartered at No.1 Short Street in Freetown (But was working from the opposite FW International building.).
Even as a reporter still wet behind the ears; the late Justice of the Court of Appeal had shown great intellectual promise which irritated the late Jonathan Leigh, the then Managing Editor of the Independent Observer, who always complained about his “long philosophical articles”. At this time, he was spelling his names as “Abu”, there was no “H” in the “Bhakarr”, and there was no hyphen between the “Binneh” and the “Kamara”. Leigh, who had no stomach for intellectualism, literally frog-marched him one afternoon from the Independent Observer’s office on the flimsiest of excuses.
That’s was how “Binneh”, as we used to call him then, resurfaced at the Standard Times newspaper under the late Philip Neville who would later help him with his First Year fees when he went to study Law at Fourah Bay College (FBC). But he and Neville fell out few years before Neville’s death due to a judgment he delivered in the matter of EDSA Vs. Standard Times in a case of electricity theft. Neville had wanted him to tilt the scale of justice in his favour. But when justice was fairly dispensed; Neville went berserk, calling the learned judge an “ingrate”, and started blackmailing him.
When I visited him one Sunday at 4p.m. at his Freetown Mountain Cut residence, Justice Dr Binneh-Kamara explained that despite Neville had been one of those who supported him financially throughout his undergraduate days at FBC; yet he would not slant the scale of justice the wrong way. He even showed me the unsigned judgment, on the EDSA Vs. Standard Times matter, on his laptop. I promised to speak with Neville on his behalf.
And after speaking with Neville the following Monday; he gave me his word that he would stop the newspaper attacks on Justice Dr Binneh-Kamara. And due to his word; his word was his word without any further word (Something of a rarity with the late Philip Neville.)!
In the last five years, I always visited the late Justice Dr Abou Bhakarr Binneh-Kamara fortnightly at his home where I sometimes met Lawyer Moses Massa, or at his Law Courts chambers where most of the time I met Lawyer Elvis Kargbo. He always called me “Brother Sankoh”.
On Sunday 13 July 2025, I visited him at his home at around 3p.m. to know how he was getting along with his health and left at 4:30 p.m. when the rain started drizzling outside.
Despite he was frail and downcast that Sunday when I visited him; I was not expecting that phone call of Tuesday 15 July 2025 from one of my Editors to inform me of his passing. I knew he was on borrowed time but I was not expecting that time to be untimely borrowed!
As I sat in my office digesting the sad news that day; I recalled the Sunday of 13 July 2025: Whilst I was seated on the edge of his bed and him lying down with a pillow propping his head; he told me about the state of his illness and the money involved in finding a kidney donor and doing the transplant in Turkey.
He said when he went to the hospital in Hyderabad, India, with his nephew after being referred there by the Choithram Hospital at Hill Station; he learnt that there was now a stringent law in India against organ donation to foreigners. He said he was advised to seek the kidney transplant in Turkey where the laws were not stringent.
I asked him if he had received any help from either the University of Sierra Leone or the Judiciary; he answered in the affirmative and spoke highly of the Chief Justice, Komba Kamanda, whom he said had done a lot to help him raise money.
Everyone who had paid tribute to the late Justice Dr Abou Bhakarr Binneh-Kamara had written or spoken about his academic prowess, his lecture room sound-bites, and his love for books coupled with his magniloquence. So, I will provide another angle of the man himself.
What most people do not know is the fact that Justice Dr Binneh-Kamara’s love for books and academic degrees were not triggered because he was a bookworm. They were insatiably fueled by two reasons. The first was his strong anti-Grade A Schools sentiments. He always told me, albeit in conspiratorial tones, that he wanted to prove the point that someone who attended the Model Secondary School could be better educated than most of those who attended the Prince of Wales, the Sierra Leone Grammar School, St Edwards Secondary School, Albert Academy, Methodist Boys High School, and the Bo School. The second reason was his desire, in his own words, “to smash academic records and set new ones”.
And the main reason why he opted for a second PhD in Constitutional Law was to get under the skins of two of his colleagues (names withheld) at the Law Department at FBC who, he told me, were trying to “borbor me” by telling Law students that his first PhD was not on any Law discipline.
When he showed me the final chapter of his PhD thesis long before he went to Ghana for his first medical check-up outside Sierra Leone; I advised him that it was time for him to consider building himself a house. It was then that he told me that he had bought a house at Elizabeth Street in Freetown and that he was now renovating it.
His Mountain Cut residence resembled an unkempt modern library: pyramids of books of every discipline, heaps of students’ dissertations, and countless piles of marked and unmarked scripts were scattered everywhere—including in his dining room and the two spare rooms. Even on his bed and by the door leading to his bedroom toilet; there were books and academic journals.
And to prevent mice from destroying his prized gems and “wife” (He often told me that he was married to his books.); he used to have a fat blackish-white cat which he normally fed with large chunks of “kankakan” or big “fry fish”. But one Sunday afternoon, I met him dejected as if he had just lost a close relative. When I asked him why he was so po-faced; he said: “Den bad area borbor dem don ketch en eat me pus”.
Apart from books and reading; the late Justice Dr Abou Bhakarr Binneh-Kamara most of the time had his haircut and dye it twice monthly (The barber, a short fat fair-skinned “area boy”, always came to his house and did the cutting and dyeing on the veranda overlooking the Queen Elizabeth II Quay). He was first a Chelsea fan but later switched to Liverpool and, before his health deteriorated, he went to the gym up the road (just a stone throw from his house) on Sundays between 10a.m and 12 noon if he did not have any programme to attend. He had a son, Travis, who is a chip of the old block but handsomer than the block!
One of the greatest transformations of the late Justice Dr Abou Bhakarr Binneh-Kamara was from being a non-practising Muslim to a devout Muslim. Since his Independent Observer newspaper days; I had known him to be unreligious. So, one Sunday afternoon when I visited him at his residence and met him performing ablutions, I was shocked. After he had finished praying, he explained to me that his “uncle”, Dr Abubakarr Kargbo, had convinced him to start praying.
As he died a devout Muslim; I believe he has already made Jannah.
Rest well Brother Binneh!