Thomas Decker and the death of Boss Coker

Opening ParagraphThomas Alexander Leighton Decker,o.b.e., teacher, journalist, broadcaster, poet, dramatist, linguist and senior civil servant—to name only some of the major occupations or preoccupations of his busy life—was the man who, more than any other, crusaded for the acceptance of Krio as a language in its own right. At a time when others dismissed Sierra Leone's mainlingua francaas a debased or corrupt form of English and failed to recognise its distinct identity and full potential, Thomas Decker never once faltered in his conviction that it was as good a language as any other. He spent much of his life trying to convince others of the truth of this, and the fact that Krio has at last begun to gain the acceptance he sought for it is in no small measure due to him and his efforts on its behalf.