""Prominent supporters of SLIM included regional and international Pan-Africanists like Nnamdi Azikiwe, Kwame Nkrumah, George Padmore, Eric Williams, Julius Nyerere and John Henrik Clark who viewed the progress towards independence in Sierra Leone as part of a wider effort to forge an independent West Africa united by the same socio-political principles.In 1957, Blyden and Paramount Chief and Member of Parliament Tamba Songou Mbriwa of Fiama Chiefdom, Kono District lodged a formal protest at the Colonial Office in London against the illicit exploitation of Sierra Leone's diamonds, demanding a Royal Commission of Enquiry into serious riots in the Kono District.