misappropriations of funds and equipment by top government officials, including the mayor. In his pamphlet regarding municipal governance in Freetown, A Cloud of Doom, Wallace-Johnson took credit for exposing the corruption. His exact role in the affair is not known, but no Sierra Leoneans ever challenged the veracity of his claim. In the aftermath of the scandal, the British revoked Freetown's rights to complete municipal self-government, believing that Africans, no matter how educated they were, could not govern themselves. After being fired from his municipal government job in 1926, Wallace-Johnson left Sierra Leone to pursue other activities. According to , biographical details regarding Wallace-Johnson's activities during this time period are hard to discern, as Wallace-Johnson contradicted himself in his autobiographical notes and his personal reminisces. He took a job as either a sailor on an American ocean liner sailing between the United States and Africa or as an engine hand for Elder Dempster Lines; in an interview, he stated the former, while in a lecture at the Easter School he claimed the latter. He normally travelled to English-speaking areas, but on occasion, he journeyed to French, Spanish and Portuguese territories on the African continent. He joined the United Kingdom National Seamen's Union and supposedly edited the Seafarer, a newsletter which he and other black sailors distributed among ship crews. During his time off, he studied the working conditions for employees at ports along the western coast of Africa. It is believed that he joined the Communist Party during his time as a sailor, as the party had a history of recruiting among sailors who frequently visited seamen's clubs in port cities. In 1929, he began working in Sekondi as a clerk in a trading company, but only held the job for a year before travelling to Nigeria. Union organiser and communist affiliations In 1930, he helped form the Nigerian Workers' Union, the first trade union in Nigeria. The founder of the union, Frank Macauley, had Communist affiliations, and it is believed that Wallace-Johnson engaged in Communist-related activities during this time. He represented the Sierra Leone Railway Workers' Union at the International Trade Union Conference of Negro Workers in Hamburg, Germany in July 1930 under the alias E. Richards. Speakers at the conference addressed concerns "relating to the economic situations and working conditions of the Negro workers". He established a number of contacts at the conference and was elected to its