Today marks the first anniversary of Sierra Leone’s President, Julius Maada Bio who is yet to hold an inauguration, one of the country’s cherished political traditions.
He also does not get congratulation from the international community (the United Nations, Commonwealth, African Union, ECOWAS, United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France and other countries), a situation that puts Bio’s victory in big doubt.
Holding inaugurations after election of a President is part of Sierra Leone’s rich political culture for which she is well known over the years. In his two terms, President Ernest Bai Koroma held inaugurations as was done by his predecessor, Ahmed Tejan Kabba.
Bio himself had an inauguration in April 12, 2018 a week after his election, but situation is however different these days. However, President Bio supports other Presidents in West Africa holding inaugurations with that of the Senegalese President, Diomaye Faye being the latest. He also attended the inauguration of Kenya’s President, Uhuru Kenyatta.
However, endless controversies and disagreements over the election results could have restrained President Bio from hosting one, and fear of a snub by members of the main opposition, All People’s Congress (APC) and the diplomatic community could also be another factor.
Bio who was incumbent candidate in the June 24, 2023 presidential election was declared winner three days after voting, a move that sparked waves of criticisms from opposition politicians as well as international and local election observation missions.
EU, Commonwealth, Carter Center, AU, ECOWAS, UN and other election observation agencies criticised the elections as one that “lacked transparency” and local election observer groups also made similar claims.
NEW (National Elections Watch), an umbrella body of local election observers, said no candidate got the 55 percent needed to avoid a runoff.
Reliable APC sources have however intimated this press that the opposition candidate, Samura Kamara got over 57% making him winner of the June polls.
But, such victory must be declared by the Tripartite Committee, a body set up to look into alleged irregularities of the June polls to ascertain the actual winner.
The Tripartite Committee also known as the Election Investigation Committee was launched in November, last year by President Bio days after the three-day dialogue between APC and SLPP members under the auspices of the international community. Although he occupies State House, political analysts still express doubt as any adverse findings and recommendations by the Tripartite Committee will badly affect him.
Doubt about his presidential status grows every passing day owing to ECSL (Electoral Commission for Sierra Leone)’s refusal to produce the election results by district and polling station as demanded by the people of Sierra Leone and the international community. The opposition, APC has however submitted their own results to the election investigators owing to evidence gathered by the Results Reconciliation Forms signed and approved by ECSL.
If SLPP loses the battle in the election probe on, it would be the second time Sierra Leone’s oldest party would be removed by an election investigation after a year in office.
In 19687, Prime Minister, Albert Margai of SLPP was removed by the recommendations of the Dove Edwin Commission of inquiry after he refused to hand over power despite defeat by his main challenger, Siaka Stevens of the APC.
A senior opposition politician explained that it took over a year before APC was restored after three coups in a row.
Sierra Leone has been taken again to the doldrums of the 1960s after the June 24 election with an ex-military Head of State at the helm.
Although there are several claims that President Bio lost the election, he promised to press ahead with his political project unhindered with the slogan of NO RETREAT, NO SURRENDER.
While addressing a group of SLPP members and supporters in Bo city in the Southern region, Bio assured them that there would be no other election until 2028, a statement that did not go down well with APC politicians who believed that they won the election in a clean sweep.
As a former military ruler, Bio declared the bullet-for-bullet military strategy against anyone who would make attempt to remove him from power citing the November 26, 2023 invaders as bright examples. He said the invaders came with bullets and never lived to tell the story.
Bio’s tight hold on power after defeat placed him in the mould of several African dictators including former Gambian leader, Yayah Jammeh who failed to give up power after he was defeated by his main challenger, Adama Barrow in 2016 general election.
Like Bio, the ex-Gambian leader threatened to put up fierce resistance to any foreign military intervention, but later gave up after he was abandoned by his army owing to ECOWAS deadline.
Bio’s presidential pronouncement sent shock, awe and panic among opposition politicians who threatened to fight back if he forced his way after the Tripartite Recommendations although they could not rule out deaths.
Despite repeated threats of revolts, Bio will not easily back out as he fears treason charges for subverting the will of Sierra Leoneans. The election boss, Mohamed Konneh also fears similar charges. The 1991 Constitution of Sierra Leone makes it clear that sovereignty belongs to the people of Sierra Leone from whom, government through this constitution, derives its powers, legitimacy and authority. Election rigging or theft of votes directly undermines such provision.
President Bio, at one time, was applauded by his wife, Fatima Maada Bio for holding a doctorate in coups and teaches people how to stage coups although there is no university where coup studies are offered.
Fatima Bio’s commendation came few weeks after the Guinean President, Mahmady Doumbouya visited Bio at State House, a move interpreted as seeking tutorials from President Bio about how a military ruler could be transformed into a civilian President. Fatima’s projection of the President gained wide appraisal and support as Bio took part in two coups in the political evolution in Sierra Leone.
He came into the limelight on 29th April, 1992 when he and other junior officers in the Sierra Leone Army including Captain Valentine Strasser, Lieutnants Sahr Sandy, Solomon Musa, Tom Nyuma, Komaba Mondeh and others staged a putsch against the government of President Joseph Saidu Momoh.
The young soldiers formed the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC) government with Strasser as their leader and Head of State.
Records laid hands on by this press show that Bio’s first appointment in the then military government was Secretary of State, South stationed in Sierra Leone’s second capital, Bo.
He was later moved to Freetown where he took charge of the country’s public broadcaster, Sierra Leone Broadcasting Service today known as the Sierra Leone Broadcasting Corporation. Bio was later promoted to the senior rank of Captain earning him a place in the Supreme Council of State, the highest decision making body. Not too long, Bio replaced Lieutnant Solomon Musa who was sacked and exiled to the United Kingdom.
The 1996 Military Coup
Coups and counter-coups is one of the main features of military rule, so be it for the NRPC regime as Maada Bio ousted his boss, Valentine Strasser in Januray, 1996 on allegations of refusing to hand over to civilian rule. Then Military Head of State, Captain Strasser was handcuffed at gunpoint by his body guards and flown into neighbouring Guinea from where he travelled to the United States and later Europe.
Other sources also stated that the putsch against Strasser followed a dispute within the governing Supreme Council over whether to seek peace with the RUF (Revolutionary United Front) before multi-party elections planned for March, 1996 or go head with the elections despite an ongoing civil war.
The conditions for participation or disqualification of junta members were also part of the row that led to the coup.
Bio’s coup against Strasser also got international support as well as top-ranking members of the army. Colonel Tom Nyuma, Komba Mondeh, Reginald Clover, Idrissa Kamara and Karefa Kargbo threw their weight behind the new Bio military government.
Once on the driving seat, Bio conducted the 1996 general elections and later handed over power to SLPP’s Ahmed Tejan Kabba who won the election although there were controversies since late John Karefa Smart of the United National People’s Party was widely reported to have won the election.
After his retirement from the army in 1996, Bio moved to the United States where he earned a master in International Affairs from an American university in Washington D.C. He also served as President of International Systems Science Corporation, a consulting and investment management firm based in the United States.
President Bio became an official member of SLPP in 2005 and sought leadership of the party in the same year during a National Delegates’ Conference held in Makeni city in the Northern region.
He took third place with 33 votes, but did not give up the political race as he appeared again on the political stage in 2012. It was reported that some SLPP fanatics forced their way during the SLPP National Delegates’ Conference held at Youyi Building at the heart of Freetown and declared Bio as 2012 SLPP’s presidential candidate.
In subsequent general election, Bio faced then incumbent candidate, Ernest Koroma but suffered defeat as he got 37% of the total votes cast. However, SLPP is established as the only viable opposition party in Sierra Leone. As in military terms, Bio retreated to his trench and came back under the PAOPA ideology.
He was overwhelmingly elected in the 2017 SLPP convention and later ran with Samura Kamara of the APC getting 51.8 percent of the votes in a run off according to results from the Electoral Commission for Sierra Leone.
He succeeded Ernest Koroma who was President since 2007 but stepped down after he reached his constitutional term limit.
Bio As Civilian Leader
President Julius Maada Bio was inaugurated in April, 2018 after he was declared winner of the elections amid high expectation. The people of Sierra Leone wanted to see a revamped economy that suffered twin shocks since 2014 owing to the outbreak of Ebola virus and the closure of mining companies, government’s main source of taxes.
The people had hoped that once the economy was fixed, there would be an improved cost of living for Sierra Leoneans especially low prices for food stuff. President Bio’s key promise of cutting the price of a 50kg bag of rice from NLe200 (two hundred New Leones) to NLe50 (fifty Leones) resonated with the people’s aspirations.
Most of Bio’s fine promises were codified in a single document known as 2018 People’s Manifesto, by the socio-political and economic realities on the ground.
Inflation, weak exchange rate, continued depreciation of the Leones, balance of payment deficit and unfavourable terms of trade characterise Sierra Leone’s economy under Bio’s watch.
Prices of basic food stuff sky-rockets every day with a bag of rice sold between Le1, 000, 000 (one million Leones) and Le1, 500, 000 (one million, five hundred thousand Leones) raising big doubt about where the country is going.
The unbearably high cost of living is hitting hard on Sierra Leoneans especially the have-nots in the suburbs, a key factor that has generated fury and resentment against the Bio regime from the South-East to the North-West regions.
Apart from the tough time the country is going through today, the Bio regime is on record to have committed the worst human right abuses in post-war Sierra Leone. The killings started in early 2018 in Freetown when thugs linked to SLPP quickly turned into vigilante groups chasing former government officials everywhere to retrieve what they called stolen assets especially public vehicles. Prominent APC members lost their lives in the brutal raids with no one held to account.
The massacres of inmates at Pa Demba Road correctional facility in Freetown in April, 2020 as well as dozens of Sierra Leoneans in August 10, 2022 and September 11, 2023 are all horrific in nature.
From the capital city, the killings also spread to the provinces with Rosengbe, a tiny village in Tonkolili district, being the first victim. It fell in the hands of state security forces in a day with a commercial motorist (okada rider) being the first to be fatally injured. Lunsar in PortLoko district, Makeni in Bombali district, the fishing community of Tombo, Waterloo, Lungi, Kambia and other communities in opposition strongholds also tasted the PAOPA brutality.
Currently, the crimes of the Bio regime have reached a high point so much that global attention is now turned to Sierra Leone with the people calling for the President to step aside. However, there is a big hope among the PAOPA camp that Bio will continue to hold the forte despite the challenges.
Domestic Policy
Free Quality Education (FQE) was Bio’s most popular domestic policy and flagship project of attracting millions of US dollars from the international community.
The FQE policy is an actualisation of a promise made by President Bio to the people of Sierra Leone in the campaign period. He also eliminated application fees for students in public universities across Sierra Leone.
The FQE project however came to a sudden halt when President Bio won again in June 2023 as the education system still remains the same.
Poor infrastructure, lack of good libraries and beggarly salaries for teachers still weigh hard on Sierra Leone’s education sector. However, Bio cancelled a China-funded $400m loan agreement with former President, Ernest Koroma to build a new international airport in Sierra Leone.
In a bid to ensure accountability in state governance, President Bio initiated an audit of all public institutions in respect of mining contracts in ministries, departments and government agencies as recommended by GTT (Governance Transition Team) report authored by former Chief Minister, Professor David Francis and other SLPP officials.
Bio also sacked Sierra Leone’s ambassadors, high commissioners and other principal representatives who served in the Koroma regime.
Bio also accused ex-President Koroma and his ministers of widespread corruption which include stealing millions of dollars from state revenue, selling of public properties and significant amounts of a state mining company, funds meant for Ebola and mudslide victims as well as money to help poor Sierra Leoneans go on hajj pilgrimage.
The scathing allegations led to the formation of a judge-led commission of inquiry to investigate persons who were President, Vice President, ministers and deputies, heads of parastatals and agencies.
The commission completed its work within a year and came out with adverse findings and recommendations that led to the confiscation of property of past government officials.
Other APC members including the 2023 presidential candidate, Samura Kamara were also roped in for corruption. Kamara still appears before the court for corruption-related crimes although the October, 2018 communiqué calls for an end to politically motivated court cases.
President Bio is still remembered for several states of emergencies he declared on Corona virus and sexual violence. However, most of his policies, according to political analysts, are not in tune with the times and majority of the people of Sierra Leone are less comfortable with him, and want to see him out of power. The current political tide does not favour President Bio except the outcome of the Tripartite Committee says otherwise.