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Meet Julius Maada Bio an ethnic Sherbro and a native of Bonthe District in Southern Sierra Leone led a military coup in Sierra Leone but he’s now the new Sierra Leonne president.
HIS EARLY LIFE Brigadier (Ret.) Julius Maada Bio was born on 12th May, 1964 in Tihun, a rural town in Sogbini Chiefdom, Bonthe District, not far from Mattru Jong, in the Southern Province of Sierra Leone.
He is from a family of 45 members, his father and mother, eight step mothers and thirty-four brothers and sisters. His father was the late Paramount Chief Charlie Bio II of Sogbini Chiefdom who kept very over-extended family ties even by African standards. PC Charlie Bio II named Maada Bio after his own father [Maada Bio’s grandfather], who was paramount chief of Sogbini Chiefdom before him. Young Maada Bio attended the Roman Catholic Primary School in Mattru Jong and later the Holy Family Primary School in Pujehun.![]()
Upon completion of his primary education at the Holy Family Primary school, Maada Bio enrolled in the Government Secondary School for Boys in Bo, commonly known as Bo School. His first taste with power could be traced back to his manifest-youthful over-exuberance with authority when he was school prefect at Bo School, where he completed sixth form in 1984. A junior class schoolmate of Maada Bio who asked for anonymity stated that “he employed heavy-handedness as prefect to terrify us [junior boys] at Bo School.” Bo School is one of four famous government boarding schools built in the provinces by British colonial administration for children of paramount chiefs, which still for the most part caters for children of special interest groups and persons in society.
There is conflicting evidence that Maada Bio applied and entered Fourah Bay College briefly and another that he applied to enter Fourah Bay College in 1985 at age 21 and changed his mind about going to college and instead enrolled in the Republic of Sierra Leone Armed Forces cadet training at the Military Training Academy in Benguema, on the outskirt of Freetown. SLPP-MOTIVATED MILITARY CONSCRIPT “Considering my position as Head of Sierra Leone’s Military Intelligence for several years before the NPRC military coup, including the first twelve months of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) tribal rebel war, I was privy to reliable and credible intelligence reports relating to the coup plot.”![]()
Colonel (Ret.) SIM Turay wrote for the New Vision newspaper in an article entitled, “The NPRC Coup”. And the secrecy he was privy to was a convoluted game of power politics and political intrigues so twisted that some of its corners bore the decade-long rebel war between 1991 and 2002, the military overthrow of a civilian government in 1992, and the extra-judicial killings of 29 Sierra Leoneans that same year, the palace coup of 1996 etc., events that actually gagged constitutional democracy in Sierra Leone. Under the spotlight of democracy in Sierra Leone today, is one of the major players, Brigadier (Ret.) Julius Maada Bio, who is now the presidential flag bearer of the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) for the elections 2012. SIM Turay revealed that Maada Bio’s enlistment was part of the SLPP top leaders’ conspiracy to forcefully overthrow the All Peoples Congress (APC).
And he wrote: The eastern and southern faction formed the core of the RUF, together with Charles Taylor’s NPFL rebels, and an unspecified number of Burkinabe regular soldiers. However, the implementation of a second option within the military saw the emergence of the group of junior military officers. In order to facilitate this option, it became necessary to infiltrate the army once the tribal rebel war had begun, necessitating the recruitment of more junior infantry officers. Dr. AK Turay willingly obliged the SLPP when Momoh selected him to put together a team of lecturers from Fourah Bay College (FBC), University of Sierra Leone to set and mark the examination papers for the recruitment of Officer Cadets into the army. But Momoh was unknowingly playing into the hands of Dr Turay who was covertly SLPP.![]()
Amongst the carefully chosen ones under that surreptitious arrangement to infiltrate the military were Julius Maada Bio, Valentine Strasser, Solomon Musa and Sahr Sandi all have south-easterner background except for Strasser, who many believed was not part of the SLPP conspiracy but had been called upon to execute the broader grand plan. And he ended up leading the group after the death of Lieutenant Sandi. SIM Turay stated further that “For this purpose, ethnic Mendes and Kissis, together with ethnic Konos were encouraged to join the army as Officer Cadets.
In order to facilitate their success in the Cadet exams, Dr AK Turay cleverly recruited Mende lecturers sympathetic to the SLPP.” The broader grand plan was a strategy by SLPP intellectuals to resurrect their Party [SLPP] in the mid-80s. They operated initially under the guise of a well-intentioned Pan-African Union (PANAFU) organization in Sierra Leone to veil and call meetings under its name to fool authorities. And they did so, on two tracks: The SLPP-influenced UN pressure on President Momoh to repeal the one-party system on condition of World Bank and American loan to a cash trapped government; and the formation of the SLPP-backed RUF rebel movement with which they hope to create mayhem and ensure a violent overthrow of the government. There were now two routes to overthrow the APC: The RUF or the SLPP infiltrators in the Army.
The ‘so-called’ PANAFU meetings were held in a house basement on Wilkinson Road in Freetown. Top scholars and historians have established those links between RUF formation and students’ demonstrations in Sierra Leone in the 80s. It is now also clear that in the embryo of the rebel movement were student activists. That plan was however aborted because of the successful UN intervention to pressure President Momoh to revert back to multi-party democracy in 1991. But recent research, examining the Alie Kabba-led student union uprising in the mid-80’s and the Revolutionary United Front rebel formation, however, posed compelling and disturbing links between current President Tejan Kabbah and Vice President Solomon Berewa, among other high-powered intellectuals.
Describing events related to the civil war in Sierra Leone, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Final Report (Volume 3b: Chapter 5) said of Kabba: “Then, in 1985, Alie Kabba, a keen member of several radical clubs, was returned unopposed as president of FBC student union on a platform of collective self-advancement that he referred to as ‘we-ism.’ “We-ism, according to the same report, is a leftist ideology that intrigues then was the unsuspecting Strasser who was not privy to the SLPP angle of the grand plan. There are compelling warfront stories that seemed to link the RUF and the NPRC. Maada Bio’s brother, Steve Bio was an arms and ammunition contractor for both NPRC and RUF in Sierra Leone.![]()
At the same time, Maada Bio’s sister was a commando of the RUF who led rebels to an untold onslaught in Maada Bio’s home town of Tihun, which would later be dubbed ground zero for the indiscriminate murdering and house burning there. It was not uncommon to hear amazing stories from war-weary villagers that NPRC warriors, such as Maada Bio, and Colonel Idriss Kamara, Captain Edie Kanneh etc., entered into rebel territories and came out untouched with incredulous stories of how they massacred rebels in war vestibules, thereby mystifying the public with self-induced perception about themselves of possessing supernatural prowess.
Few years later at the Abidjan peace talk between Sankoh and Bio, Sankoh was observed talking to himself “these are my boys, and I instructed my commandos not to shoot at them, we indeed shared some amount of camaraderie at the warfronts from where they returned at night belly full.” MAADA BIO THE CADET OFFICER Maada Bio graduated from the military academy as second lieutenant in October 1987. At the military academy and by design, Maada Bio built close, friendly relations with his fellow cadet officers like Valentine Strasser, Solomon Musa and Sahr Sandi. According to military records, Maada Bio was directly under the command of Major Fallah Sewa, who was head of cadet trainings at the military academy. His very first posting as a soldier was at the Lungi Garrison in Port Loko district the same year he graduated.
Maada Bio was moved to Kambia district as part of the Economic State of Emergency Unit, created by President Joseph Momoh to combat currency haulage and other financial crimes. In 1988, before Maada Bio’s posting to Benguema as a platoon commander he was re-posted to Lungi to be trained by the United Nations forces in aviation security. According to ECOMOG peacekeeping forces and RSLAF records, Maada Bio, Strasser and Solomon Musa were deployed in Liberia to fight in a Civil War that had broke-out there as part of Sierra Leone’s contribution to ECOMOG peacekeeping forces in 1990 for one year. After a year in Liberia as an ECOMOG soldier, Maada Bio and other members of the Sierra Leonean army serving in Liberia were ordered back to return to Sierra Leone to be deployed in Daru Army Barracks in Kailahun District as a part of a 600-man battalion of soldiers to squash an insurgency by RUF rebels that had just begun in southern and eastern villages in March 1991. Top scholars and war records now show that President Momoh played into the hands of careful planners of the rebellion in an army in which he was Commander-in-Chief against the advice of his military loyalists including SIM Turay.
Very notorious amongst the 600-man battalion at Daru, were the future coupist. At the warfront, Maada Bio and others tormented and mystified their fellow warfront warriors to disillusionment. MAADA BIO THE 1992 COUPIST “On April 29, 1992, Bio was one of a group of six young Sierra Leonean soldiers that included Captain Valentine Strasser, Lieutenant Sahr Sandi, Captain Solomon Musa, Captain Tom Nyuma and Captain Komba Mondeh that toppled President Joseph Saidu Momoh’s Government. In a gun battle with ECOMOG forces, Sahr Sandi, the prospective leader with a diabolical plan of tribal annihilation was killed according to SIM Turay’s account which is opposed to an allegation that he [SIM Turay] actually shot and killed him. Lieutenant Colonel (Rtd.) Kahota M.S. Dumbuya, Major (Rtd.) M.C. Jalloh, Captain Hanciles Bangura, Mr. Chernor Jan Jalloh, Mr. S. Samba, Sieh Bangura, Sub Inspector D.T.S. Lebbie, Mr. Salami Coker, Mr. Victor Jarret, Ms. Salamatu Kamara, Bangura Mohammed, Mr. Emmanuel E.Mani, Mr. Sorie Bangura, Mr. Yapo Conteh, Sergeant Conteh A.F., PC 6819 Bangura, Sergeant Saffa J., Corporal Lavalie W., Mr. Moses Davies, Mr. Emmanuel Koroma, Mr. Foday Turay, Mr. Sieh Turay. In an attempt to ensure impunity, the NPRC regime published in the Indemnity and Transition Decree Supplement of the Sierra Leone Gazette Extraordinary Vol. CXXIII, no. 60 on 16th, September 1992: No action or other legal proceeding, whether civil or criminal, shall be instituted in any court or tribunal for or on the account of, or in respect of any act, matter or thing done, whether within Sierra Leone or without, during the period extending from 29th April, 1992 to the commencement of this decree by (a) any member of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Sierra Leone and (b) the national Provision Ruling Council established by the Proclamation entitled ‘the Administration of Sierra Leone (National Provisional Ruling Council) Proclamation, 1992, or any member thereof or (c) anybody or person acting directly or indirectly under the authority of – (i) the National provisional council; or (ii) any member of the armed forces of the Republic of Sierra Leone. Recently in an interview with Audrey Brown on BBC Focus on Africa, Maada Bio admitted to collective responsibility of the extra-judicial killings. But the Sierra Leone Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) had granted those who committed crimes against humanity in Sierra Leone before 1996 a blanket amnesty.
Mr. John Musa, a legal scholar in Freetown wrote for the African Young Voices (AYV) newspaper, “Before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Julius Maada Bio never testified that he tendered his resignation or the NPRC High Command offered him a free vote or an agreement to differ with his colleagues on grounds of being a conscientious objector to extra-judicial killing of 29 people roused at dawn to die for nothing.” A legal practitioner explained that Maada Bio is squarely culpable in the absence of “a free vote or an agreement to differ”. The Lome Peace Accord, which was ratified by the Parliament grants pardon to all combatants of the civil war, while one of the “Ten Commandments” (imperative recommendations) of the Truth Commission reads, “Release of person held in safe custody/ detention. Never again resort to safe custody detention.” Nonetheless, detaining and trying those allegedly bearing “the greatest responsibility” for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Sierra Leone by the Special Court contradicts the aforementioned provision of the Lome Peace Accord and the recommendation of the truth commission.
A well-placed statesman in society, who was a leading journalist at the time of the NPRC extra-judicial killings recounted in great despair when he explained “I was called upon by one of the junta leaders to State House. He asked me do you know that they wanted to overthrow us?’ He was referring to the NPRC junta regime. I asked him by whom? He answered, ‘Bambay Kamara and others.’” The statesman said he wanted to laugh but was afraid of being arrested. “Mr. Bambay Kamara was at the Pademba Road Prisons at the time,” he said and explained further that “the officer took out a recorder that he played claiming to be Mr. Bambay Kamara’s voice stating that ‘In the Name of Allah, we the…’ I could not bear but laughed at that, because, Mr. Bambay Kamara was a devout Christian. I asked about their where-about, my junta officer said, ‘We have killed them.’ I broke down and walked away without making further comment.
Normally when you organise a successful coup d’etat, there’s a high chance you are not going to hand over power after three months. Now, that is what 53 year-old Julius Maada Bio did back in 1996.
On January 16, 1996, Bio, an ethnic Sherbro and a native of Bonthe District in Southern Sierra Leone led a military coup in Sierra Leone, ousting his close friend and the leader of the NPRC junta government, Captain Valentine Strasser, following a division within senior members of the NPRC junta.
Surpringly, this wasn’t his first attempt at staging a coup. Bio and six other soldiers had in 1992 organised a coup that overthrew president Momoh. Mr. Bio was made deputy head of state then.
In his first public speech after the coup, Bio justified his actions as a means to return Sierra Leone to a democratically elected civilian government and end the Sierra Leone civil war.
Bio fulfilled his promise to return Sierra Leone to democracy; and he handed power to Ahmad Tejan Kabbah of the SLPP following the latter’s victory in the 1996 presidential election.
After retiring from the military in 1996, Bio moved to the United States, where he earned a Masters Degree in International Affairs from American University in Washington, D.C.. He also served as the president of International Systems Science Corporation, a consulting and investment management firm based in the United States.
As the winner of the elections, Julius Maada Bio, was Wednesday night immediately sworn in as the country’s president by the country’s chief justice, Abdulai Charm.
Candidates from 16 parties ran for president, but in the first round of voting last month, no one won the 55 percent required to avoid a second round.
Mr. Bio, the Sierra Leone People’s Party, received 51.8 percent of the vote in the runoff on Saturday, narrowly defeating Samura Kamara from the governing party, the All People’s Congress, who won 48.2 percent, according to the Electoral Commission.
Mr. Bio succeeds President Ernest Bai Koroma, who is stepping down after serving a second five-year term. His tenure was punctuated by tragedy, including an outbreak of the Ebola virus and a deadly mudslide, in a country that is still recovering from a civil war that ended in 2002 after the deaths of more than 50,000 people.
The Electoral Commission had postponed the runoff after a High Court judge found irregularities in the first round of voting.
Sierra Leone has abundant natural wealth, including diamonds, bauxite and iron ore, but the country is one of the world’s poorest, with high rates of maternal and infant mortality. Many adults make a living from activities like selling clothes along the road, pushing loads in wheelbarrows for hire and driving motorbike taxis.
Bio is a senior research fellow at the University of Bradford in England, where he is pursuing a Ph.D. in Peace Studies.
Mr. Bio’s victory in Sierra Leone resembles, in some ways, that of Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria’s president since 2015, according to Mr. Lavali. Mr. Buhari was a former military commander who led his country after a coup there.
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Meet Julius Maada Bio an ethnic Sherbro and a native of Bonthe District in Southern Sierra Leone led a military coup in Sierra Leone but he’s now the new Sierra Leonne president.
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Gbenga Bareehu Ashafa is a Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria from Lagos State. He represents Lagos East in the current 8th National Assembly and the Chairman, Senate Committee on Land Transport. Senator Ashafa is a member of Senate Committees on Foreign Affairs, Establishment and Public Service, Water Resources, National Security and Senate Ad-Hoc Committee on Import, Concession and Export Waivers.
