On Wednesday, 4th of April, 2018, the country of Sierra-Leone witnessed a change in power when Former Military leader, Juliun Madaa assumed office as the President of the country.
Representing the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), Bio won 51.81 per cent of votes cast in the March 31 poll, according to results announced by the National Electoral Commission (NEC) on Wednesday.
He defeated former foreign affairs minister and ruling All People’s Congress (APC) candidate Samura Kamara, who had held a slight lead based on partial results earlier in the day but in the end garnered 48.19 per cent.
Sahara weekly with it’s inquisitive quality did a background check up on the new President and found some information you all need to know
HIS BACKGROUND
Julius Maada Bio was born on 12 May 1964, in Tihun, a village in the Sogbini Chiefdom, Bonthe District, just outside the main commercial town of Mattru Jong, in the Southern Province of Sierra Leone. Bio is the 33 of 35 children born to Sherbro Paramount Chief Charlie Bio II of Sogbini Chiefdom. Bio’s father had nine wives. Bio is named after his paternal grandfather, who was also a paramount chief of Sogbini Chiefdom. Bio is an ethnic Sherbro and a practicing Roman Catholic.[5]
Bio began his primary education at the Roman Catholic Primary School in Tihun, Bonthe District. After finishing his early years in primary school, Bio was sent to the town of Pujehun to live with his older sister Agnes, who was a primary school teacher in Pujehun. Bio completed his primary education at the Holy Family Primary School in Pujehun. At the completion of his primary education, Bio’s older sister, Agnes, enrolled him at the Bo Government Secondary School in Bo (commonly known as Bo School), a prominent boarding school. Bio spent seven years at Bo School, rising to become school Prefect. Bio graduated from Bo School in 1984 with A-level at age 20.[5]
Political career
Bio officially became a member of the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) in 2005. That same year, Bio sought the leadership of the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) at its national convention in Makeni on 3 to 4 September 2005; he took third place, with 33 votes, behind Vice President Solomon Berewa, who received 291 votes, and Charles Margai, who won 34 votes. J.B. Dauda polled 28 votes.[8]
On the night of 31 July 2011, Julius Maada Bio won the election to become the SLPP’s 2012 presidential candidate at the SLPP convention, which was held at the Youyi Building in the heart of Freetown. In the national election, he faced off with President Ernest Bai Koroma of the ruling APC and was defeated, winning 37% of the vote, but established the SLPP as the only viable opposition party in Sierra Leone.[9]
Julius Maada Bio was elected President of Sierra Leone in a run-off election held 31 March 2018. He scored 51.8 percent of the votes according to official results from Sierra Leone’s National Elections Commission. He succeeded Ernest Bai Koroma of the APC who had been President since 2007.
Personal life
Maada Bio is an ethnic Sherbro and a practicing Roman Catholic Christian. Bio’s wife, Fatima Bio is a practicing Muslim and a Gambian national, though she grew up in Kono Districtin Sierra Leone; and her mother was born in Kono District, Sierra Leone and her father is a Gambian native. Bio and Fatima were married in 2013 in London in an interfaith wedding ceremony that was held in a Church and a Mosque prayer services in London. The couple have one child together that was born in London. Bio has three children, all three born in the United States from a previous marriage
Participation in 1992 military coup
On April 29, 1992, Bio was one of a group of young Sierra Leonean soldiers including Captain Valentine Strasser, Lieutenant Sahr Sandy, Lieutenant Solomon Musa, Lieutenant Tom Nyuma and Captain Komba Mondeh that toppled president Joseph Saidu Momohs All People’s Congress (APC) government in a bloodless military coup. The young soldiers formed the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC) with Strasser as their leader and Head of State of Sierra Leone.[5]
Bio’s first appointment following the formation of the NPRC was as the Secretary of State South, stationed in the country’s second capital Bo. He was later moved to Freetown to serve as Secretary of State in charge of Information and Broadcasting. At this point, he was promoted to Captain alongside other junior lieutenants. As a leading member of the coup that kicked out the APC government, Bio served as Supreme Council of State member throughout the NPRC’s stay in power and when Strasser’s deputy, captain S.A.J. Musa, was sacked and exiled to the UK, Bio was appointed to the position of Deputy Chairman of the NPRC.[5]
1996 military coupOn January 16, 1996, Bio led a military coup, ousting Captain Valentine Strasser, following a dispute within the governing Supreme Council of State (SCS) over whether to seek peace with the RUF before multi-party elections, planned for March 1996, or go ahead with the election notwithstanding the ongoing war in the country, and the conditions for participation (or disqualification) of junta members in the elections. The coup was backed by many high ranking NPRC soldiers including Colonel Tom Nyuma, Lieutenant Colonel Komba Mondeh, Lieutenant Colonel Reginald Glover, Lieutenant Colonel Idriss Kamara, and Lieutenant Colonel Karefa-Kargbo. Captain Valentine Strasser then the leader of the NPRC and the military Head of State of Sierra Leone was handcuffed at gunpoint by his own military bodyguards who were supposed to protect him and was immediately flown into exile in a military helicopter to Conakry, in neighboring Guinea.[6]
After the military
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, DC. He also served as the president of International Systems Science Corporation, a consulting and investment management firm based in the United States.[7]