President Julius Bio of Sierra Leone delivered the Third Annual Distinguished Lecture in African Studies, organized by the Centre for Africana Studies, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, United States on March 25, 2024. His lecture was entitled, “Navigating the Future: Democracy, Progressive Politics and Inclusive Development in Africa – The Sierra Leone Experience.”

After the lecture, he sat down for a Q&A with Wale Adebanwi, the Director of the Centre, and Presidential Penn Compact Professor of Africana Studies.

Speaking on the need to reform the UN Security Council and what Africa would gain from such reform, he said, “I think the UN Security is obsolete; completely obsolete but also dysfunctional. And instead of helping us deal with the global challenges we have, I believe it is compounding the challenges that we have. So, it is not just for Africa, but it’s an appeal to the world so we can have a better society. The Charter itself is about peace, and from the drama we’ve seen at the UN Security Council, until and unless there are serious reforms, the world will find itself in serious challenges that it cannot easily navigate.

On relinquishing power within three months and what can be done not only to restore democratic rule in countries that have experienced coups in recent times but also to prevent military takeover in the rest of the continent, President Bio said, “dealing with the first part, I believe in democracy as I’ve stated already. Our intervention was meant to bring about democracy after nearly three decades of autocracy in Sierra Leone, a one-party rule. So, in the first place, we intervened because all democratic means to change the government had failed. In fact, one-party system was in place. So, the only way to get rid of it was through unconstitutional means. How did I get to hand-over power in three months? Because of my value system; I took over with the explicit understanding that I was not going to spend more than three months. My word is my bond. I took over because I did not want the prolongation of our regime, and I did not see myself extending beyond that point.

“We faced serious challenges at the time because once I made the pronouncement; the rebels that we had been fighting for nearly six to seven years accepted a peace deal but with the provision that I would stay in power. But I had already committed to the people of Sierra Leone, and it would have been against my value system to continue. So many people saw it as difficult, but I didn’t see it as difficult. Yes, it was a dangerous move because there were a number of colleagues in the military who did not support it. But leadership is important with all that is happening today. If the world is in turmoil or distracted, it is because the world’s lack of leadership. Leadership is not when things are normal; you show leadership when things are tough, and you take the people out of very difficult circumstances. The leadership I provided at that time was to make sure that we kept our word. I said I would not be there for more than three months. So even when the rebels said “no, if you stayed longer, we would not fight,” I said “no, I have said three months, and come three months, I am going to go.” That was how I did it.

“For the military governments, these are quite different. You remember that in the early 1990s, the Soviet Union had just collapsed, and we were a non-aligned state. We were not specifically supported by any of the world powers, but we had a situation of serious corruption, mismanagement of the economy, and, of course, there was no democracy. These were what spurred us. Today what has inspired these other coups cannot be exactly established, and it varies from country to country. Therefore, it is difficult to lump things together and provide a solution for them. I think we have to deal with them individually and again some of those, or some of us in leadership who are supposed to protect democracy, are the ones actually betraying the cause of democracy. When the military sees this, and they know that you are manipulating the Constitution, this encourages them to come in. In fact, even the opposition will encourage the military to go there. So, most of the coups that take place are actually supported by the civilians or encouraged because they know that the preparation of a particular administration will not favour them coming to power through the ballot box. Therefore, they will encourage the military so that they would one day put pressure for an election be held, and they will have a clean slate.

Speaking on his focus on education and gender equality as well as how successful he was with these two policies, President Bio explained that “Education, to me, is an existential phenomenon. In the world that we live in today, education is an imperative, and it’s not just ordinary education but education fit for purpose. In Africa, we have to make sure we catch up with the rest of the world, and to make sure that we do that, we have to educate our population. We have to bring ourselves up in terms of knowledge and skills. What we did was to make sure that access was free for every Sierra Leonean. Every child born in Sierra Leone has access to primary and secondary education at the cost of the government. Women who take STEM courses can continue up to university for free. And for the many things we do, we do not just provide free access to education; we’ve been working on the quality of education. We have also provided for kids with poor parents, for the parents to be able to send their kids to school. We provide transportation. We also provide school meals and feeding programs to ensure that kids don’t go to school hungry.

“We also provide them with core textbooks. In our society, there is poverty, and some parents cannot provide core textbooks for their kids. So we are providing core textbooks and learning materials, too. It’s a combination of a whole host of things, and all of these were happening against the backdrop of many international crises, including COVID. Still, we kept our focus on making sure that nothing derailed us on this track of education. The UN Security Council recognized us. I was part of the high-level steering team of UNESCO. I am a champion in the world for foundational education. Besides learning outcomes, we have greatly improved in Sierra Leone, and the numbers from secondary schools to universities have improved, as well as the quality of the results. In five years, we have received accolades from around the world, and we did it despite the financial constraints and the international crisis that provided a very tough headwind for us. We can’t confidently say that we achieved quite a lot, but it’s a long process. We have only started, and we are continuing to make sure that we improve on the quality, to make sure that every child gets basic and secondary education and to make sure that they can transition to the university.

“We pay lip service to development around the world if we do not take the women folk along. For women’s empowerment, I always tell my personal story as the last son of a woman – may her soul rest in peace. She had no education, and my father died when I was only four. I started school, I didn’t know what to do, nor did my mom know what to do. But she valued education, and through her support and that of my elder sister later on – she also just passed about a month ago, may her soul rest in peace – I am where I am today because of education. I come from a little village, 100 miles away from the city. With the support of these two women, I was able to get to this point. I have a strong belief that women have been neglected and that we should bring them to par with their male folks. We will accelerate the rate of development in the world if we have empowered women as we have done for the male. I have a couple of male teachers, but I normally say that I am a product of women.

“This is why I believe it is not politics; I believe that we should empower them if we are talking about development. We pay lip service to development around the world if we do not take the women folk along. They have a different take on how we see things, and that take is important. Therefore, I did not just pay service to that; we have moved an act through parliament called gender empowerment, which has given at least in Sierra Leone 30% in all appointed positions, both in the private sector and government, and many other opportunities they lacked at the time. Hence, women by legislation now constitute more than 30% of our legislature, cabinet minister, and every other position. We are now in the process of implementation, just to make sure we bring them along. Women by legislation now constitute more than 30% of our legislature, cabinet minister, and every other position.

“You asked what I am doing this time around. I have realized that as we are in the middle of all this education and many things that we did to change the landscape and the narrative of Sierra Leone, we have this situation in Ukraine. We have been suffering ever since. Food prices went up, and we have arable land, and what we have decided to do is to, in addition to political independence, have food sovereignty. Therefore, we have designed a program called “Feed Sierra Leone.” We want to be able to produce most of our food within the country, and we are just at the cusp of actually implementing that. We are raising the necessary funds to put the policies and everything else in place to embark successfully on that,: he said. (Story adapted from Nigerian Tribune)

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