When I was ushered into his office at about 5pm on Monday after what had been a long day for him, President Maada Bio was still treating files on his table. But I was curious to know more about something I had seen in the documentary of his life that had been aired during the ceremony to mark his 61st birthday earlier in the day. That is, his meeting with Foday Sankoh, the late Sierra Leonean commander of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebel group who, together with Charles Taylor of Liberia, wreaked havoc on the subregion in the nineties. Bio?s recollections turned out to be another lesson in leadership, a continuation of the conversation begun at the colloquium.

But first, the background. At age 27 in 1990, Bio and other Sierra Leonean military personnel, including then Captain Valentine Strasser and Lt Solomon Musa, were deployed to Liberia as part of the country?s contingent to the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG). At that period, most of the Liberians fleeing from war in their country were trooping to the neighbouring Sierra Leone in a manner that exerted economic pressure and a serious security challenge that was being mismanaged by the civilian administration of President Joseph Saidu Momoh. It therefore came as no surprise that the ECOMOG returnees formed the nucleus of the military that toppled Momoh?s government on 29 April 1992. Strasser, then 25, was named Chairman of the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC) and Head of State. Bio started with the Information portfolio before becoming Deputy Chairman of the NPRC and de facto second in command in Sierra Leone. On 16 January 1996, following disagreements over how to handle the Sankoh-led RUF and the process of proceeding with the multi-party election then scheduled for March 1996, Bio upstaged Strasser in a bloodless palace coup.

As Head of State, Bio stayed true to his three-month deadline for the transition from military to civil rule in Sierra Leone. But from what he shared with me on Monday, the story was not as straight-forward as it seemed. Intent on ending the civil war before leaving office, Bio decided to meet Sankoh. By his account, two leaders played critical roles in that regard: Then Nigerian Head of State, the late General Sani Abacha and then President JJ Rawlings in Ghana. ?I got along very well with General Abacha and President Rawlings, and both provided guidance for me on the politics of the subregion at the time. I remember Rawlings telling me that the person who could help in the peace process was President Blaise Compaor? of Burkina Faso because he had access to Sankoh. But he also warned me to ?prepare for disappointment because Compaor? is not a reliable person.? And President Rawlings turned out to be right.?

Eventually, it was President Henri Konan Bedie of Cote D`Ivoire whose men brought Sankoh from the Sierra Leonean bush. A Red Cross helicopter lifted Sankoh to a chartered aircraft that flew him and his team through Guinea for the negotiations that preceded the one-on-one meeting with Bio in Yamoussoukro. By then, Bio had delivered on a credible multiparty election in Sierra Leone that produced a President-elect in Teejan Kabbah. But shortly before the duo were locked in for three hours, Sankoh questioned Bio?s commitment to ending the war in Sierra Leone in a rambling speech that lasted 16 minutes. ?Why did you come in combat uniform?? Sankoh asked. ?This was supposed to be a peace conference.?

Notwithstanding, Bio said he had a very candid session with the notorious rebel leader who warned him that the only way peace could be guaranteed in Sierra Leone was for him (Bio) to remain in power to execute the agreements. ?I saw sense in many of the points Sankoh was making about the need to consolidate the agreements and I felt if we extended the transition programme, we could find lasting solutions to many of the issues. I recall my conversations with General Abacha who told me there was no point in any hasty arrangement to hand over power. But it was a delicate thing, as I didn?t want to be seen as wanting to hang on to power. That was not my intention. So, I decided to call a big conference of all stakeholders in Sierra Leone. I laid my cards on the table. I explained the dilemma of the moment and that I had no personal wish to stay in power beyond ensuring a lasting peace. The opposition was instant and vehement.?

Following the meeting, Bio decided to go with the consensus that he should hand over power and leave. But deep down, as he told me on Monday, he knew the peace he was leaving behind in Sierra Leone was that of the graveyard and that it would not endure. He felt that the political leaders at the time were too obsessed with the trappings of powers to see the dangers. Not surprisingly, the ?Yamoussoukro Accord? collapsed shortly after Bio left office and the country again descended into violence until the intervention of world powers in January 1999 which led to the ?Lome Accord? in Togo. That temporary truce resulted in Sankoh being offered the vice presidency and control of Sierra Leone?s diamond mines in return for a cessation of hostilities. But despite the deployment of a United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) peacekeeping force to monitor the disarmament process, the brutal war erupted again and did not end until 2002.

Although Bio?s decision not to renege on handing over power in 1996 as promised may have helped him when seeking the votes to be Sierra Leonean President two decades later, he believes the country paid a heavy price for it. With an estimated 2.5 million people displaced in a country that was then about five million in population and no fewer than 50,000 people killed, the ?Diamond War? in Sierra Leone remains one of the biggest humanitarian disasters on the continent. My Pastor, Evaristus Azodoh, a consultant urologist and retired army colonel, was Commander of the ECOMOG Task Force Field Hospital in Freetown between April 1998 and August 1999 and he has on several occasions shared gory stories of that war in which many Nigerian soldiers also perished.

After handing over power and leaving Sierra Leone, Bio spent the first six months in Paris learning French (he shared the reasons with me) before heading to the United States where he was offered political asylum. He did not return to his country until 2005. Eventually, Bio joined the Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) and in 2012 contested the presidential election. He was defeated by then incumbent President Ernest Bai Koroma. In a second attempt in 2018, Bio was elected President and was in 2023, re-elected for his second and final term.

Meanwhile, I arrived Sierra Leone on Sunday on the same flight from Abuja with former Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, the Director General of the Shehu Musa Yar?Adua Centre, Amara Nwankpa and former Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) chairman, Abdulrasheed Bawa. Osinbajo was the keynote speaker at the ?Julius Maada Bio Leadership Colloquium? with the theme, ?From Vision to Impact: The People-Centered Leadership Model.? Incidentally, as we milled around the hall on Monday, waiting for the colloquium to commence, Bawa dragged me to meet someone. ?This is Francis Kaifala, head of the Sierra Leonean anti-corruption agency, a very good friend and former colleague.? Smiling, Kaifala said to me, ?Yes, he was my colleague until he left me.? To this, Bawa interjected, ?I didn?t leave you, I was sacked,? and we all laughed.

Bawa and I were seated together and that provided another story of its own. During the programme, Bawa nudged me to read a message he had just received on his phone. It?s the link to a news report where a group, ?Citizens Forum for Transparency and Integrity (CFTI)? alleged ?a coordinated and sinister plot? by Bawa and others to derail the 2027 re-election bid of President Bola Tinubu. ?See me, see trouble! How do I respond to this now?? asked Bawa, who had earlier told me he was working on his PhD. and soon to release a book on the downstream sector of the petroleum industry in Nigeria titled, ?The Shadow of Loot and Losses: Uncovering Nigeria?s Petroleum Subsidy Fraud?.

On a lighter note, when introducing Osinbajo, Vice President Mohammed Jalloh of Sierra Leone joked that our former vice president attended the University of Lagos and not a ?great? Nigerian university like his. Jalloh obtained his master?s in political science from the University of Ibadan before his doctorate at the University of Bordeaux in France. In his keynote speech, Osinbajo said elections alone do not constitute democracy. ?True democracy delivers dignity?food on the table, education for children, safety in our streets, and hope for the future,? said Osinbajo who urged African leaders to adopt people-centred governance, ?a development paradigm that places the needs and voices of the vast majority?particularly those at the bottom of the pyramid?at the heart of policymaking.? This, he said, ?is a call to reimagine leadership?not as the power to rule, but as the duty to serve.

Citing a 2023 perception survey by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on the preferred option for governance on the continent, Osinbajo said about 89 percent opted for democracy. ?So, the issue is not democracy, it is how the political practitioners of democracy can ensure that the government of the people by the people for the people does not forget the aches and pains of the people?, Osinbajo said. ?To make people-centred governance work we must move decisively from top-down elite focused strategies to bottom-up, inclusive development.?

In his own address, Bio highlighted his primary goals in leadership to include improving human capital development, promoting gender equality, and strengthening democratic institutions. He also promised that the colloquium would be an annual event to provoke conversations on how to anchor leadership on good governance and the rule of law ? not only in Sierra Leone but across the African continent. ?As a young soldier answering the call to duty during one of the darkest chapters in our nation?s history, I learned that leadership might begin in crisis, but it must endure beyond it,? Bio said while drawing from his experiences both in the military as a ?dictator? and now as an elected civilian president. ?Every negotiation with political and military leaders, and every conversation with concerned civilians, taught me one immutable truth: leadership is not conferred by rank or title, but by the bond of trust between those who lead and those they serve.?

Leadership that does not require a title or recognition is the one that counts the most, according to Bio. And they can be found in most places, especially on the continent: ?In the midnight vigil of a nurse attending to sick people, in the steady hands of a miner delving into the earth?s depths, in the tireless journeys of a motorcyclist linking remote villages, in the patient guidance of a mother who gathers her children to read beneath a fading lamp light.? These men and women, Bio says, ?are the silent heroes whose dedication sustains our daily lives.?

In his fireside chat with Kingsley Okeke, a brand and communication strategist, Bio shared insights as to why democracy remains the best option for governance. He also recounted what happened after he and other young soldiers toppled President Momoh on 29 April 1992. ?We were young men, we didn?t know all the processes, we didn?t consider that when you remove a government, you had to replace it with something,? said Bio who admitted that their principal mission was to dismantle the one-party arrangement that had made democracy a joke in the country and remove from power a government they believed was not serving the interest of the people.

There are many lessons from my conversation with Bio that will serve us in Nigeria. But let me highlight just two. One, the contagious nature of crisis, as we saw in how the war in Liberia moved quickly to Sierra Leone?which is being replicated in the challenge of terrorism in the Sahel. This compels our leaders to adopt the motto of the Boys Scout by being always prepared. The inability of the political leadership in Sierra Leone to read the situation correctly in the early nineties led to the war that shattered their country. The second lesson is about Bio himself: The courage of conviction that led to the choices he made at the time, even when they were not necessarily cost-free.

That precisely happened to be the Kernel of my point to Bawa about the ill-fated 2022/2023 Naira confiscation policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), in which he played a principal role as EFCC chairman. That decision was neither justified by the moment nor vindicated by its outcomes. The hardship it imposed on millions of Nigerians remains fresh. And yet, just like Bio?s experience has shown, history has a way of reconsidering its judgments. Depending on what may yet transpire, even that decision by Bawa and confederates might one day be viewed through a more forgiving lens.

Overall, the conversations in Freetown were candid but it is on the story of the Sierra Leonean war that I have had to reflect. Could it have been averted? Bio believes it could have, and I tend to agree with him. And that?s where leadership comes in. For, as Anders Eklung, a Swiss leadership mentor and coach reminds us, when we look at ?war zones?, whether on the battlefield or in an office, ?we can see the painful consequences of leadership falling short, missed opportunities, and big egos placed above improvement, empathy, and compassion.?

At the end, my main takeaway from the engagements during the colloquium to my private audience with Bio and informal chats with other stakeholders?including Osinbajo and immediate past ECOWAS Parliament Speaker, Dr Mohamed Sidie Tunis?is that the attention of African leadership discourse must shift from mere elections to the concerns of the ordinary people. Until those issues are constructively addressed, our continent will continue to project to the rest of the world an image of poverty, disease, ignorance, disasters and wars. (THISDAY)

? Adeniyi is a seasoned journalist and public affairs analyst

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