Ernest Bai Koroma facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Ernest Bai Koroma
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| 4th President of Sierra Leone | |
| In office 17 September 2007 – 4 April 2018 |
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| Vice President | Samuel Sam-Sumana (2007–2015) Victor Bockarie Foh (2015–2018) |
| Preceded by | Ahmad Tejan Kabbah |
| Succeeded by | Julius Maada Bio |
| Leader of the All People's Congress | |
| Assumed office 24 March 2002 |
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| Secretary-General | Osman Foday Yansaneh |
| Preceded by | Edward Turay |
| Minority Leader of Parliament | |
| In office 2005–2007 |
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| Preceded by | Edward Turay |
| Succeeded by | Emmanuel Tommy |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 2 October 1953 Makeni, British Sierra Leone |
| Political party | All People's Congress |
| Spouse |
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| Children | Alice Dankay |
| Alma mater | Fourah Bay College |
| Religion | Christianity (Wesleyan) |
| Website | Government website |
Ernest Bai Koroma (born 2 October 1953) is a Sierra Leonean politician who served as the fourth President of Sierra Leone from 17 September 2007 to 4 April 2018.
Born and raised in Makeni in northern Sierra Leone, Koroma spent more than 24 years working in the private insurance industry before entering politics in 2002. From 1988 to 2002, he was the managing director of the Reliance Insurance Trust Corporation (Ritcorp).
Koroma earned a bachelor's degree from Fourah Bay College in 1976; and is an insurance agent by profession.
Koroma was elected as leader of the All People's Congress (APC), Sierra Leone's main opposition party, on 24 March 2002, after defeating then-incumbent APC leader Edward Turay. Koroma stood as the APC candidate in the 2002 presidential election but was defeated in a free and fair election by incumbent President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, who won 70.3% of the vote, to Koroma's 22.35%. Koroma conceded defeat.
Koroma was later elected to Parliament, representing his home District of Bombali from 2002 to 2007. In 2005, he was elected the minority leader of Parliament and remained in that position until his election to the presidency in 2007.
In the 2007 presidential election run-off, Koroma received 54.6% of the vote and defeated incumbent Vice-President Solomon Berewa of the ruling SLPP. Berewa conceded defeat, and Koroma was sworn in as President on 17 September 2007, at the State House in the capital Freetown. International and local observers declared the election free and fair. Koroma succeeded President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, who was constitutionally ineligible to run for the presidency again after serving the maximum two five-year term limit.
In the November 2012 presidential election, Koroma was re-elected as President for a second term, receiving 58.7%, against his main opponent, SLPP candidate Julius Maada Bio, who received 37.4%. International observers deemed the election to be free and fair. Koroma was succeeded by Julius Maada Bio following his victory in run-off elections held on 31 March 2018.
In December 2023, Ernest Bay Koroma was placed under house arrest after two days of interrogation following events that occurred on November 26, 2023 during demonstrations, described as an attempted coup d'état by the authorities of Sierra Leone.
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Early life and education
Ernest Bai Koroma was born on 2 October 1953, in Makeni, Bombali District in the Northern Province of British Sierra Leone. He was born into a Christian family in the predominantly Muslim north. Koroma was raised in a predominantly ethnic Temne household and is a fluent speaker of the Temne and Limba languages, his parents' mother tongues.
His father, Sylvanus Koroma, was of Temne and Loko heritage and grew up in a Temne household. He was born in the Makari Gbanti chiefdom, Bombali District. He worked for years as a bible school teacher at the Wesleyan Church in Makeni.
Koroma's mother, Alice Koroma (27 June 1932 – 6 July 2012), was an ethnic Biriwa Limba from the small rural town of Kamabai, also in Bombali District. She entered local politics in the 1960s, and was elected as a member of the All People's Congress (APC) to the Makeni city council. Alice Koroma was women's leader of the APC Bombali District branch. She was also a strong supporter of President Siaka Stevens' administration, when the APC leader was elected. Alice Koroma later worked for most of her career as a primary school teacher in Makeni.
Koroma attended the Sierra Leone Church Primary School in Makeni. For higher education, he went to the Magburaka Government Secondary School for Boys in Magburaka, Tonkolili District (about 25 miles from his hometown of Makeni). He graduated in 1973. He moved to the capital Freetown to attend Fourah Bay College, from where he graduated in 1976 with a degree in Business Management.
Soon after graduating from Fourah Bay College, Koroma became a teacher at St. Francis Secondary School in Makeni (1976–78).
Career in the insurance industry
Koroma joined the Sierra Leone National Insurance Company in 1978. In 1985, he joined the Reliance Insurance Trust Corporation (Ritcorp), and in 1988, he became managing director of Ritcorp, remaining in that position for 14 years.
Marriage and family
A longtime member of the Wesleyan Church of Sierra Leone, Koroma married Sia Nyama Koroma, the daughter of attorney and politician Abu Aiah Koroma. He served as former Attorney General of Sierra Leone, and also held several other government ministry positions under presidents Joseph Saidu Momoh and Ahmad Tejan Kabbah. An ethnic Kono from Kono District, Sia Koroma is a biochemist, holding Bachelor of Science with Honours in Chemistry and a master's in biochemistry. She is also a psychiatric nurse trained and qualified in Great Britain.
Koroma and his wife Sia Koroma were married on October 18, 1986, at the King Memorial UMC Church in Freetown. Together they have two adult daughters: Alice (named after Koroma's mother) and Dankay (named after his wife's mother). Daughter Alice Koroma is a lawyer, having graduated from the University of East Anglia in 2010.
Political career
APC campaign leadership
In 2002 it was announced that the All People's Congress (APC) would hold their convention to elect a new leader that would challenge president Ahmad Tejan Kabbah of the SLPP who faced re-election for a second five-year term. Ernest Bai Koroma, then an Insurance broker from the northern district of Bombali who was virtually unknown by the general population in Sierra Leone announced his candidacy for the leadership of the All People's Congress (APC) ahead of the 2002 Sierra Leone presidential and parliamentary elections. He was one of seven candidates for the APC leadership.
Koroma was a clear underdog to longtime APC leader Edward Turay who was the favourite and was expected to easily win the APC leadership yet again. Koroma stressed that under the APC leadership of Edward Turay, the party had lost a significant number of seats in parliament and had lost trust among Sierra Leoneans, even in its traditional stronghold in Northern Sierra Leone. Koroma said the party will continue to lose even more support unless the party moves to a new direction that will care more about the interest of Sierra Leoneans. The APC was thought to be divided between the old guards wing of the party leady by Edward Turay, and the new generation wing of the party led by Ernest Bai Koroma. Koroma was elected leader of the All People's Congress (APC) on 24 March 2002, at a national convention of the party held in the northern town of Kabala, Koinadugu District ahead of the 2002 Sierra Leone Presidential and Parliamentary Elections. Koroma received 370 votes from APC delegates, while 12 delegates voted against him and the remainder abstained.
2002 presidential and parliamentary election
In the 2002 Sierra Leone presidential election Koroma received 22.3% of the vote as the APC presidential candidate, losing in a landslide to incumbent President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah of the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP), who received 70.3% and was shortly sworn in for a new five-year term. In the parliamentary election, Koroma was elected to a seat from Bombali District.
Court case
Embattled by a series of court cases against his youthful leadership and executive and the 2002 APC Constitution, Koroma was eventually stripped of his de jure leadership of the APC by the Supreme Court of Sierra Leone on 22 June 2005. He was, however, again unanimously elected as Leader and presidential candidate of the APC ahead of the 2007 Sierra Leone presidential and parliamentary elections at APC National Delegates Convention held on 3 September 2005 in the northern town of Port Loko. The internal party dispute was said to be resolved in April 2007, mainly between Koroma and Edward Turay, with Koroma being accepted by APC dissidents as the party's leader ahead of the 2007 general election.
Under his leadership, the APC swept virtually all the seats in the Western Area and the Northern Province during the local government elections of 2004. This was in spite of the fact that some of the old guard of the APC dismissed his leadership as a matter of child's play.
Candidacy
Koroma was the APC presidential candidate in the August 2007 general election. His main rival for the presidency of Sierra Leone was incumbent Vice-President of Sierra Leone Solomon Berewa of the SLPP. Koroma stronghold was in Northern Sierra Leone, and in the Western Area of Sierra Leone. Berewa, on the other hand, maintained strong support in south-eastern Sierra Leone.
Koroma was allegedly the target of an assassination attempt in the early hours of 23 July 2007 in Bo, Sierra Leone's second largest city (a traditional stronghold of the SLPP), when, according to the APC, a group of armed men led by Tom Nyuma, who was a participant in the 1992 coup that ousted the APC from power, attempted to enter Koroma's hotel room to kill him. Nyuma was severely beaten by Koroma's guards, and he was hospitalized as a result.
2007 presidential election
In the first round of the 2007 presidential election in Sierra Leone, held on 11 August, Koroma garnered 44.3% of the votes, ahead of Solomon Berewa of the ruling SLPP, who received 38.3%. This was not enough to win outright, and a run-off election was held on 8 September.
In an interview with Reuters on 13 September, Koroma said that he wanted to run the country "like a business concern", with a focus on agriculture and tourism rather than mining, and fight firmly against corruption.
On 17 September, the Sierra Leone National Electoral Commission declared Koroma to be the winner of the election with 54.6% of the vote, although the SLPP disputed the results. He was sworn in later on the same day at a ceremony attended by Berewa and Kabbah.
On 21 September, Koroma left Sierra Leone for a diplomatic visit to neighboring Guinea and Liberia, his first trip outside the country as President.
Koroma took a notably long time to name his Cabinet ministers, doing so in stages. The first group of 10 ministers was named on 8 October, and another 10 were named on 12 October. According to Koroma, he was willing to take additional time to find the right people; others, however, speculated that the delay was due to maneuvering within the APC for Cabinet positions.
Inauguration
Koroma was formally inaugurated in Freetown on 15 November 2007 at a ceremony attended by seven other African leaders. On this occasion, he promised to fight corruption and emphasized the importance of changing people's attitudes towards corruption.
Koroma promised zero tolerance on corruption, to fight against the mismanagement of the country's resources and that he "would run Sierra Leone like a business concern", emphasising agriculture and tourism. He further promised his government will increase the GDP per capita; reduce poverty and increase jobs; pledged the provision of electricity not only in the urban areas, but to all parts of Sierra Leone.
The inauguration ceremony was attended by several African Head of State and representatives of other world leaders and organisations, including Nigerian president Umaru Yar'Adua, Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Senegalese president Abdoulaye Wade, Gambian president Yahya Jammeh, Burkina Faso's president Blaise Compaoré, Malian president Amadou Toumani Touré, Guinean Prime Minister Lansana Kouyaté and United States Assistant Secretary for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer.
Presidency
The Koroma presidency has focused upon rebuilding the country's national infrastructure after the Civil War, fighting corruption and improving the country's health care system. In April 2010, Koroma signed into law the country's free health care program for pregnant women, nursing mothers and children under the age of five. Koroma has focused on free-market solutions, attracting more private investment.
On 4 September 2008, Koroma declared his assets to the Sierra Leone Anti-corruption Commission and signed into law the country's new Anti-Corruption Bill of 2008 at the State House in Freetown. Under the new law, it is compulsory for the president and other government officials to declare their assets and update them annually.
Koroma has given the country's anti-corruption commission more powers to investigate and prosecute corrupt officials. Since coming to power in 2007, Koroma has dismissed several government ministers associated with corruption, including two of his ministers indicted on corruption charges by the Sierra Leone anti-corruption commission.
The Koroma presidency has focused on road constructions across the country, which has significantly improved Sierra Leone's infrastructure. The Koroma presidency has focused on encouraging investments, which has led to investment in the country's mining industry, mostly by Chinese companies. The Koroma presidency, with the financial help of the United Nations, has implemented a free healthcare program for children, pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers. However, many experts and critics say most of the money meant to fund the program has been mismanaged and misused by senior government officials due to corruption. The Koroma presidency still faces major challenges in fighting corruption, extreme poverty, unemployment, poor housing conditions, poor healthcare, poor energy and water supplies. The president maintains improvements have been made in all of the areas above, but critics and many experts say the government is behind in improving these conditions.
In president Koroma inauguration speech, he promised zero tolerance of corruptions, and during the early years of his presidency, several senior government officials allied to the president were arrested and prosecuted for corruption by the country's Anti Corruption commission. However, most of the senior government official allied to the president were acquitted of corruption charges in court. Critics alleged they were acquitted by the court because they were close allies of president Koroma, an allegation denied by the presidency. The Sierra Leone Auditor General report said millions of dollars of the money meant for Ebola patients were missing in government emergency ebola account. President Koroma named experts to investigate the allegation, and some senior government officials linked to the Ebola funds were fired and suspended.
President Koroma who won reelection with 58% of the votes, is still very popular particularly in the north and Western Area of Sierra Leone. His presidential staff and cabinet ministers are very diverse and are made up of members of about all of Sierra Leone's ethnic groups. President Koroma has often made unannounced visit to several poor Sierra Leonean neighborhood, and he is often seen waving to the people in his presidential motorcade.
Accusations of intolerance of journalists critical of Koroma
Several Sierra Leonean journalists critical of President Koroma, including Jonathan Leigh and Bai Bai Sesay of the Independent Observer newspaper and radio journalist who compare the president to a rat, and David Tam Baryoh who criticized the president Ebola response, have been arrested and detained on seditious libel charges by the Sierra Leone Police but they were later released from jail. The oppositions, the Sierra Leone Bar Association of journalists and critic of the government, alleged the journalists were arrested because of their fierce and outspoken critic of president Koroma, an allegation again denied by the presidency.
See also
In Spanish: Ernest Bai Koroma para niños
