The trials of Bai Koroma

Sierra Leone’s former President Ernest Bai Koroma is presently in Nigeria, but he apparently is here on borrowed time while his political future is being sorted out. He arrived in the country penultimate Friday, ostensibly to seek medical treatment for a maximum period of three months before returning to Sierra Leone to face trial for alleged role in the insurrection that rocked his country late in November, last year.

Koroma had been expected in Nigeria since 4th January on a deal of temporary asylum brokered by the leadership of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). But he did not come into town until 19th January, and at the instance of the Sierra Leonean judiciary and not ECOWAS. Sierra Leone’s high court earlier that week permitted the former president to undergo medical treatment in Nigeria “for at most three months from the date of this order and (on condition) that his sureties should provide regular medical updates, signed and duly authorised.” In an address to the nation on the eve of Koroma’s departure, incumbent President Julius Maada Bio called the court’s decision a “humanitarian gesture.” On his arrival at Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja, the ex-president was received by ECOWAS Commission President, Omar Alieu Touray, and Nigeria’s National Security Adviser Nuhu Ribadu, among other top officials.

Sierra Leone had gone on the boil on 26th November, last year, when armed assailants stormed a military armoury in Freetown, two barracks, two prisons and two police stations, clashing with security forces. No fewer than 21 persons got killed and many hundreds of prisoners broken out of jail before the government was able to regain control against what it dubbed an attempted coup by renegade soldiers. The armoury attack was suspected to be a bid to seize weapons with which to unseat the Maada Bio administration, and most of the people arrested in connection with the insurrection were military personnel. Investigators traced masterminding the purported coup attempt, which occurred in the wake of disputed re-election of President Bio in June 2023, to Koroma’s former bodyguard, and allegedly with links to the former president himself. He had been held under house arrest since 9th December, and was charged with four offences early this January.

The political situation in Sierra Leone has been tense since June when Bio of Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) was re-elected, narrowly avoiding a run-off with the candidate of main opposition All People’s Congress (APC). That election was the fifth since the end of Sierra Leone’s brutal 11-year civil war over two decades ago which left more than 50,000 people dead, several hundred maimed and the country’s economy destroyed. The result of the June poll was rejected by the opposition and questioned by international partners including the United States and the European Union; and the opposition boycotted the government until October 2023 when a peace deal with the Bio administration was mediated by the Commonwealth, the African Union (AU) and ECOWAS. There is a perception in local as well as international circles, including among ECOWAS leaders, that the coup-related charges filed by the Maada Bio administration against Koroma are more politically motivated than genuinely founded; hence, efforts have been mounted to negotiate him out of Sierra Leone on amicable terms with the sitting government.

Following the November coup bid, the Maada Bio government said it investigated Koroma for his role and found him complicit. In a public notice early January, Sierra Leonean Information and Civic Education Minister Chernor Bah said the ex-president was arraigned before a magistrate on 3rd January and charged with “four offences including treason, misprision of treason and two counts of harbouring.” Koroma maintained his innocence, and even posted on X condemning the attempted coup. Many people also described the charges as trumped-up. The ex-president’s supporters, according to reports from Sierra Leone, massed outside the court at his arraignment. The 70-year-old, who led Sierra Leone from 2007 to 2018, is of the APC and there is suspicion of a crackdown against opposition under the cover of the coup trial. This suspicion seems to be shared by sub-regional leaders and they’ve been plying efforts to politically prise Koroma out of the legal tangle.


“Koroma is finally here in Nigeria and whether ECOWAS leaders will send him back after three months to face treason trial is a toss”


ECOWAS intervened in the closing weeks of December to negotiate the former president’s departure from Sierra Leone for temporary asylum in Nigeria. A high-powered delegation led by Ghana’s President Nana Akufo-Addo, Senegal’s President Macky Sall and ECOWAS Commission president, Touray, held peace talks in Freetown involving President Bio and Koroma to explore ways of toning down the political tension in Sierra Leone and foster an atmosphere for continuation of the national peace dialogue. Consequent to those talks, it was agreed that Koroma should leave Sierra Leone for Nigerian asylum on 4th January, but President Bio soon after changed his mind and barred the ex-president from leaving the country.

A 2nd January, 2024 letter addressed to President Bio by the ECOWAS Commission president and copied Presidents Bola Tinubu of Nigeria, who is the Chair of ECOWAS, Akufo-Addo of Ghana and Sall of Senegal detailed the terms of the truce talks and requested for Koroma to be allowed to travel to Nigeria. Touray, in the letter headlined “Temporarily Relocation of Former President to Abuja,” told Bio inter alia: “I am pleased to inform Your Excellency that as part of the agreement reached during the mission, the Government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria has offered to host His Excellency Ernest Bai Koroma, former President of Sierra Leone, in Abuja  on a temporary basis. The former president has accepted the offer to be hosted in Nigeria. Subject to your approval, arrangements will be made to fly former President Koroma out of Freetown on Thursday, 4th January 2024.” The letter also outlined conditions attached to the deal, stating: “In addition to seeking Your Excellency’s approval for the departure from Sierra Leone of the former president on or around the date indicated, I would like to seek your confirmation that once President Koroma leaves Sierra Leone, the following arrangements (as agreed during the mission) will be put in place:

• The Government of Sierra Leone will discontinue all legal and administrative procedures against him.

• The Government of Sierra Leone will continue to disburse to him his benefits as former President.

• The Government of Sierra Leone will secure his residences in various locations in Sierra Leone.

• The Government of Sierra Leone will consider refunding medical and travel expenses he has incurred.

Even though President Bio apparently conceded the terms as stated initially, Koroma did not arrive in Nigeria on 4th January because the Sierra Leonean government reportedly refused to allow him leave the country. Foreign Affairs Minister Timothy Kabba acknowledged receipt of the letter from ECOWAS leaders detailing arrangements to allow temporary relocation of the ex-president to Nigeria, but he said the home government did not countenance the content of the said letter “because it is a unilateral proposition by the president of the ECOWAS Commission.”

Well, Koroma is finally here in Nigeria and whether ECOWAS leaders will send him back after three months to face treason trial is a toss. There is a great chance they would use the time available to press the Maada Bio administration into accepting his going on exile. Does this in any way suggest that ECOWAS condones coup bids as happened in Sierra Leone on 26th November, last year? I would say, not so! The bloc has always voiced zero-tolerance for unconstitutional change of government in its member-states, and asylum for Koroma does not contradict that position. Koroma is widely perceived as a victim of political witch-hunt and any deal to save him from violent miscarriage of justice is in order. Besides, it is helpful for political culture in this clime that leaders seek to moderate one another’s perceived intolerance of opposition. 

Nigeria has a history on political asylum. When Liberia’s Charles Taylor was allowed into Nigeria in 2003, it was to help end instability in his country because Lurd rebels were besieging Monrovia and Taylor was wanted for war crimes in Sierra Leone. He eventually ended up at the International Criminal Court where he got convicted for his misdeeds. Liberia is today a diadem of democracy in West Africa. Asylum for Koroma will likewise help stabilise Sierra Leone. But the ex-president isn’t even a war criminal and only a statesman at odds with his successor.

 

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