When truce dealing wins
On Monday, 7th September, Sierra Leonean President Julius Maada Bio hosted his predecessor, Ernest Bai Koroma, on a reconciliation visit to the State House in Freetown. That was barely 24 hours after Koroma returned to the country from some two and half years of exile in Nigeria. “I am back home. And home will always be home. There will never be any substitute for home,” he said upon his return on Sunday, 6th September, capturing the personal meaning of a homecoming that carried wider political significance for his country. Koroma, who was president from 2007 to 2018, had been living in Nigeria since January 2024 following diplomatic engagements led by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to save him from possible jail time over his alleged complicity in a November 2023 armed assault aimed at destabilising the Maada Bio administration. Koroma denied involvement. Freetown had convulsed with violence on 26th November, 2023, when armed insurrectionists stormed a mil...