BOOK OF CONDOLENCE FOR LATE PRES. KABBAH IN SAUDI ARABIA Following the death of Sierra Leones former president, Alhaji Dr. Ahmad Tejan Kabbah last Thursday, the Sierra Leone Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia will join other Sierra Leone diplomatic Missions across the world to open a book of condolence Monday, 17th March, 2014 to be signed by resident diplomatic representatives. Dr. Tejan Kabbah died peacefully at his Kabaya Estate, Juba Hill in Freetown after a protracted illness. Who Was Ex- Pres. Kabbah ? Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabbah (born February 16, 1932) was the third President of Sierra Leone from 1996 to 1997 and again from 1998 to 2007. An economist and attorney by professions, Kabbah spent many years working for the United Nations Development Programme. He retired from the United Nations and returned to Sierra Leone in 1992. In early 1996, Kabbah was elected leader of the Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) and the partys presidential candidate in the 1996 presidential election. He was elected President of Sierra Leone in the 1996 presidential election with 59% of the vote defeating his closest rival John Karefa-Smart of the United National Peoples Party (UNPP) who had 40% in the runoff vote and conceded defeat. International observers declared the election free and fair. In his inauguration speech in Freetown, Kabbah promised to end the civil war, which he indeed achieved later in his presidency. Kabbah was Sierra Leones first Muslim head of state. Kabbah was born in Pendembu, Kailahun District in Eastern Sierra Leone, though he was largely raised in the capital Freetown. Most of Kabbahs time in office was influenced by the civil war with the Revolutionary United Front, led by Foday Sankoh, which involved him being temporarily ousted by the military Armed Forces Revolutionary Council from May 1997 to March 1998. He was soon returned to power after a military intervention by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), lead by Nigeria. Another phase of the civil war led to United Nations and British involvement in the country in 2000. As President, Kabbah opened direct negotiations with the RUF rebels in order to end the civil war. He signed several peace accords with the rebel leader Foday Sankoh, including the 1999 Lomé Peace Accord, in which the rebels, for the first time, agreed to a temporary cease fire with the Sierra Leone government. When the cease fire agreement with the rebels virtually collapsed, Kabbah campaigned for international assistant from the British, the United Nations Security Council, the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States to help defeat the rebels and restored peace and order in Sierra Leone. Kabbah declared the civil war officially over in early 2002. Tens of thousands of Sierra Leoneans across the country took to the streets in celebrating the end of the war. Kabbah went on to easily win his final five year term in office in the presidential election later that year with 70.1% of the vote, defeating his main opponentErnest Bai Koroma of the main opposition All Peoples Congress (APC). International observers declared the election free and fair. Youth and education Though a devout Muslim, Kabbah received his secondary education at the St. Edwards secondary school in Freetown, the oldest catholic secondary school in Sierra Leone. He also married a catholic, the late Patricia Kabbah, (born Patricia Tucker), who was an ethnic Sherbro from Bonthe District in Southern Sierra Leone. Together the couple had five children. Kabbah received his higher education at the Cardiff College of Technology and Commerce, and University College Aberystwyth, Wales, in the United Kingdom, with a Bachelors degree in Economics in 1959. He later studied law, and in 1969 he became a practicing Barrister-at-Law, member of the Honourable Society of Grays Inn, London. Kabbah has spent nearly his entire career in the public sector. He served in the Western Area and in all the Provinces of Sierra Leone. He was a District Commissioner in Bombali and Kambia (Northern Province), in Kono (Eastern Province) and in Moyamba and Bo (Southern Province). He later became Permanent Secretary in various Ministries, including Trade and Industry, Social Welfare, and Education. United Nations He was an international civil servant for almost two decades. After serving as deputy Chief of the West Africa Division of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in New York, he was reassigned in 1973 to head the Programmes operation in the Kingdom of Lesotho, as Resident Representative. He also headed UNDP operations in Tanzania and Uganda, and just before Zimbabwes independence, he was temporarily assigned to that country to help lay the groundwork for cooperation with the United Nations system. After a successful tour of duty in Eastern and Southern Africa, Kabbah returned to New York to head UNDPs Eastern and Southern Africa Division. Among other things, he was directly responsible for coordinating UN system assistance to liberation movements recognized by the Organization of African Unity (OAU), such as the African National Congress (ANC) of South Africa, and the South West African Peoples Organization (SWAPO) of Namibia. Before his retirement in 1992, Kabbah held a number of senior administrative positions at UNDP Headquarters in New York, including those of Deputy Director and Director of Personnel, and Director, Division of Administration and Management. Political career in Sierra Leone After the military coup in 1992, he was asked to chair the National Advisory Council, one of the mechanisms set up by the military to alleviate the restoration of constitutional rule, including the drafting of a new constitution for Sierra Leone. He reputedly intended his return to Sierra Leone to be a retirement, but was encouraged by those around him and the political situation that arose to become more actively involved in the politics of Sierra Leone. First term as President Kabbah was seen as a compromise candidate when he was put forward by the Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) as their presidential hopeful in 1996 Presidential and Parliamentary elections, the first multi-party elections in twenty-three years. The SLPP won the legislative vote overwhelmingly in the South and Eastern Province of the country, they split the vote with the UNPP in the Western Area and they lost in the Northern Province. On March 29, 1996, Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabbah was sworn in as President of Sierra Leone. Guided by his philosophy of political inclusion he appointed the most broad-based government in the nations history, drawing from all political parties represented in Parliament, and technocrats in civil society. The Presidents first major objective was to end the rebel war which, in four years had already claimed hundreds of innocent lives, driven thousands of others into refugee status, and ruined the nations economy. In November 1996, in Abidjan in Côte dIvoire, he signed a peace agreement with the rebel leader, former Corporal Foday Sankoh of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). Profile of the late president Courtesy of Wikipedia
Posted on: Sun, 16 Mar 2014 20:56:25 +0000
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