Abubakar Hashim/Freetown
In exactly a week’s time, on 17 January 2024, former President Ernest Bai Koroma will know whether he will be convicted of treason charges, or whisked out of the country on exile to Abuja as requested by ECOWAS.
The government had ignored ECOWAS’ request, stating it “ lacked cohesive consensus of the collective membership of the organisation”.
The Minister of Information, Chernoh Bah, further clarified at yesterday’s press briefing that the letter, though signed by ECOWAS President, Dr Omar Touray, “was a private correspondence to President Bio and was not privy to the letter”, stating further that not “all private correspondences are meant for government attention and action “.
But ECOWAS secretariat saw it differently and insistefthe letter was official, on its letterhead and signed by the current sitting President, hence it has its authority of the commission.
Today, 27 military personnel are in court martial in the main court building in Freetown.
They were also charged with treason, aiding and abetting and destabilising the peace of the state.
In a week’s time, on 17, January 2024, former President Koroma will be docked again, making him the first former President to be docked on trial for treason in the West African Region.
The former President, is on record, to have been remotely involved in a rumoured coup attempt against the National Provisional Ruling Council NPRC government in the 1990’s. The NPRC was a regime that the current President Bio was an integral part and a key player in the ruling council, before he became military head of state for few months in the early 90’s.
Former President Koroma’s name also featured prominently in the ignominious May 25, 1997 coup, which brought Johnny Paul to power, that led to former democratically elected late President Tejan Kabbah to exile in neighbouring Guinea.
He was reportedly in support of that bloody take over, though he did not accept any prominent position in the Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC) junta that emerged later.
Next week’s trial of the former President will be the second time he will be in the dock.
His triumphs as the first insurance guru, (witty, brainy and slippery), to become President, a world record, to his current travails, is a spectacular story of a man, whose character sketch defies logical explanation.
Whatever the outcome of next week’s trial, the former President’s story will ever be a best seller.