Reliable source has revealed that the international community prevented the illegitimate Sierra Leone President Maada Bio from travelling to South Africa to witness the inauguration of President Cyril Ramaphosa that occurred on Wednesday June 19, the very day the Tripartite Committee was scheduled to make its recommendations public in Freetown. (Photo: Maada Bio flanked by Aja Fatoumatta Jallow-Tambajang and UN Special Representative in West Africa and the Sahel Mr Leonardo Santos Simao, left).

The diplomatic source confided that the embattled Maada Bio had planned and wanted to travel to Pretoria the capital city of South Africa on Monday June 17, a day before the arrival of the high profile international delegation Assessment Team mandated to carry out assessments of the implementation of the 8 Resolutions by both the SLPP regime and the main opposition APC party and the overall monitoring of the Tripartite Committee work slated for Wednesday June 19.

But sooner the news of Maada Bio’s travel plans reached the diplomatic ears the travel-mad SLPP leader was quickly summoned and warned in no uncertain terms to stay in order to receive the foreign visitors led by the former Gambia Vice President Aja Fatoumata Jallow-Tambajang. The foreign friends also reminded Maada Bio of the travel ban and that he was not to travel out of the country until everything was sorted and advised to wait until the Tripartite Investigations Committee released its recommendations.

Reluctantly, Maada Bio reportedly dropped the idea of travelling to South Africa and agreed to wait for the international delegates comprising representatives from the ECOWAS, AU and the UN and so on to alight. Sierra Leoneans still remember when Maada Bio ran away from Sierra Leone over two weeks ago to travel to South Korea ostensibly to dodge the arrival of the same foreign visitors who were slated to meet between June 4 and June 7, 2024. But Bio’s dodgy tactics delayed the arrival of the international visitors and apparently halted the Tripartite Committee from meeting on June 4.

And as bad habits rarely leaves certain individuals like Maada Bio, the failed and violent-oriented SLPP leader Maada Bio wanted to travel abroad again this week but this time he was stopped. Citizens are thanking the global partners for imposing this travel ban on Maada Bio, who has scored extraordinarily high marks on overseas travels, most of which are fruitless and waste of public funds. Cyril Ramaphosa was sworn in for a second term as South Africa’s president on Wednesday June 19 in the administrative capital, Pretoria, after his re-election. Thank God, Maada Bio waited for the foreign delegates this time around.

In the recent joint press statement ECOWAS, AU, UNOWAS dated June 18, 2024, follow up mission on the ‘Agreement for National Unity’ signed between the SLPP and APC. It reads thus: “The President of the ECOWAS Commission Omar Alieu Touray, in consultations with the Chairperson of the African Union Commission Moussa Faki, and the Special Representative of the Secretary General and Head of the United Nations Office for West Africa and the Sahel (UNOWAS), Leonardo Santos Simao, has deployed a Joint ECOWAS-AU-UNOWAS Assessment Mission to the Republic of Sierra Leone, as a follow up to the Agreement for National Unity signed between the SLPP and APC on October 18, 2023. Aja Fatoumatta Jallow-Tambajang, the former Vice President of Gambia was also present.”