Julius Maada Bio Biography
Julius Maada Bio is a politician from Sierra Leone who has held the position of president of Sierra Leone since April 4, 2018. Bio won the election as the candidate of the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), which is in opposition to the ruling All People’s Congress (APC), with 51.8% of the vote to Samura Kamara’s 48.2%. Kamara was the candidate of the APC. The election was declared free and fair by observers both local and international.
Julius Maada Bio Age
He is 58 years old as of 2022. He was born Julius Maada Wonie Bio on 12 May 1964 in Tihun. e celebrates his birthday on 12 May.
Julius Maada Bio Family
Sherbro Paramount Chief Charlie Bio II of Sogbini Chiefdom gave birth to 35 children, 33 of which are named Bio. The father of Bio had nine wives. Julius Maada Wonie Bio, his paternal grandfather and a Sherbro paramount chief of Sogbini Chiefdom, is the inspiration for Bio’s given name. Bio is a practicing Roman Catholic and of Sherbro ethnicity.
Julius Maada Bio Wife
Fatima Bio, Bio’s wife, is a practicing Muslim who is of Gambian-Sierra Leonean nationality despite growing up in Sierra Leone’s Kono District; Her father is a native Gambian, and her mother was born in Sierra Leone’s Kono District. Bio and Fatima wed in 2013 in London in an interfaith ceremony that took place in a church and was followed by prayer services at a mosque in London. One of the couple’s children was born in London. From a previous marriage, Bio has three additional children, all of whom were born in the United States.
Julius Maada Bio Education
Bio attended the Roman Catholic Primary School in Tihun, Bonthe District, for his primary education. Bio was relocated to the town of Pujehun to live with his older sister Agnes, a Pujehun primary school teacher, after completing his early education there. Bio attended Holy Family Primary School in Pujehun for his primary education. Bio’s older sister Agnes enrolled him in the prestigious Bo Government Secondary School, also known as Bo School, following his primary education. Bio attended Bo School for seven years and rose to the position of school prefect. Bio turned 20 in 1984 and received an A-level from Bo School.
Julius Maada Bio Net Worth
He has an estimated net worth of $5 Million.
Julius Maada Bio Religion
Despite the fact that First Lady Fatima Bio is a practicing Muslim, Bio is a practicing Roman Catholic Christian.
Julius Maada Bio Controversy
During the launch of her Hands Off Our Girls campaign in the middle of 2018, First Lady Fatima Bio is alleged to have spent more than $US780,000 of public funds on personal shopping and travel and lodging for foreign guests. The media outlet published accounts for the campaign, and the money was allegedly spent on furniture, electrical equipment, fuel, travel, and hotels between June and December 2018. Since her husband assumed power, Fatima Bio reportedly received nearly $3 million in government funding.
It is alleged that payments made by the finance ministry to the First Lady went against Sierra Leonean law, were outside the budget, were not approved by parliament, and were not supported by any documentation. The First Lady’s campaign aims to reduce rape and child marriage, but the US-based Africanist Press claims that the campaign and no communities received 85% of the funding.
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Julius Maada Bio Health
Bio told Africa Renewal in an interview that investments in education, healthcare, women’s empowerment, ending gender-based violence, and agriculture are at the center of his development strategy. This aligns the strategy with the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the African Union’s Agenda 2063.
He also stated that his government provides the students with other reading materials and core textbooks. In addition, we provide free meals to ensure a healthy diet and student retention.
Julius Maada Bio SLPP
In 2005, Bio officially joined the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP). Bio ran for the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) presidency in the same year at its national convention, which took place in Makeni on September 3 and 4, 2005; He finished third with 33 votes, behind Charles Margai, who got 34 votes, and Vice President Solomon Berewa, who got 291 votes. 28 votes went to J.B. Dauda.
On the evening of July 31, 2011, extremists within the SLPP made their way into the SLPP convention, which was held at the Youyi Building in the heart of Freetown, and declared Bio as the SLPP’s candidate for president in 2012. He competed against President Ernest Bai Koroma of the ruling APC in the national election. Although he lost 37% of the vote, he established the SLPP as the only viable opposition party in Sierra Leone.
Julius Maada Bio as President
In a run-off election held on March 31, 2018, Bio won the election to be President of Sierra Leone. The official results from the National Elections Commission of Sierra Leone indicate that he received 51.8% of the votes cast. He took over for the APC’s Ernest Bai Koroma, who had been President since 2007 but had to step down due to exceeding the constitutional term limit.
In his first month in office, Bio became the first president of Sierra Leone to issue an executive order granting primary and secondary school students in Sierra Leone’s public schools free education, beginning in the fall of 2018. Bio has also made it free to apply to public universities run by the government in Sierra Leone. Bio ended a loan agreement with the previous president of Sierra Leone, Ernest Bai Koroma, to build a new international airport that was funded by China. Bio began an ongoing review and audit of all government mining contracts, ministry departments, and other agencies under Ernest Bai Koroma’s previous administration within his first two months in office. Bio fired all of Sierra Leone’s ambassadors and permanent representatives abroad during the Ernest Bai Koroma government’s first two months in office. Bio appointed his cabinet ministers within his first two months in office, including opposition leader Charles Margai, who was briefly appointed as the country’s Attorney General and Minister of Justice.
An investigation report was released by Bio’s administration, which was headed by Chief Minister David J. Francis. The report makes allegations of widespread financial corruption against Ernest Bai Koroma and his previous administration. The allegations against Koroma include stealing funds intended for the country’s victims of Ebola and the mudslide, selling state properties, selling significant amounts of a state mining company, and stealing millions of dollars from government revenue. as well as stealing funds intended to assist poor Muslims in Sierra Leone in completing the Hajj. A commission of judges, led by an international judge, has been established by the Sierra Leone Justice Ministry on Bio’s orders to investigate the allegations against the previous government.
Due to widespread sexual violence, President Bio declared a state of emergency in Sierra Leone in February 2019. He increased the penalties for sexual assault and rape. That June, the state of emergency was lifted. President Bio tweeted that he had “a zestful and productive meeting with Prime Minister Boris Johnson” while attending the Global Education Summit in July 2021. “Had a forward-looking and reassuring discussion on strengthening our relationship and building back better after COVID,” he added. “because of his efforts in increasing access to education through the Free Quality Education Programme and breaking down gender barriers to increase girls’ enrolment in schools in the last three years,” Bio was one of the few heads of state invited. President Bio visited Vietnam in March 2022.
Julius Maada Bio Military
Bio attended the military academy of the Republic of Sierra Leone Armed Forces and Fourah Bay College in Freetown. At the age of 23, he received his commission as a Second Lieutenant in the Sierra Leone Army in October 1987. Bio and other soldiers from Sierra Leone were sent to Liberia in 1990 to maintain order amid the civil war there. Lieutenant Tom Nyuma, Captain Valentine Strasser, Lieutenant Sahr Sandy, and Lieutenant Solomon Musa, all future members of the NPRC, were among the soldiers. They were given the directive to repel the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels who had attacked villages along the Sierra Leone-Liberia border.
Bio was a member of a group of soldiers in Sierra Leone who carried out the 1992 military coup that toppled the government of president Joseph Saidu Momoh’s All People’s Congress (APC). Bio was a key member of the coup that overthrew the APC government and was a member of the Supreme Council of State during the NPRC’s time in power. Along with other junior lieutenants, he was promoted to Captain and later served as Secretary of State in charge of Information and Broadcasting.
Following a disagreement within the ruling Supreme Council of State (SCS) over whether to seek peace with the RUF before multi-party elections scheduled for March 1996 or proceed with the elections despite the country’s ongoing war and the conditions for participation (or disqualification) of junta members, Bio led a military coup on January 16, 1996, which resulted in the removal of Captain Valentine Strasser. Colonel Tom Nyuma, Lieutenant Colonel Komba Mondeh, Lieutenant Colonel Reginald Glover, Lieutenant Colonel Idriss Kamara, and Lieutenant Colonel Karefa-Kargbo were just a few of the high-ranking NPRC soldiers who supported the coup. Captain Valentine Strasser, at the time the leader of the NPRC and the military Head of State of Sierra Leone, was held in handcuffs at gunpoint by his own military bodyguards, who were supposed to protect him. He was then immediately taken into exile in a military helicopter to Conakry, which is in Guinea’s neighbor.
Bio moved to the United States in 1996 after taking his military retirement, where he went on to earn a master’s degree in international affairs from American University in Washington, DC. Additionally, he held the position of president of the United States-based consulting and investment management firm International Systems Science Corporation.