By Abraham John

The Late President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah was one of the influential Presidents. He was a Diplomat _par excellence, administrator and a shrewd politician. He brought to the role of the Presidency, a deep understood international politics and diplomacy. He leveraged on his international connection to end the civil and his reinstatement to power by ECOMOG – the West Africa Peacekeeping Force, after his overthrow by the RUF/AFRC Military Junta. This was a phenomenal show of his knowledge and familiarity with the international system. He used it to his advantage.

He ruled a conflict and post-conflict country. He prepared a transformed country with an appreciable national economic reserve. His transformation of a post-war economy, policies and establishment of democratic and revenue generation institutions made it comparatively easy for the rule of Ernest Koroma.

Further to the above, he leveraged his connections to push for Sierra Leone’s debt cancellation under the Highly Indebted Poor Countries programme. Sierra Leone’s external debt burden was substantially reduced and this was impacted on economic stability and inflation rates.

It was rumoured that he was frugal with personal national expenditure. His Cabinet Ministers had to be sure and convincing before his approval of any expenditure.

Unfortunately, his policies and transformation of Sierra Leone was arguably not understood and appreciated by the common Sierra Leonean. It was only during the rule of Ernest Koroma that a number of Sierra Leoneans understood his policies and huge contributions to a post-war country.