President of Sierra Leone Julius Maada Bio speaking at the Harvard Institute of Politics.
Julius Maada Bio is the current president of Sierra Leone, a position he has occupied since April 2018. He formerly served as a general in the national army, as well as the military head of state during the 1996 military junta. During his first year in office, he has focused on instituting anti-corruption measures against the former administration, providing free education across the country, and, most recently, issuing an executive order on violence against women and girls.
Harvard Political Review: Last month, you declared rape a national emergency in Sierra Leone. What prompted you to make this unprecedented move?
Julia Maada Bio: As a parent, first, the state of rape had become so much in the country that I had to do this. But as the president of the Republic of Sierra Leone, it is also my obligation to protect every member, every Sierra Leonean in the country. The statistics are quite grim, and I felt that it was important to declare a national emergency to be able, one, to count up all the resources, and also to have special powers to take care of the state of rape that was going on at the time. So we have done that, and now we [have] the investments to make sure that we can protect our kids, and our women in particular, from being violated.
HPR: Despite women’s issues being of primary concern in Sierra Leone, there was a lack of female representation — and thus self-advocacy — in the last election cycle. Do you see a place for women in Sierra Leonean politics, and what steps are you taking to create opportunities for women to engage in the political arena?
JMB: [Fifty-one percent of the population of Sierra Leone] are women. We have to take that number seriously. The first time I contested for the presidency, my running-mate was a woman. Unfortunately, we did not make it at that time. I have always taken women’s issues — and women — very seriously, and that was why I chose a woman at the highest level of state to be my running-mate.
But now that I am at the helm, I will assure you that women’s issues are at the center of everything that we do, starting from the free quality education. Women of course have a special place. We have seen that girls who make it to university are now doing STEM courses. They get free support from the state. We have also made it a point to make sure that women are part of everything that we do, not just consigned to the kitchen as it has always been. We are providing space for them to feel free at school, and to participate like every other student or pupil at the university and also at the school level.
My attorney general is a woman. My minister of gender and children’s affairs is a woman. My minister of issues is a woman. My minister of planning and development is a woman — as a matter of fact she is actually here with me [at Harvard]. My deputy minister of finance is a woman. So we are not just talking the talk, we are walking the walk. I totally believe that we should give opportunity, especially taking into consideration the cultural restrictions that have restricted women from being equal partners in development. I think that is a disservice to our nation, and we have to break off from that.
HPR: You have begun implementing free education as well as several progressive women’s policies. These initiatives will likely be expensive, and funding for universal education in Sierra Leone has been an issue in the past. Are you willing to accept financing from international organizations? And where else do you believe funding will come from?
JMB: It is definitely expensive, but it is not as expensive as ignorance. It will surprise you to note that we started off with our own resources — just taking care of the loopholes that had existed in the former administration, [because] a lot of resources were wasted. We have closed the loopholes, and we have been able to get enough resources to start and launch free quality education. So we have started, and we are doing so without the support of the international community at this point.
Of course, going forward, we won’t mind international organizations and people coming to our aid, because we don’t want to be persistent beggars. We want to be a nation that can take care of itself, and that means we need to lay a solid foundation for development; sustainable development cannot take place in a society where there is no solid foundation for quality education.
That is our belief, and that is why we have taken human capital development as the flagship program of our government. Our definition involves three components: quality education to feed the brain, food security to make sure that the tummy is full, and a good health-care system to take care of the welfare of the whole human being. When those are in order, then the human being can achieve its highest potential. That is our belief, and that is our definition of human capital development. It is expensive, but we have to take it on. We cannot be on a flimsy foundation, and that is why we are taking that on.
HPR: Last year, you called Chinese development projects in Sierra Leone a “sham,” and you recently canceled the commission for a Chinese company to build a new airport in Sierra Leone. What are your views on China’s increasing involvement in the continent?
JMB: We have an international system that is highly interconnected, as you know. We are advocating for free trade right across the continent, and for us, trade and investment are a cornerstone of our diplomacy around the world. Our doors are open, we are looking for chairman investors, and we are creating an ecosystem that is inviting chairman investors so that we can have a win-win situation. People can invest, have returns on their investments, but we need to make sure that they operate within the confines of our laws and that we get what we have to get as part of the investment. But we also want to make sure that they can have returns on their investments.
[I do not think about] Chinese investment the way it has been characterized. What I said was that that particular investment was not in the best interests of my country. There are a lot of other Chinese investments in Sierra Leone that have not been touched at all. We want to seek out our own interests. We have been begging, cap-in-hand, around the world. If we have to go cap-in-hand, it should be for ideas and partnerships based on equality. We do not want to go for money; we want to go for partnerships that have a direct bearing on development.
In fact, that is one of the reasons that we’re here. We want to partner with institutions that are here, and [research ideas] that take into consideration the sensitivity around ethical considerations. We really are taking, on a case-to-case basis, every investment opportunity to make sure that it is a win-win. We don’t want any predatory investments. We will challenge that, and that is why we said “no” to that particular investment. It was not in the best interests of Sierra Leone.
HPR: You are the 33rd of 35 children to your father, who had, in total, nine wives. You yourself have one wife, who has been very involved in policy-making as a women’s rights activist herself. Obviously, much has changed in your lifetime in Sierra Leone. What are the biggest changes you have seen, and how do you plan to continue to support the cultural heritage of Sierra Leone while promoting the progressive issues you have taken on, like women’s rights and free education?
JMB: I started off talking about human capital development, and citing education as the best investment we can make now. I am a son of a paramount chief, [who are] traditional rulers. The cultural setting at the time allowed for things like that to happen, for my dad having as many wives as he could, and we were the consequences of that.
But today, with education, it is a totally different situation in the 21st century. I have been able to work from the village to sit at the state house. It has been a long, difficult journey, and that is why I value education — because if I can do that, it is possible for every Sierra Leonean to do it. To come in from the village, and to occupy the highest office in the state.
For me, [the guiding principle] has been education. I lost my dad when I was only four, and my mom, who was not fortunate to have gone to school, took education very seriously. She shaped my whole character to believe that the only means of survival is education, so that has been my guiding principle. Today, she is not alive, but I owe everything that I have today to her, because she was strong and stood by me, even in the absence of my dad. So for me, education will change the future of my country, my people, and even the trajectory of development. It will provide that forward momentum that Sierra Leone needs to catch up with the rest of the world, and to be a leader, too.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Image Credit: Flickr/Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics