About Ahmad Tejan Kabbah
Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabbah (16 February 1932 – 13 March 2014) was a Sierra Leonean politician who served as the third President of Sierra Leone from 1996 to 1997 and from 1998 to 2007. An economist and attorney by profession, Kabbah spent many years working for the United Nations Development Programme. He retired from the United Nations and returned to Sierra Leone in 1992. In 1996, Kabbah was elected leader of the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) and was the party's presidential candidate in the country's first free presidential election later that year, winning. Most of Kabbah's time in office was influenced by the civil war with the Revolutionary United Front, led by Foday Sankoh, which led to him being temporarily ousted by the military Armed Forces Revolutionary Council from May 1997 to March 1998. He was soon returned to power after military intervention by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), led by Nigeria. Another phase of the civil war led to the United Nations and British involvement in the country in 2000. As President, Kabbah opened direct negotiations with the RUF rebels to end the civil war. He signed several peace accords with Sankoh, including the 1999 Lomé Peace Accord, in which the rebels, for the first time, agreed to a temporary ceasefire with the Sierra Leone government. When the cease-fire agreement with the rebels collapsed, Kabbah campaigned for international assistance from the British, the United Nations Security Council, the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States to help defeat the rebels and restore peace and order in Sierra Leone. Kabbah declared the civil war officially over in early 2002. Kabbah won another term in office in the presidential election later that year. A devoted Muslim himself, Kabbah's first name Ahmad means "highly praised" or "one who constantly thanks God" in Arabic language. In early 1996, Kabbah was elected leader of the Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) and was the party's presidential candidate in the country's first free presidential election later that year. Kabbah was Sierra Leone's first and currently the only Muslim head of state of the country. Kabbah's first marriage, in 1965, was to Patricia Tucker, a devout Christian from the Sherbro ethnic group and a native of Bonthe District in Southern Sierra Leone.
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