Sierra Leone Telegraph: 11 June 2026:
This has been a troubled week for Mrs Fatima Bio, the wife of Sierra Leone’s President Julius Maada Bio, desperately defending her position on female circumcision, following a bruising interview with the BBC the previous week, answering questions about her relationship with Europe’s most wanted cocaine fugitive – Bolle Jos, and her clumsy defence of being a London council tenant.
Today, she faces more questions about the legitimacy of her aspiration to become the president of Sierra Leone, once her husband – the former brutal military dictator leaves office in 2028.
The constitution of the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) of which she is a paid up member, is very clear about who is eligible to become the leader and presidential candidate of the party:
Only those currently serving in the most senior leadership role of the party – including the national executive committee and the current vice president of Sierra Leone, can put their names forward as aspiring candidates for the presidency.
Fatima Bio does not meet any of those requeirements, but is hoping that her husband the president, and senior SLPP party grandees, can corruptly manipulate the process in her favour.
Secondly, questions about her citizenship are being asked. Fatima is on record, claiming to be a Gambian citizen, which she does not deny. She is also believed to be holding a British citizenship.
Sierra Leone’s constitution is also very clear on the subject of dual citizenship and the presidency of Sierra Leone. To be eligible for election as President, a candidate must first fulfil the citizenship requirement for becoming a member of the country’s parliament.
According to Section 76(1), a person is not qualified to be elected as a Member of Parliament if they hold Dual Citizenship: Are a naturalized citizen of Sierra Leone or are a citizen of another country (having voluntarily obtained that citizenship or sworn allegiance to that country).
Fatima Bio must renounce both her Gambian and British citizenships, if she is to become eligible to run for the presidency of Sierra Leone under the constitution of Sierra Leone.
But news published last night by the UK Times Newspaper, that her London council tenancy has been revoked, has further compounded Mrs Fatima Bio’s troubled bid for the presidency.
The long drawn public debate about her tenancy of a London council flat, while millions of people in London are either inadequately housed or sleeping rough in the streets, has called into question Fatima Bio’s moral compass.
Is she fit to become the president of Sierra Leone?
While many in Sierra Leone have long argued that her bloated Office of the First Lady which is in receipt of millions of dollars of public funds is unaccountable and corrupt, her tenancy of a London council property while living a life of luxury in Sierra Leone, along with several high-end properties in the Gambia (Photo above), Senegal, and Ghana, raise further questions about her governance credentials.
And the most profound questions that many in Sierra Leone are now asking: Can Fatima Bio be trusted with public funds? Is she a fit and upstanding person to become the president of Sierra Leone?
The UK Times report can be read below:
Sierra Leone’s First Lady is evicted from London Council flat
By Tom Ball, Josef Skrdlik, Oliver Dunn
The first lady of Sierra Leone has been evicted from her council flat in London after The Times revealed that she had been improperly using the property intended for the city’s poorest.
Despite living in the lavish presidential lodge in Freetown, Fatima Jabbe-Bio retained the tenancy of a taxpayer-subsidised flat in Southwark in breach of housing rules that stipulate that a council property must be a person’s principal residence.
She had lived in the two-bed flat for more than decade, but left in 2018 when she moved to Sierra Leone after her husband, Julius Maada Bio, was elected president.
The Times revealed her continuous use of the flat last year, prompting an investigation by the council, which on Wednesday announced that after a 12-month investigation by its housing team, it had taken possession of the property, which would now be allocated to a local family in genuine need.
Reginald Popoola, Southwark’s executive member for council homes, said: “I look forward to bringing this council property back to its original purpose which is to provide a safe and secure home for people with legitimate housing needs on the council’s waiting list.”
The waiting list for London’s social housing is at its longest in a decade. In Southwark, there are more than 18,000 households on the borough’s waiting list, including 4,000 in temporary accommodation.
Jabbe-Bio, 45, was born in Sierra Leone and came to London to pursue a career in modelling and acting, ultimately appearing in a handful of low-budget Nigerian films. In 2012 she met Maada Bio in London, where he was fundraising for his first presidential run. They married a year later. Maada Bio was a brigadier during Sierra Leone’s civil war in the 1990s.
A report published last year by the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, citing property records, alleged that the first lady owned an extensive property portfolio including two villas in the Gambia, a flat in a luxury estate and an entire apartment building.
She had been due to speak at a female empowerment conference at Cambridge University this week, but the speech was cancelled after this newspaper highlighted that Jabbe-Bio had repeatedly refused to condemn female genital mutilation (FGM) and argued that she did not believe the practice was harmful.
When asked to comment on her participation at the event, Jabbe-Bio said: “I would have loved to answer you but honestly I am not going to waste my precious time. If you are looking for a slave I am not one of them.”
She did not respond to a request for comment on her housing arrangements. However, in an interview with the BBC last month, she defended her eligibility for social housing, saying: “My children are all British citizens. I’m paying for my council house myself. I have not committed any crime.”
After the interview, Robert Jenrick, Reform UK’s Treasury spokesman, visited the property, where he made a social media video in which he pledged to “boot [her] out” if Reform forms the next government.
Jabbe-Bio is thought to have visited the Southwark flat sporadically and letters addressed to her were left outside the front door. Tigda Soley, the first lady’s daughter from a previous marriage, was registered to vote at the address in 2023.
During her husband’s presidency, Jabbe-Bio has been outspoken against child marriage, sexual violence and western interference in African affairs. Her activism has led to invitations to speak at prominent western universities and international forums, including Harvard and the UN general assembly.
She was named 2024’s “first lady of the year” at the London Political Summit and Awards, an event hosted in parliament by the Labour MP Afzal Khan and Andrew Gwynne, now an independent.
Times report published with courtesy.
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