Two years after the controversial elections of June 2023, which allowed the incumbent Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) candidate, Julius Maada Bio, to secure a second term in office despite the lack of a legitimate electoral result, Dubawa—a Nigerian-run project that claims to focus on fact-checking journalism— has published what appears to be a veiled attempt to validate the illegitimate mandate of Maada Bio’s second presidential term, disguising it as fact-checking.
In an article titled “Chernoh Bah Makes a Misleading Claim About Bio’s Re-election in 2023,” Dubawa responds to a Facebook comment I posted on August 2, 2025. My comment stated, “In 2018, Maada Bio became president with a 2% lead against an unpopular incumbent. He continued as president in 2023 without an election result. Now, Bio says his party will continue in office after 2028. How do they hope to rig the next elections?”
Dubawa reportedly fact-checked this statement and concluded that while it is true President Bio “won a disputed election in 2023,” there was no evidence to support the claim that he remained president without an election result. Dubawa labeled my Facebook post as “misleading,” asserting that Bio had election results following the June 2023 elections. They referenced the Electoral Commission of Sierra Leone (ECSL), which declared Maada Bio the winner, according to their official website.
Furthermore, Dubawa observed that although the European Union criticized the 2023 presidential election for alleged statistical inconsistencies and a lack of transparency in the electoral process, it also found no evidence to support the claim that Bio remained in office without official election results.
In other words, Dubawa’s disagreement with the statement that “Bio has continued in office after June 2023 without an election result” is primarily based on ECSL’s Chief Electoral Commissioner, Mohamed Konneh’s declaration of Maada Bio as the winner of the 2023 elections, and not on any other grounds. Consequently, Dubawa does not contest the validity of this declaration. Therefore, Dubawa concludes that the ECSL’s announcement, which names Maada Bio as the winner of the June 2023 election, serves as evidence that Bio remained in office with a valid election result.
However, Dubawa overlooks the substantial evidence indicating that the manipulated statistics employed by the ECSL to justify Maada Bio’s continued tenure in office violated Sierra Leone’s public election laws. Furthermore, Dubawa minimizes the crucial fact that the ECSL’s declaration received widespread criticism from both local and international observers for failing to adhere to the established standards that govern democratic elections.
Sierra Leone’s 1991 Constitution, and the Public Elections Act 2022, forbids the inauguration of a President, Members of Parliament, and representatives of Local Government Councils without properly conducted elections.
Under Sierra Leonean law, elections are deemed to be properly and democratically conducted only when all votes from each polling station, polling center, district, and region have been fully counted, correctly tallied, thoroughly verified, and collectively approved by political party agents and authorized polling staff. Only then can the results be sent to the national verification and tallying center for final processing and verification before any public announcement and declaration of winners by the National Returning Officer or Chief Electoral Commissioner.
For example, to be considered constitutionally and adequately elected as President, Section 51(1) of Sierra Leone’s Public Elections Act 2022 states that “a Presiding Officer shall, after the expiration of the time fixed for polling, count the votes, polling station by polling station, and certify the result of the counting, stating the number of valid votes cast in favor of each presidential candidate to the District Returning Officer. The District Returning Officer shall then certify the result to the Regional Returning Officer, who will in turn certify the result to the National Returning Officer.”
Section 51(2) adds that “as soon as possible after receiving the counting results under subsection (1), the Returning Officer shall tally and compute the results certified to him by the various Presiding Officers and shall subsequently declare the results of the election.”
The Sierra Leonean elections held in June 2023 did not adhere to the legal and constitutional procedures required for conducting a presidential election. Additionally, the June 2023 elections failed to comply with the legislative requirements for electing representatives to Local Government Councils and Members of Parliament. The National Returning Officer, Mohamed Konneh, did not wait for the districts and regions to complete their vote counting and tallying processes before announcing the alleged winner of the presidential elections in June 2023.
So, if Mohamed Konneh did not wait for the completion of district and regional tallies, where did the Electoral Commission for Sierra Leone (ECSL) obtain the votes and numbers used to declare the alleged winners of the June 2023 presidential, parliamentary, and local government elections? Furthermore, if regional tallies and national tabulations were still incomplete when ECSL announced the election results, on what basis did they rely on to declare Maada Bio the winner of the June 2023 presidential elections?
The absence of credible answers to these questions, given the pervasive fraud surrounding the June 2023 elections and the unlawful declaration of Maada Bio as president without a properly conducted election, leads us to conclude that Bio has remained in office without a valid election outcome. Essentially, the electoral irregularities mentioned above are the reason we believe Bio has continued as the President of Sierra Leone after June 2023 without a legitimate election result. Our convictions and conclusions are neither unpopular nor unfounded. Both international and local observers, including the European Union, the Carter Center, and various other organizations, have collectively agreed that the June 2023 elections were non-transparent and marred by numerous irregularities. These irregularities included the premature announcement of election results while vote counting and tallying were still in progress.
The June 2023 elections in Sierra Leone were significantly flawed, leading the United States to impose a visa ban on Sierra Leonean government officials deemed responsible for undermining democracy in the country.
On September 1, 2023, the U.S. State Department issued a statement declaring that “the United States will enforce visa restrictions on individuals believed to be responsible for or complicit in undermining democracy in Sierra Leone. This includes actions such as manipulating or rigging the electoral process, intimidating voters, election observers, or civil society organizations through threats or acts of physical violence, as well as violating related human rights in Sierra Leone. Those who undermine the democratic process at any stage—before, during, or after Sierra Leone’s 2023 elections—may be ineligible for U.S. visas under this policy.”
In this context, Dubawa’s decision to rely on statistics provided by the Electoral Commission for Sierra Leone (ECSL) to justify President Bio’s continuation in office—despite his lack of a legitimate mandate—undermines their neutrality and credibility. This action aligns them with ECSL and Bio’s political allies, effectively endorsing what many consider a stolen mandate from Sierra Leonean voters.
Dubawa’s actions and position are not innocent or neutral; rather, they represent a covert attempt to legitimize Maada Bio’s illegitimate mandate. This approach should be viewed as part of a broader political agenda aimed at discrediting the Africanist Press, which is recognized as a leading investigative journalism organization in Sierra Leone and beyond. Additionally, it seeks to consolidate and protect a struggling ethno-regional dominance that has hindered democracy and development in Sierra Leone since the transition to indigenous government in 1961.
The undeniable truth is that Sierra Leone’s political elites are aware that Maada Bio’s second term did not result from a democratic electoral process. Instead, Bio remains in power due to an unconstitutional tripartite arrangement, which we previously referred to as the “Hotel Agreement.” This agreement, involving the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) and the All People’s Congress (APC), was facilitated by international organizations that ironically criticized the irregularities surrounding the June 2023 elections.
The tripartite agreement allowed Maada Bio to continue as president without a properly conducted election. It also enabled politicians from both dominant parties — the SLPP and APC — to enter into a power-sharing arrangement without addressing the issues that arose from the June 2023 elections. This agreement was negotiated at the Bintumani Hotel in Freetown in October 2023, solidifying a consensus among elite politicians to maintain the dominance of these two principal ethno-regional political parties in Sierra Leone.
Thus, the October 2023 Hotel Agreement — mischaracterized by some foreign diplomats as “an agreement for national unity” — serves as the foundation for the current political arrangement that endorsed Maada Bio’s second term. It also dictated the composition of Parliament and local government councils.
This elite compromise undermines genuine democracy and violates Sierra Leone’s national constitution. It is this consensus against true democracy and constitutionalism that the Nigerian-founded media project, Dubawa, is attempting to defend and legitimize under the guise of fact-checking.
By Chernoh Alpha M. Bah
