President Koroma Returns Home, Though Not Altogether – All Is Well That Ends Well
By Sheriff Mahmud Ismail
ABUJA, Nigeria — Before dawn had fully broken over Nigeria’s federal capital on Sunday morning, a slender white aircraft sat quietly on the tarmac, its silhouette softened by the pale glow of floodlights still resisting the coming day. Around it, the air was remarkably still. Ground crews moved with the deliberate efficiency that accompanies executive flights, their voices subdued beneath the muted whine of auxiliary power units preparing the aircraft for departure.
It was not a large airplane. The Bombardier Challenger 605, l registration 5N-FGZ, from the Nigerian Presidential Fleet, was built to accommodate twelve passengers. On this journey, only five seats would be occupied.
There was an almost monastic simplicity about the arrangement. Former President Ernest Bai Koroma Office of Ernest Bai Koroma, Former President of Sierra Leone 2007-2018 took his place alongside four trusted aided: his Senior Adviser and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Sam Kargbo; his Principal Assistant, Sheriff Mahmud Ismail; Office Administration Officer, Ibrahim Baimba Bangura; and Chief Security Officer Moses Tughgba.
At precisely 0500 hours, the twin engines gathered themselves into a measured crescendo. The aircraft rolled forward before lifting effortlessly into the still-dark African sky, banking westward toward Sierra Leone.
Outside the windows, dawn unfolded with extraordinary generosity.
July is ordinarily an unforgiving month over the Upper Guinea coast. Heavy cloud, rain-laden winds and hazy horizons are usually faithful companions of the season. But this morning seemed determined to tell a different story. Layer upon layer of blue stretched across the heavens without interruption. The first rays of sunlight spilled across towering cloud formations, transforming them into floating citadels of gold and ivory suspended above the continent.From thirty-seven thousand feet, the world below appeared peaceful enough to forget that history is often written amid turbulence invisible from the sky.
For Mr. Koroma, this was not just another regional journey. It was a return. The first since 19 January 2024. Two years and six months earlier, another aircraft from the Nigerian Presidential Fleet had lifted from Sierra Leone carrying the country’s immediate former President away from his homeland under osteperous circumstances that had unsettled the nation and drawn the close attention of West Africa. The weeks preceding that departure had been marked by political uncertainty, and intense diplomatic engagement following the failed events of November 2023.
Nonetheless, even then, there was an unmistakable dignity to the manner of his leaving. He didn’t flee. He neither surrendered his convictions nor inflamed public passions. Instead, following painstaking engagement led by the Economic Community of West African States, he boarded a Nigerian presidential aircraft with characteristic composure, placing confidence not in confrontation but in dialogue, not in political theatre but in regional diplomacy.
History rarely reveals its intentions immediately. Sometimes it asks nations to wait. Sometimes it asks leaders to endure. The ancient wisdom of Ecclesiastes observes that “to everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.” The intervening months would prove precisely that.
The Government of Sierra Leone has since discontinued all charges against the former President, bringing to a close one of the most consequential legal and political chapters in the country’s post-war democratic history. The decision did not erase disagreement, nor did it rewrite history. But it removed a burden that had weighed heavily upon the nation’s politics while opening wider space for dialogue, reconciliation and institutional renewal.
If there were expectations that President Koroma might respond with triumph, they were quickly dispelled. His public statement following the discontinuance of the charges was notable less for vindication than for restraint. He spoke instead of gratitude, national healing and reconciliation. There was no language of conquest, only appreciation and renewed commitment to Sierra Leone’s peace and democratic future.
Those sentiments now find perhaps their most compelling expression in the circumstances of his return. President Koroma arrives in Sierra Leone not for a court appearance or a personal celebration. He returns at the invitation of the Chairman of the ECOWAS Authority of Heads of State and Government to participate in the Community’s Sixty-Ninth Ordinary Summit, convened under the resonant theme “Where Peace Lives.”
Few themes could carry greater symbolism. The same regional organisation that quietly negotiated his temporary relocation in January 2024 now provides the diplomatic platform upon which he returns.
The symmetry is striking without being accidental. It speaks less about one man than about the enduring capacity of institutions to create space where politics alone sometimes cannot.
As the Challenger continued its westward course above the Gulf of Guinea, sunlight now illuminated every corner of the cabin. Conversation remained light, punctuated by moments of thoughtful silence. Occasionally, eyes drifted toward the windows where the Atlantic shimmered beneath the aircraft’s wings like polished steel stretching toward the horizon.
Then, almost imperceptibly, the coastline emerged.
First came the faint outline of the Freetown Peninsula rising from the sea. Then the broad estuary where the Rokel River yields itself to the Atlantic. Few aerial approaches in Africa possess the quiet grandeur of Lungi. the ocean, while scattered fishing boats leave delicate white brushstrokes across waters that have carried traders, explorers, freed slaves and statesmen for centuries. On clear mornings such as this, —as though the clouds themselves had stepped aside to welcome those returning home.
For all the symbolism surrounding his return, perhaps the most eloquent moment unfolded not in the conference hall or on the red carpet, but in the unguarded embrace of a grandfather and his granddaughter.
As President Koroma stepped from the aircraft, little Liz hurried into his arms with the certainty that only a child can possess. She clung to him with both arms, burying her face against his chest, while the former President lowered his head with a smile that spoke more than words ever could. It was the embrace of nearly two and a half years compressed into a single moment—absence yielding to presence, distance surrendering to affection. Those who know the family were hardly surprised. Liz, as family friend Basita Michael affectionately observed on Facebook, may well be “the biggest beneficiary of this return.”
Throughout his stay in Abuja, she remained one of the very few people whose daily video calls invariably found their way to her grandfather. Miss one of those calls, and an explanation was expected. On more than one occasion, I found myself gently reminding him, “Sir, you’ve missed Liz’s call.” He would immediately break into a knowing smile before responding in familiar Krio, “Ay! Make ar cam return dis call before ar end up wit fine or query!” It was a light-hearted refrain, but beneath the humour lay something profound: public office may define a statesman, but it is family that quietly reveals the man. In that lingering embrace on the rain-kissed tarmac at Lungi, even the roar of the Challenger’s engines seemed to recede, yielding the stage to a homecoming measured not by protocol, but by love.
One cannot help recalling the words of the Psalmist:
“Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.”
Whether Sierra Leone has fully reached that destination remains an open question.
Reconciliation is never secured by legal decisions alone. Nor is national healing accomplished in a single summit. It demands humility from leaders, generosity from institutions and grace from citizens willing to believe that yesterday’s divisions need not become tomorrow’s inheritance.
As the aircraft began its gentle descent toward Freetown International Airport, its landing gear lowering beneath a sky of remarkable clarity, one truth became increasingly difficult to ignore.
The journey that began amid uncertainty on 19 January 2024 was never only about departure. It was always, perhaps, about return. And sometimes history’s most enduring victories are not those won over opponents, but those won over circumstance itself.
Chernor Bah
Ayv Sierra Leone
Umaru Fofana
Ecowas – Cedeao
Jarrah Kawusu-Konte
Slaj Sierra Leone
Abu Bakarr Turay
Abu Bakarr Boxx Konteh
Amb Wilfred Leeroy Kabs-kanu
Kaifala Marah
Chernor Maju Bah
Suphian Kalokoh
Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr
Ady Macauley
Osman Abdal Timbo
Sidie Yahya Tunis
Oumar Farouk Sesay
Dr. Ibrahim Bangura
Tunde Scott
John Baimba Sesay
Mohamed Pope Kamara
Sorie Sulaiman Sesay
Omrie Golley
Ibrahim Yusuf Bangura
Alfred Minkailu Payamba Koroma
Mohamed Asmieu Bah
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