by Fatima Babih, EdD
At her recent rally in Freetown, Sierra Leone’s First Lady, Fatima Jabbie Bio, boldly declared:
Inside Sierra Leone, when it comes to the title First Lady, inside Sierra Leone Constitution, the only person who is entitled to be called First Lady is the President’s wife.
This statement was not a “mistake.”
It was a blatant lie intended to mislead uninformed citizens.
And when the wife of the sitting President stands on a political stage and lies about what the Constitution says, it is not a trivial issue. It is dangerous.
What’s In the Constitution
The 1991 Constitution of Sierra Leone is publicly available on multiple official and reputable platforms, including Sierra Leone legal archives and international law repositories.
A full-text search of the Constitution shows Sierra Leone Constitution (1991) DOES:
- Establish the President, Vice President, Cabinet, Parliament, Judiciary, and constitutional offices.
- Define state authority, executive power, and public finance.
- Set out who may exercise power and under what legal basis.
The Sierra Leone Constitution (1991) DOES NOT:
- Create the office of “First Lady.”
- Assign duties, powers, or privileges to a president’s spouse
- Authorize a spouse to speak for the state, a political party, or the presidency
- Provide public funding, staff, travel, protocol, or decision-making authority for a First Lady
What is “First Lady”?
- A social courtesy title, not a constitutional or statutory office
- Purely informal, with no legal standing
- Not accountable to Parliament
- Not subject to constitutional checks and balances
Any power exercised by a First Lady exists outside the Constitution.
Why this matters
Any involvement by a First Lady in party leadership, state policy, security matters, public finance, or governance decisions has no constitutional foundation.
When a First Lady issues directives, incites crowds, interferes in party structures, or claims authority over elected officials, she is operating in a legal vacuum. That vacuum is precisely what allows Fatima Bio to exercise:
- Power without responsibility
- Influence without accountability
- Authority without legality
The Bottom line
- Fatima Bio holds no constitutional or legal office.
- She derives no authority from the Constitution.
- She is accountable to no law as a state actor, because legally, she is not a state actor.
In other words, the Constitution does not give Fatima Bio any special legal status. She is, by law, a private citizen married to the President.
Fatima Bio’s attempts to portray herself as:
- “First Lady of the nation and the party,”
- A substitute for the President,
- A co-leader of the SLPP,
- A political authority whose words carry institutional weight…
…are all fabrications that are,
- constitutionally wrong,
- legally dangerous, and
- democratically corrosive.
Why Be Concerned
Some might ask: “So what? It’s just a title.” No. It’s not “just a title” when Fatima Bio is wrapping it in the Constitution. When she tells the public that the Constitution itself grants her a unique legal entitlement to be called “First Lady,” she is doing three dangerous things:
First: She Lies About the Supreme Law of the Land
The Constitution is not a joke document. It is the highest law of Sierra Leone. Misrepresenting it is not a harmless slip, it’s an attack on constitutional literacy. If an ordinary citizen lies about the Constitution at a street corner, the damage is limited. When the President’s wife stands on a political platform and tell lies about what the Constitution says, she uses borrowed presidential legitimacy to spread misinformation and falsehood.
That normalizes disrespect for the rule of law.
Second: She Inflates her Unelected, Ceremonial Role
Fatima Bio has consistently tried to present the “Office of the First Lady” as something quasi-official and executive, often behaving as if she is a parallel power center in Sierra Leone’s governance. Critics have repeatedly raised concerns about her overreach, making it clear that she is not constitutionally authorized to act as a state representative.
By lying that the Constitution uniquely entitles her to the “First Lady” title, Fatima Bio is:
- Elevating herself above other citizens without any lawful basis.
- Reinforcing the idea that her position is a constitutional office rather than a social courtesy.
- Preparing the ground for her further interference in governance, party structures, and national policy under the cover of a title that has no legal foundation.
This is not innocent vanity; it is political manipulation.
Third: She Worsens the Culture of Personality Worship
Sierra Leone has paid a heavy price for personality cult politics, leaders elevated above scrutiny, surrounded by praise singers, protected by myth instead of law.
When Fatima Bio instructs crowds to chant her name in the same way they chant for her husband and then lies that the Constitution gives her a special entitlement to her title, she’s not just seeking respect. She is actively building a cult of self, which has real consequences because:
- It blurs the line between elected authority and spousal proximity to power.
- It conditions citizens to accept unelected influence as normal.
- It undermines the accountability structures that are supposed to protect the public from abuse.
A Pattern of Overreach
Fatima Bio’s constitutional lie did not emerge in a vacuum. Her public behavior has followed a visible pattern:
- Speaking and acting as if she were a co-President, not simply the spouse of the president.
- Using public platforms to attack perceived enemies, including within her husband’s own party.
- Portraying herself as the engine behind major initiatives, even where formal government structures and ministries are the ones with actual mandates.
So, her recent claim about the Constitution is just the latest episode in a longer story of Fatima Bio’s relentless attempt to normalize her extra-constitutional power and wrap it in moral and legal legitimacy.
She has repeatedly:
- Overstated her role,
- Misrepresented the law, and
- Intimidated critics through public rhetoric,
The pattern is clear: abuse of influence.
Why Be Alarmed
Sierra Leoneans should all be concerned, regardless of party affiliation, because today, Fatima Bio is using her privilege of being the wife of the president to rewrite our Constitution with her lies that “The Constitution says only the President’s wife can be First Lady.”
Tomorrow she might say:
- “The Constitution allows me to represent the nation in this contract.”
- “The Constitution gives me authority over this budget.”
- “The Constitution recognizes my office, so I can sign on behalf of the President.”
If Sierra Leoneans fail to call out and condemn Fatima Bio’s lie about what the Constitution says on a small matter like the “First Lady” title, it becomes easy for her to sell bigger lies later.
Defending the Constitution
Sierra Leoneans must condemn Fatima Bio’s false statement about the constitution, refuse to let her tell any further lies about the law that governs our nation.
Sierra Leoneans have a right and a duty to insist on three basic truths:
- The Constitution is supreme, not feelings, not titles, not marriages.
- No unelected spouse has constitutional authority simply by being married to a President.
- Anyone who stands before the public and invokes the Constitution must speak the truth, or be called out and condemned.
Fatima Bio’s statement at that rally was not just inaccurate. It was a blatant lie about the Sierra Leone Constitution, and that should worry every citizen who cares about democracy, accountability, and the rule of law in our beloved country.
The Constitution of Sierra Leone belongs to the people, not to State House, not to political parties, and certainly not to a self-styled queen of State Lodge.
And no amount of chanting “Fatima Bio eeh” can change what is written, and what is not written in the supreme law of the Land That We Love.
References
Constitution of Sierra Leone 1991
Fatima Bio’s Lies About the Constitution: https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1BnZiMdQXL/
MAMA SALONE ~ Lioness of the West Coast 