by Fatima Babih, EdD
She calls herself a champion for girls. Now she holds the blade that cuts their body parts!
In what may be the most grotesque inversion of her Hands Off Our Girls slogan, Sierra Leone’s First Lady Fatima Jabbie Bio has declared herself a Sowei, a female circumcision cutter, hijacking one of Sierra Leone women’s most sacred and secretive traditional institutions for her own sinister purposes.
This is not cultural preservation. This is not women’s empowerment. This is a dangerous woman consolidating absolute power while putting thousands of Sierra Leonean girls at mortal risk.
A Video Reveals the Horror
A recent propaganda video produced by Fatima Bio’s highly paid media team shows her surrounded by dancing crowds wearing green T-shirts emblazoned with images of her and her husband. The same T-shirts she recently confessed to distributing across communities while accusing opposition figure Musa Tarawally of warning people not to accept them.
But it’s the soundtrack that exposes the deadly truth.
The Mende lyrics commissioned by Fatima Bio declare:
Londonjet wants me to tell everyone that Fatima Bio is now a sowei.
Let us stand behind her to lead the soweis…
Fatima Bio, you are now a sowei, fear no one.
Ebema Gbi, you are now a sowei…
These are NOT symbolic words. They are deadly political proclamations.
Is Londonjet a Pimp or Godfather?
As I documented in my book The UNBECOMING Mrs. Maada Bio of Sierra Leone: A Case of First Lady Syndrome, Londonjet is the man who knew Fatima Bio during what she herself calls her “wild-16 years,” her own description of her wayward teenage years in Sierra Leone.
Years later, while helping Julius Maada Bio’s campaign in the UK for the Sierra Leone presidency, Londonjet re-entered Fatima Bio’s life and introduced her to an already-married Julius Maada Bio, who was also living with a girlfriend in London.
Londonjet, whom Fatima Bio claimed used to pimp her to men from abroad when she was a teenager, has assumed the role of godfather in Fatima Bio’s life ever since. Now, through a song, he is the one announcing her new status as a sowei, the one declaring that she now holds the blade for girls in Sierra Leone.
Ebema Gbi: Code for Permanent Dictatorship
Ebema Gbi roughly means it will not happen. It is not an innocent cultural slogan. It has become the Bios’ coded declaration of permanence in power beyond Julius Maada Bio’s constitutional term.
It is a warning to Sierra Leoneans: Julius Bio and his wife do not intend to relinquish power after the 2028 elections, regardless of the results.
Whether through constitutional subversion, a staged coup, or the installation of Fatima Bio as president herself, the strategy is brutally clear: Capture every institution in the country before 2028.
The women’s Sande/Bondo society, with its secrecy, hierarchies, and community reach, is now hostage in the Bios’ Ebema Gbi trap.
Who Becomes a Sowei?
It is important to understand what Fatima Bio has claimed. For those unfamiliar with Sierra Leone’s traditional practices, female circumcision, known globally as female genital mutilation (FGM), operates within clearly defined structures through women’s secret societies: Sande in the southeast and Bondo in the northwest.
A sowei is not a ceremonial title. A sowei is the woman who holds the blade and performs the cutting of girls’ clit.
Becoming a sowei is not like flying to the Gambia in a private jet to collect an honorary doctorate so you can call yourself “Dr.” It is not a costume party. It is not a political title.
Some might argue, “But Fatima Bio was circumcised herself, so she has the right.” Such an argument is irrelevant and dangerously misleading.
Not all female circumcisions are performed within the Sande/Bondo society, where membership, lineage, and community are paramount. The Sande/Bondo society is rooted in generations of tradition, community bonds, and carefully maintained structures.
Fatima Bio does not belong to any Sande/Bondo community in Sierra Leone by birth, lineage, or tradition.
Yet she has used her political power as First Lady to effectively seize control of this society, positioning herself as a feared sowei, the woman who holds the blade, commands obedience, and enforces secrecy.
The Mortal Danger to Girls
Becoming a sowei is not ceremonial pageantry. Like becoming a surgeon, becoming a sowei requires years, often decades, of training. Traditionally, a sowei begins as a girl initiated within the society and undergoing all the rituals, serves as an apprentice under an experienced sowei, often in her family or community, and she can only earn that role through long, supervised practice.
The Guinean-born Fatima Bio has no such training or ancestral lineage.
She is neither qualified by tradition nor by training, and her self-appointed role as a sowei places thousands of Sierra Leonean girls at mortal risk, hidden behind the enforced secrecy of Sande/Bondo society.
This is not symbolic. This is not honorary. This is about Fatima Bio claiming the right to physically mutilate girls’ bodies.
The consequences are catastrophic:
- No accountability: Enforced secrecy of Sande/Bondo means injuries, infections, hemorrhaging, and deaths can be hidden
- No oversight: Who will question the First Lady if a girl dies in the bush?
- No justice: Victims and their families are bound by oaths of silence
Girls will bleed. Girls will be maimed. Girls will die.
And the woman responsible will remain protected by the very secrecy she has weaponized.
Why Become a Sowei?
The answer is simple but terrifying.
First, to politicize the women’s society and consolidate power.
Second, as I discussed in an earlier post on this blog, “Confessions of a Cultist First Lady…”, Fatima Bio’s grip on state power is not merely political. It is rooted in a deep and disturbing entanglement with juju cultist oaths and rituals. The Sande/Bondo society, with its secrecy, silence, and fear, is the perfect organization for Fatima Bio’s intent and purpose for blood oaths and rituals.
Many Sierra Leoneans already suspect that Fatima Bio’s rituals involve human sacrifice.
For a woman who already enjoys total impunity, becoming a powerful sowei offers something even more sinister: absolute protection from investigations and prosecution. If girls are injured, maimed, or killed during Fatima Bio’s circumcision, the oath of secrecy ensures silence in the Sande/Bondo bush.
Silenced witnesses.
No accountability.
No justice.
In other words, Fatima Bio’s interest in becoming a sowei is far from being cultural preservation.
It is a means of consolidating and abusing power without consequences and accessing human bodies for rituals with impunity.
From “Hands Off Our Girls” to Hands on Girls’ Genitals
The grotesque irony cannot be overstated. Since becoming First Lady, Fatima Bio has built an international reputation around the slogan Hands Off Our Girls, supposedly fighting for the rights and well-being of girls. Through highly paid lobbyists, she has:
- Addressed the United Nations
- Received international awards
- Been featured on global platforms
- Collected donor funds from organizations worldwide
All while planning to literally cut girls’ genitals with her own hands.
By positioning herself as a sowei, a cutter of girls’ genitals, Fatima Bio has moved from advocacy theater to direct physical harm on girls, which proves critics’ allegations that her intention for “Hands Off Our Girls ” was purely for fame and wealth.
Fatima Bio’s hijacking of Sande/Bondo is not empowerment for women in Sierra Leone. It is not cultural preservation. It is not based on traditional practices. It is state-sanctioned violence against girls, led by a woman who has transformed herself into something far darker than the corrupt political figure she already is.
MAMA SALONE ~ Lioness of the West Coast 