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Sierra Leone’s President Julius Maada Bio was conspicuously excluded from the list of African leaders invited to the inauguration of Pope Leo XIV, the newly elected 267th Bishop of Rome.
The solemn mass marking the beginning of Pope Leo XIV’s pontificate is set to take place today at St. Peter’s Square in the Vatican.
The newly elected Pope, the first American to lead the Catholic Church, will host a series of high-profile meetings with world leaders, cardinals, and diplomats during the week-long inauguration.
A list of African leaders invited to the significant occasion was released, including prominent figures such as Barthélémy Kéré, president of the constitutional council of Burkina Faso, Vice President Prosper Bazombanza of Burundi, and Bola Tinubu, the president of Nigeria.
However, President Bio’s name was conspicuously missing from this list. The exclusion follows recent backlash after President Bio chose to attend Pope Francis’ funeral in Rome instead of Sierra Leone’s Independence Day celebrations on April 27. His absence sparked public outrage, with critics accusing him of neglecting national duties in favor of foreign engagements.
Myk Berewa, the Director of Communications in the Office of the President, had previously defended President Bio’s attendance at the funeral, stating that the President shared a significant relationship with the late Pope, whom he considered a “moral and religious figure” who offered calls and prayers.
Berewa emphasized that the visit was to honor the deceased pontiff and pay his respects, asserting that the President did not act wrongly in prioritizing this over the national independence celebrations.
This explanation, however, did not quell the concerns of some prominent figures in Sierra Leone. Hon. Amb. Bishop Dr Alimamy Coleson Turay, a Bishop and former Member of Parliament, penned an open letter to President Bio expressing his “heavy heart” over the President’s absence on Independence Day.
The Bishop argued that while respecting global relations is important, the President’s presence at home on such a sacred national day holds greater significance for the people of Sierra Leone, who are facing numerous challenges.
“Your presence on Independence Day is not ceremonial alone—it is a sacrament of leadership,” the letter read. “The living people of Sierra Leone—struggling with hardship, poverty, and insecurity—deserve to see their leader at home, standing with them.”
He urged the President to reflect on the balance between international duties and domestic responsibilities, emphasizing that his presence on Independence Day serves as a crucial symbol of national unity and hope.
A blatant and diabolic lie. If President Bio was not invited, why did they allow him in their gatherings in the first place?
It’s a burial no one is given an invitation for it and also they won’t sent him back bcuz of his high profile but going out of the country on our independence day is totally rough. It’s just as he never gives respect to those that elected him as their president. Though he never won the election which he himself knows.
Let’s call a spade a spade.
What is wrong with that if he was not invited, just tou all are still suffering from slave mentality,
African can’t we just leave this American and European countries. Why can’t we be just independence and value ourselves.
We always value ourselves by the approval of this people.
Is he the only president in Africa that was not invited.
Now everyone is talking about Ibrahim Trore of Bukina Faso because he decided to associate with them.
But you are here looking down on your leader because he was not invited. SHEME ON YOU ALL
Neglecting a national duty as a President is scary and I don’t see any reason for him to attend but to rather send his Chief Minister.
As a citizen, I was hoping to see the father of the land in commemorating our nation’s b’day.
He went there only because of his travelling allowance and to waste the state resources in his own way.
Fake news and shame on the writer and editor. The trashy writer said the president of the republic was not included in the list of invitees, yet he failed to publish the said list.