Speaker Bundu Steps Down In Sierra Leone On Health Grounds

Former executive secretary of Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), Abbas Chernor Bundu has retired as Speaker of Sierra Leonean Parliament after being elected for a second term.

In a letter addressed to President Julius Maada Bio, dated April 15, Bundu said 

he had been advised by medical experts to reduce his workload, stressing that health challenges were seriously affecting his ability to continue in office.

Sierra Leone is governed as a presidential republic, with a unicameral parliament and a directly elected president. 

Bundu’s retirement brings to end one of West Africa’s most highly regarded diplomatic and political careers. He worked in the Commonwealth Secretariat in London from 1975 until 1982 when he returned home to Sierra Leone. 

The diplomat joined the one-party Government of Siaka Stevens as minister of Agriculture and Natural Resources.

In 1989, he was appointed executive secretary of ECOWAS and during his tenure the ECOWAS Treaty was revised extensively. He initiated the establishment of ECOMOG and oversaw the beginning of its operations to bring peace back to Liberia and Sierra Leone.

After leaving ECOWAS in 1993, he served as Foreign Minister in Sierra Leone for a period and when he declared himself a member of the Sierra Leone Peoples Party on the return to multi-party democracy his decision was regarded as controversial.

Upon retirement from active public life, Bundu had said he will be preoccupied with writing his memoirs much to the anticipation of observers and analysts of public affairs in West Africa.