Sierra Leone’s Vice President, Dr Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh, was expected in the Guinean capital, Conakry on Wednesday for an official visit, Manoreporters learnt.
The visit by VP Jalloh was announced in Freetown via a brief, unofficial statement shared on social media which said he was at the head of a delegation that departed Freetown for a two-day working visit.
“The purpose of the two days working visit is to strengthen the existing bilateral ties between the two countries focusing on security and infrastructural developments to facilitate trade and free movement of the people,” the statement reads in part.
A source in Conakry told Manoreporters that the Sierra Leonean Vice President was expected there, although they didn’t give detail about the reason for the visit.
It comes three months after President Julius Maada Bio’s controversial visit to Conakry following the imposition of sanctions on the military junta there by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), over the September 5 coup that ousted former president Alpha Conde.
Bio’s critics said at the time that his action amounted to undermining the ECOWAS sanctions.
But he defended it, arguing that it was in the interest of Sierra Leone’s national security.
“Guinea is a neighbour. We do quite a lot of things together. We have security arrangements which are falling apart. I needed to sort those out,” Bio told CNN in an interview on the sidelines of the EXPO2020 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Sierra Leone and Guinea has the longstanding issue of the disputed border town of Yenga to be resolved. That was one of the issues his supporters cited for Bio’s October visit.
The two countries came close to resolving the issue after a meeting between President Bio and former President Conde in 2020. At the time, Sierra Leonean officials said several security agreements had been reached, including joint border security patrols.
President Bio said not only was the implementation of those agreement stalled by the change of leadership in Guinea, but that it also worsened the security situation in the borders of the two countries.
Bio became the first head of state to visit Guinea after the ECOWAS’ sanction, a decision that was reached at its extraordinary summit in Accra shortly after the September coup.
ECOWAS demanded that the military returns the country to civilian rule within six months.
However, while Bio’s visit was said to have been done at the invitation of Guinea’s junta leader Col Mamady Doumbouya, it is unclear what triggered this one.
Bio has previously questioned ECOWAS’ hard-line stance on Guinea and Mali, noting that while he agreed with the bloc’s position in condemning coups, he thought it would be counterproductive to isolate the junta leadership.
