President Kabbah paid a 'personal visit' to his old university

His Excellency Alhaji Dr Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, spent the day looking around the University of Aberystwyth on Saturday.

President Kabbah studied at the campus for three years, graduating with a degree in Economics in 1959.

Professor Derec Llwyd Morgan, Vice Chancellor and Principal of the university welcomed President Kabbah back to his alma mater.

"The visit was a private visit," he said.

"The fact that Dr Kabbah wished to see the university at Aberystwyth once again is testimony of his deep love of the place and of his appreciation of the education he received here in the late fifties.

President Kabbah graduated with a degree in Economics

"Few universities have the honour of receiving former students as State Presidents.

"Aberystwyth is proud of its connection with Dr Kabbah and wishes Sierra Leone a peaceful, prosperous future," he added.

During his visit, President Kabbah, looked around the site of a proposed building for the international politics department, the Arts Centre and the Old College.

Sierra Leone

During his time in office, the President has seen his country, the West African state of Sierra Leone, emerge from a decade of civil war which ended in early 2002, with the help of Britain, the former colonial power, and a large United Nations peacekeeping mission.

More than 17,000 foreign troops disarmed tens of thousands of rebels and militia fighters in the biggest UN peacekeeping success in Africa for many years after debacles in the 1990s in Angola, Rwanda and Somalia.

A lasting feature of the civil war was the atrocities committed by the rebels, whose trademark was to hack off the hands of their victims.

President Kabbah won a new five-year term in elections in May 2002 and is credited with bringing in foreign assistance to rescue his country from itself.

He first took office in March 1996 following war-time elections which brought a formal end to four years of army rule. However, disgruntled soldiers toppled him in May 1997.

A West African intervention force reinstated him within a year.

Saved by British military help, Kabbah agreed a ceasefire in November 2000. This allowed the UN force to deploy throughout the country and disarm combatants.