Qiana Mcnaught
Sierra Leone’s first lady has been evicted from a taxpayer-subsidised London council flat that she kept despite spending years at the country’s presidential residence.
Fatima Jabbe-Bio retained the tenancy of a two-bedroom flat in Southwark after relocating to Sierra Leone in 2018, when her husband, President Julius Maada Bio, took office.
Housing regulations require council properties to be a tenant’s primary residence; however, since moving to Sierra Leone, Jabbe-Bio has been residing at the presidential lodge in Freetown.
Jabbe-Bio had occupied the council flat for more than a decade before her move abroad.
Following a year-long investigation, Southwark Council confirmed that it had recovered possession of the flat and would reallocate it to a local family in housing need.
Reginald Popoola, Southwark Council’s executive member for council homes, said he welcomed the return of the property to its intended purpose of providing safe and secure housing for residents with legitimate needs who are on the council’s waiting list.
Jabbe-Bio, 45, was born in Sierra Leone and moved to London to pursue a career in modelling and acting, later appearing in several low-budget Nigerian films.
She met Maada Bio in London in 2012 while he was raising funds for his first presidential campaign. The couple married the following year.
The property is located on the first floor of a converted house containing six other flats.
Maada Bio served as a brigadier during Sierra Leone’s civil war in the 1990s.
The waiting list for social housing in London has reached its highest level in a decade. In Southwark alone, more than 18,000 households are awaiting accommodation, with around 4,000 currently living in temporary housing.
A report published last year by the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, citing property records, alleged that the first lady held a substantial property portfolio, including two villas in The Gambia, an apartment in a luxury development and an entire residential block.
In an interview with the BBC last month, she defended her entitlement to social housing, stating: ‘My children are all British citizens. I’m paying for my council house myself. I have not committed any crime.’
Following the interview, Robert Jenrick, Reform UK’s Treasury spokesman, visited the property and posted a video on social media in which he vowed to ‘boot [her] out’ if Reform were to form the next government.
She had been scheduled to address a women’s empowerment conference at Cambridge University this week, but the appearance was cancelled after this newspaper reported that Jabbe-Bio had repeatedly declined to condemn female genital mutilation (FGM) and had argued that she did not consider the practice harmful.
Jabbe-Bio is understood to have used the Southwark flat only intermittently, while letters addressed to her were left outside the front door.
Neighbours claimed that someone only occasionally visited to collect the letters.
One resident described the situation as ‘a terrible waste’, arguing that the property should have been allocated to someone in genuine housing need.
Neighbours also said that all of the other flats in the building were occupied, with Jabbe-Bio’s flat the only vacant unit.
They also said the future president used the flat as a base for his political activities before returning to Sierra Leone.
Tigda Soley, the first lady’s daughter from a previous marriage, was registered to vote at the address in 2023.
In 2024, she was named ‘First Lady of the Year’ at the London Political Summit and Awards, an event hosted in Parliament by Labour MP Afzal Khan and Andrew Gwynne, who now sits as an independent.
The presidential residence in Freetown is a large estate in the hills above the city with amenities including a swimming pool, tennis court and helipad.
President Bio had been re-elected in 2023, and the couple have five children together.
Source: Dailymail.co.uk | Read the Full Story…
