Agnes Bio, 30, is believed to be a special favourite of the President, who has several children by different mothers. Agnes is currently ‘co-lead’ of the Youth, Peace and Security team in the Sierra Leone Permanent Mission to the United Nations and accredited to the UN Security Council as a diplomat.
She runs the Agnes Bio Foundation which finances training and apprenticeships for young people. But her biggest extravagance may have been a huge party on 29 November last year, which was said to be an engagement party for her and her partner Jos Leijdekkers, the convicted drug smuggler. It was also a week after her birthday on 19 November.
Social media footage broadcast the next day which quickly went viral showed two of Africa’s biggest Afrobeat superstars, Tiwa Savage and Ayra Starr, performing together at a private event the night before. For a private gig, artists of such stature could expect fees worth tens of thousands of dollars. The stars are believed to have flown in specially for the occasion on private jets. The video shows among the small audience Isaac Bayoh and Shaekou Allieu, both members of Sierra Leone’s Permanent Mission to the UN in New York, as well as Zainab Kandeh, Agnes’s mother.
Agnes has appeared on platforms at side events during the UN General Assembly, including last year. She was recorded making a speech about her foundation seated next to the ex-UN diplomat, Michael Keating, former Special Representative of the Secretary-General in Somalia and current head of the European Institute of Peace.
It’s unclear how the relationship between Agnes and Leijdekkers started. Agnes was born in 1994 in Ireland grew up in Guinea, Morocco and France and completed her education in Switzerland and Morocco.
Zainab Kandeh was appointed Consul-General of Sierra Leone in Dakhla, the capital of Western Sahara, in 2021 when Morocco and Sierra Leone resumed diplomatic relations.
According to diplomatic sources, Morocco agreed to finance the consulate as part of a series of favours from the kingdom to Sierra Leone in exchange for President Julius Maada Bio’s recognition of Morocco’s sovereignty over the disputed Western Sahara.
Screenshots of Agnes’s Instagram account show her and Leijdekkers together as a couple. There is no suggestion she is implicated in any suspected illegal activity connected with Leijdekkers.
Credit: Africa Confidential
