Sekou Conneh

Sekou Damate Conneh, Jr. (born 1960) is a Liberian politician and former rebel leader.

Born in 1960 in the town of Gbarnga, Liberia (Bong County) to an ethnic Mandingo Muslim family, Conneh attended St. Martin's Cathedral School from 1966 to 1973. He attended William Tubman Methodist High School where he received his diploma in 1979.

He first became active in politics in 1980 when he joined the opposition Progressive People's Party (PPP); this was formed as one of the first legally recognized opposition parties in Liberia in more than 100 years. Ethnic indigenous groups in Liberia, who comprise some 95% of the population in the 21st century, had grown impatient with restrictions and lack of power under governments dominated by the True Whig Party, whose leaders were primarily Americo-Liberians, an ethnic group descended from African-American colonists of the early and mid-19th century.

Conneh had been a member of the Progressive Alliance of Liberia (PAL), the PPP's mother organization. He served as a senior party coordinator for the Kokoyah district in Bong County before fleeing to Uganda when the administration of President William Tolbert banned the PPP and arrested some of its leaders.

In 1985, after the Tolbert government was overthrown by Samuel Doe, Conneh returned to Liberia in a bid to contest the upcoming legislative election on the ticket of the United People's Party (UPP). The party was later banned by Doe's increasingly autocratic government, allegedly for possessing a 'foreign ideology'. In 1986, Conneh found employment in the Ministry of Finance, working as a revenue agent in Rivercess County. In 1988, he was transferred to Montserrado County, where he remained until the collapse of President Samuel Doe's regime in 1990 after a decade of rule.

...
Wikipedia