By Audrey Raymonda John

The First Lady of the Republic of Sierra Leone Dr. Fatima Maada Bio stormed the JMB United Kingdom annual dinner and dance organized at Oasis Banqueting Hall UK on Friday 4th September 2025.

Madam Bio is not just the First Lady of Sierra Leone but also president of Organisation of African First Ladies (OAFLAD) the fearless champion of women and girls and the future of Africa. She acknowledged the presence of everyone to celebrate with them and called on the diaspora to unite, rise, and join her vision for unstoppable progress, power and empowerment. Madam Bio said when the journey was hard it was JMB women’s wing that carried the touch steady and unshakable.

She said they have been an unwavering support and pillar to the SLPP party. She said during the elections when resources were scarce and the campaign role was stripped, it was the JMB women’s wing that rose up and that she could still remember the days when women stormed with little more than handful of coins for a bag of rice for funds raising. Dr. Bio said the women sold food, organized community events and contributed from their own small businesses. She insisted that the SLPP flag could continue to fly high, noting that those fundraising were not just about money but importantly about love, loyalty and sacrifice. She said that when women come together no obstacle is too high, no challenge too great. She said they must not forget that the road ahead is still long and the eyes of the nation are upon them that they cannot afford to be distracted. She added that they cannot allow division, jealousy or fatigue to run. The First Lady said they have worked so hard, therefore must stay focused and told them that they are not working for personal glory, that they’re not to competing against one another but working for the development of entire Sierra Leone where ‘our children’ deserve schools where leaning is real, hospitals where healing is possible, communities where peace is secured that is what our current president has been focusing on to provide for the people of Sierra Leone who better understand this than the women who carried lives, nurture families who protect their communities who know what it means to sacrifice so that others will thrive.

“That is why the JMB women’s wing has never wavered when the party needed strength,” she stated, adding that they had always stood firmed when the party needed number, love and have made lots of sacrifices. She told them that those efforts and sacrifices will never go in vain as history will always remember them, that their daughters will one day rise and say it was the women of SLPP especially the JMB women’s wing who kept the vision alive who refused to be shaken. She told them to hold each other, let them not tear each other apart and to always treat each other as sisters, stand together, stand stronger, stressing that they are not just women in politics but are mothers of the nation, keepers of the flame and the flame must not go out, not now, not ever. She told them the journey is their own, the victory is theirs and the future is theirs. She emphasized that the JMB women’s wing will carry the banner of SLPP to greater heights and ensures Sierra Leone continues to move forward.