Background
Albert Margai was born on October 10, 1910 in Gbangbatoke, Banta Chiefdom, in what is now the Moyamba District, Freetown. His stepfather, M. E. S. Margai, who gave him the family name Margai, was a wealthy trader from Bonthe.
Albert Margai was born on October 10, 1910 in Gbangbatoke, Banta Chiefdom, in what is now the Moyamba District, Freetown. His stepfather, M. E. S. Margai, who gave him the family name Margai, was a wealthy trader from Bonthe.
Margai received a Roman Catholic education at St. Edward's Primary School and went on to be one of the first group of students to attend St. Edward's Secondary School.
He started his career as a male nurse in 1932 and worked for 12 years qualifying as a druggist before leaving for London to study law in 1944 at the Middle Temple. In October 1947 he was called to the Bar and returned home. The next year he set up a private practice in Freetown the first barrister from outside the colony area to do so.
He entered politics through the District Council and was elected to the Protectorate Assembly which, in turn, selected him as one of the two members to the Legislative Council, where he was made Minister of Education and Local Government. In 1951 he and his brother were in the group that formed the Sierra Leone People’s Party.
In the elections of 1957 he stood for Moyamba South and was returned with the biggest majority in the country. But he was becoming increas'ingly disillusioned with his brother’s cautious policies and was encouraged by his more radical supporters to challenge for party leadership.
Finally in September 1958 he broke away with Siaka Stevens (who was then also an SLPP member) to form the People’s National Party.
But the party could make little headway against the well established SLPP and was badly defeated in the 1959 District Council elections.
He was willing to go with the allparty delegation to the April 1960 constitutional talks in London and, agreeing to the negotiated timetable for independence, rejoined his brother in the SLPP. In the coalition government which followed he was made Minister for Natural Resources and, with independence on April 27, 1961, his brother became Premier and he was given the important Finance Ministry.
When Sir Milton died in 1964, Albert took over as party leader and Prime Minister. He pursued a more militant line on foreign affairs, on issues such as South Africa, and he argued vehemently with Harold Wilson at the Commonwealth Conference of January 1966 over the Rhodesian issue.
But at home the SLPP hold over the people was weakening, in the face of a determined opposition coalescing around Siaka Stevens’ All Peoples’ Congress. The economy was doing badly, agricultural production was falling and there was an acute trade deficit. Meanwhile Sir Albert (knighted by the Queen in 1965) was determined to introduce a republican constitution which his opponents thought would lead to a one-party state.
In March 1967 in the hard-fought general elections the results were inconclusive. The Governor-General invited Siaka Stevens to become Premier. This prompted Brigadier David
Lansana, a Margai supporter, to seize power, but within 48 hours another group of officers overthrew Lansana and put Sir Albert under house arrest.
The soldiers claimed that they had intervened because of corruption, maladministration of the economy and election rigging. Sir Albert had his property confiscated but stayed in the country for nearly a year until he was allowed to leave the country “for medical reasons”. He stayed in the USA and then Eire, where he had a house, when a group of NCOs organised a successful counter-coup against their officers in April 1968. The Governor General invited all civilian politicians to return and Sir Albert flew home on April 25. The next day he went to State House and found Stevens had already been sworn in as Prime Minister. Fearing for his life, he crossed into Liberia and flew to Dublin. From there he moved to the red brick house at 8 Hornsey Rise Gardens, in north London where he has lived in exile ever since.
A big man, with a hearty laugh, boundless energy and ready charm which gave him unchallenged control of the Sierra Leone People’s Party on the death of his brother Sir Milton. His period of premiership was a difficult one with the economy doing badly and the party slipping in popularity and identifying itself too closely with the chiefs. Sir Albert failed in his attempt to secure a republican constitution and a one-party state—it was left for his political opponents to carry through this policy to their own advantage many years later.