Education
He went first to primary schools in Timbo and Labe and was later educated at the Camille Guy School in Conakry and the Ecole Normale William Ponty, Dakar.
He went first to primary schools in Timbo and Labe and was later educated at the Camille Guy School in Conakry and the Ecole Normale William Ponty, Dakar.
Trained as an assistant book-keeper he served with the French Administration, firstly in Niamey, Niger (1944-7) then in Conakry (1947-9) Bobo Dioulasso, Upper Volta (1949-55) and finally in Mamou, Guinea (1955-6). His trade union militancy was frowned upon by the French Civil Service and he frequently moved from post to post.
After the 1946 inaugural meeting of the Rassemblement Démocratique Africain, in Bamako, he became successively Secretary-General of the Niamey branch, Political Secretary in Conakry, Joint Secretary-General of the Bobo-Dioulasso branch and finally Administrative Secretary of the Mamou branch. In 1956, his last year at Mamou, he was elected in January to the French National Assembly as Deputy for Guinea, together with Ahmed Sekou Toure, and in November became Mayor of Mamou. In March 1957 he won a seat in the Guinean Territorial Assembly, becoming its first President and three months later being elected to the Grand Council of West Africa. When the country became independent in October 1958, he was elected President of the National Assembly.
He remained Political Secretary of the PDG until 1963 and it was then that he was appointed to the Cabinet, as Minister of State for Finance and Planning. In May 1969 he replaced Dr Beavogui as Minister of State for Foreign Affairs. Meanwhile he remained very active in party politics and he was Commissioner for Organisational and Political Control from 1963 to 1967, when he became Chairman of the Social Committee. A certain amount of speculation took place in April 1972 when he did not attend the Ninth PDG Congress and his name was not on the Cabinet list published afterwards, but six weeks later he returned triumphantly to become Minister at the Presidency.
Scion of an aristocratic Foulah family, he used his personal influence and family connections to bring the Foulah chiefs in the Fouta Djallon area over to President Toure’s side in the 1958 referendum, then helped the President later to break the chieftains’ power and create a unified nation. For this reason he is still mistrusted by some Foulahs, who form the most important ethnic group in Guinea. Also, though said to be more left-wing than the President himself, he strongly advised him in 1963 to shelve some of his more extreme measures. Aloof and reticent, this highly regarded politician was considered for a time as being President Toure’s natural successor.