Career
He was first reported by Reuters to have led the coup, but that same day he went onto the British Broadcasting Corporation"s Focus on Africa to deny that role, claiming instead that he was attempting to negotiate with the mutineers. He was imprisoned by Valentine Strasser, who eventually took power in the coup. Kanu was later executed by Valentine Strasser, Solomon Musa and Idriss Kamara on a beach near Freetown, after being accused of organizing a counter-coup with All People"s Congress supporter Bambay Kamara.
The pair were at the time interred in the Pademba Road jail in Freetown.
After the rebels approached the eastern Sierra Leone city of Kenema in mid-1991, they were pushed back by Kanu"s Cobra battalion with the help of Liberian irregular forces, mostly refugees from Samuel Doe"s army, who went on to become a component of ULIMO. The combined force quickly routed the rebels from the towns of Gandorhun and Zimmi before reaching the Mano River Bridge crossing into Liberia. These gains were lost later in the war as control of towns frequently changed hands, something that battlefront soldiers often blamed on a lack of resources from Freetown.
This was a major factor contributing to the 1992 coup.
