National Provisional Ruling Council

NPRC Junta (1992–1996)

On 29 April 1992, twenty-five-year-old Captain Valentine Strasser led a group of young Sierra Leone Army officers—including Lieutenant Sahr Sandy, Seargent Solomon Musa, Lieutenant Tom Nyuma, Captain Komba Mondeh, Captain Julius Maada Bio and Captain Komba Kambo—from their barracks in Kailahun District and launched a military coup in Freetown, which sent President Momoh into exile in Guinea. The young soldiers established the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC) with Strasser as its chairman and Head of State of the country. Captain Solomon Musa, a close friend of Strasser and one of the leaders of the coup, became the deputy leader of the NPRC Junta. The coup was largely popular because it promised to bring peace, but the NPRC Junta immediately suspended the constitution, banned all political parties, limited freedom of speech and freedom of the press and enacted a rule-by-decree policy, in which soldiers were granted unlimited powers of administrative detention without charge or trial. The NPRC established a Supreme Council, consisting of the highest-ranking soldiers in the Junta government.