Socio-Political Activist, Dr. Sylvia Olayinka Blyden, has been accepted into the maiden course of the Post-Graduate Master of Laws and Letters (LLM) in Constitutional Law, Human Rights and Criminal Justice at the Fourah Bay College (FBC), University of Sierra Leone.
Dr. Blyden said: “As a Politician, I feel sad for any President having an Attorney General (AG) who misleads with bad legal advice that affects the entire Nation. Since I want to serve as a Sierra Leone President in the future, I’m capacitating myself to detect bad advice from my AG…”.
Many people say Dr. Blyden’s move to study Law do not come as a surprise to them. They recalled among other interesting moments, the Bankole-Thompson Commission of Inquiry (COI) in 2019, which was looking into claims by the State that four children were beaten up by thugs on the orders of former Social Welfare Minister, Dr. Sylvia Olayinka Blyden, whilst she was in office.
At that hearings, Dr. Blyden professionally cross examined over six State Witnesses while personally representing herself at the Commission.
In 1996, after securing her 2 medical degrees (BSc Hons. in 1993 and MBChB in 1996), Dr. Blyden flew to the United States of America to study at Kaplan College for the ECFMG to administer on her, 3 USMLE exams; all of which she passed with flying colors at first attempts.
Dr. Blyden was born on 1st October, 1971 in Freetown, Sierra Leone. She is a Sierra Leonean journalist, newspaper publisher, youth, human rights, political commentator and women’s advocate and former Minister of Social Welfare, Gender and Children Affairs.
She served as Special Executive Assistant (SEA) to Sierra Leone’s former President of Sierra Leone from 2013 to 2015.
Dr. Blyden is the Founder, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Publisher of one of Sierra Leone’s leading newspapers, The Awareness Times. She is Sierra Leone’s first female news publisher and one of the most recognizable names in the country.
Born and raised in the capital Freetown, into a prominent political family, Dr. Blyden is widely considered one of the most powerful and highly influential female political figures in Sierra Leone.
Dr. Blyden is a Christian and a member of the Creole ethnic group. She is the great-great-granddaughter of Edward Wilmot Blyden, the “father of Pan-Africanism“. Her maternal grandfather is a Sierra Leonean politician Solomon A. J. Pratt, and her paternal grandfather is the late Sierra Leonean diplomat Edward Wilmot Blyden III.
A Child-Appointed International Goodwill Ambassador for Sierra Leone’s Children, Dr. Blyden has been a Youths and Women’s Rights Activist. She represented Sierra Leone’s Female Youths in Beijing during the 1995 United Nations Women’s Confab, and was chosen by her African peers to deliver the Female Youths of Africa Speech on 11 August 1995.
In early 2002, she became Sierra Leone’s youngest National Political Party Leader at the age of 30, and the third Sierra Leone woman to lead a fully registered political party (the first being Presidential Candidate, the late Mrs. Jeridine Williams-Sarho in 1996).
Following her 24-Hours Internet Cafes, she launched a news media in 2005 known as Awareness Times, which is generally considered critical of the excesses of Government and State Institutions.
Dr. Blyden remains the youngest ever Sierra Leonean to be nationally honored with an Officer of the Rokel insignia in recognition of her meritorious service to the Nation, on 27th April, 2007 Independence Day.