Sheka Tarawalie
Sheka Tarawalie is a Sierra Leonean journalist and writer, who is Sierra Leone's Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs, a position he got in January 2013 in the new cabinet of President Ernest Bai Koroma's second term. He was previously the Deputy Minister of Information & Communications, to which he was appointed in December 2010 by President Koroma, whom he served as Press Secretary immediately before that. He was appointed to the position of Press Secretary in December 2007.
Tarawalie is a graduate of Fourah Bay College, and was the founder and one-time Editor-In-Chief of The Torchlight, a Freetown newspaper, where he criticised the then government of Sierra Leone. He moved to the United Kingdom and sought Right of asylum because of threats against his life. When his asylum claim failed he launched a well-supported appeal against deportation. He worked at the Citizens Advice Bureau and as a journalist in a voluntary capacity, eventually becoming sub-editor of Expotimes, and board member of the Exiled Journalists' Network, UK. He was also a member of the Manchester branch of Britain's National Union of Journalists (NUJ). He made a name for himself by excelling in his work at the Citizens Advice Bureau and attracted an award personally given to him by the Princess Royale, Princess Anne, at a well-attended ceremony in York, north of England.
He returned to take up the position of Press Secretary when the President appointed him. Tarawalie is one of Sierra Leone's most distinguished journalists.
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