National Coordinator of the Office of National Security in Sierra Leone, Mr. Abdulai Caulker, is strengthening himself and his team ahead of time to ensure that the country comes out of a peaceful electoral process in the 2023 General Elections, Times SL can authoritatively report.
Some ten months to the 2023 elections, Sierra Leone has witnessed an exemplary spate of violence that claimed the lives of police officers and anti-government protesters, leaving a major portion of the electorate terrified, as well as foreseeing a hazardous electioneering process ahead.
However, Mr. Caulker, being a ready practitioner in the security sector, with more than a decade long service in the Sierra Leone security sector, has used his wealth of experience to navigate through smooth waters, and is prepared to replicate such tact to save his country and compatriots from the electoral embers that used to characterize such process.
Mr. Caulker is one of the forerunners of the ONS, and has exhibited an astute sense of responsibility to ensure that the national security office is awash with a competent breed of professional actors and senior administrators.
Besides, he has always proved his shrewd mettle in his tasks, which has rendered the ONS a robust institutional capacity amid visionary leadership that has contributed enormously to the country’s democratic governance. In retrospect, the country’s global peace credentials cannot be well put in the records without Abdulai Caulker’s ONS being boldly and colorfully printed, as one of the kingpins in achieving this laurel.
In the pre-ONS era, Mr. Caulker worked with UNDP, DfID, ADB, IMATT, ISAT, etc, all trusted development partners of Sierra Leone. During this era, he learned and gained richly. He, therefore, applied such knowledge to lobby, advocate and facilitate grants on behalf of the Government of Sierra Leone for the implementation of projects that targeted national security for sustainable development.
The ONS National Coordinator was Chairman of the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy during the 1997 hiatus, but he vamoosed away to neighbouring Guinea for dear life. Whilst in Conakry, the then government of Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabba appointed him as Programme Officer and was charged with the task to monitor sanction busters against the AFRC junta, a programme that was sponsored by DfID.
Consequently, this programme keyed up the establishment of ONS to serve as the institution to coordinate Sierra Leone’s security sector.
As an innovator, strategic thinker, team player, and powerhouse, Caulker became knowledgeable on issues relating to security sector coordination and governance. And after the Office of National Security was established, Caulker, being a security expert and an administrator, led the team of ONS maiden staff that travelled to Israel in 2008 for capacity-building training in National security and Intelligence.
Since then, he has gone through the ranks – Deputy Director, National Intelligence Unit (NIU) for Southern and Eastern Provinces (1999 – 2000), Director, Administration and Finance (2000 – 2016), Director, Finance and Corporate Services (2016 – 2018), Deputy National Security Coordinator (2018 – 2020) and Acting National Security Coordinator (November 2020 – January 2022).
From here, he was catapulted by President Julius Maada Wonnie Bio to the position of National Security Coordinator on 12th January 2022.
Abdulai Caulker is a Master’s degree holder in Educational Administration, with several professional certifications in what include, Security Sector Reform, Personnel Administration and Management, Human Resource Development, Trade Craft, Agent Targeting, National Security Coordination and Management of Emergencies, Investigating Techniques and Research Methods, Ethics and Integrity, Policy Analysis, Conflict Analysis and Mediation, Early Warning and Early Response, Educational Law, Management and Administration.
Meanwhile, when the news about his readiness to deliver a quiet, friendly, and agreeable electioneering process for Sierra Leone was eavesdropped by some sections of the citizenry, observers who are acquainted with Mr. Abdulai Caulker conceded his mastery to achieve that goal, noting that the man himself is not just fit for purpose, but he’s patriotic and has always been in positions that are devoid of politics, and so, he would rely on those longstanding fundamental principles and be apolitical.
The observers have, therefore, wished Mr. Caulker well, and vowed to remember him in their prayers for God’s guidance and protection in his endeavour.