Komeh Gulama Lansana

Who is Komeh Gulama Lansana?

Komeh Gulama Lansana is the widow of Brigadier David Lansana, former Commander of the Sierra Leone Armed Forces. She is the daughter of Paramount Chief Julius Gulama and the sister of one of Sierra Leone's foremost women leaders Paramount Chief Madam Ella Koblo Gulama.

Komeh was born in Moyamba, Moyamba District in the Southern Province of Sierra Leone. Both her parents were ethnic Mendes.

Her husband, David Lansana was appointed Commander of the Sierra Leone Armed Forces by Prime Minister Albert Margai while her sister Madam Gulama was serving as the first female Cabinet Minister in Sierra Leone and sub-Saharan African.

What seemed like an ideal situation became a nightmare after the hotly contested 1967 Elections. When opposition leader Siaka Stevens was pronounced the winner and Prime Minister Margai refused to concede defeat claiming that the All People's Congress were guilty of election fraud. Komeh's husband intervened by arresting Stevens. A series of coups and counter coups ensued which ended with both her husband and her sister arrested and held at Pademba Road Prisons.

After more than a year in prison her sister was exonerated and freed.

In July 1975, her husband David Lansana and his colleague Dr. Sorie Fornah were executed for treason after the alleged coup plot trials.