Valentine Strasser

Who is Valentine Strasser?

Valentine Esegragbo Melvine Strasser served as head of state of Sierra Leone from 1992 to 1996. He had been a junior military officer but in 1992, he became the world's youngest Head of State when he seized power three days after his 25th birthday. He was the leading member in a group of six young Sierra Leonean soldiers who overthrew president Joseph Saidu Momoh in the April 29, 1992 military coup.

On January 1996, after nearly four years in power, Strasser was ousted in a second military coup, but this time it was his own NPRC soldiers who were not satisfied with his handling of the peace process. The coup was led by his deputy, Brigadier General Julius Maada Bio. Strasser was handcuffed at gunpoint by his own military bodyguards who were supposed to protect him and was immediately flown into exile in a military helicopter to Conakry, Guinea.

Strasser later went to the United Kingdom where he studied law at the University of Warwick in Coventry, England. He dropped out of law school in 1998 and briefly moved to The Gambia.