“Get a mentor to guide you, and do not prioritise material benefit – just learn and keep improving”- Francis Ben Kaifala
Francis Ben Kaifala, LL.B (FBC-USL), LL.M (QMUL-UK), LL.M (UT-US), LLM (Harvard), is the Commissioner (Head) of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) of the Republic of Sierra Leone. He is the immediate past President of the Network of Anti-Corruption Institutions in West Africa (NACIWA) and was elected Board Member of the African Union Advisory Board on Corruption (AUABC) 2020-2023. He is West Africa’s elected Representative on the Executive Committee of the Association of African Anti-Corruption Authorities (AAACA). He also serves on the Executive Committee of the Association of Anti-Corruption Agencies of Commonwealth Africa (AAACA). He lectures part-time Mercantile Law (undergraduate level) and Anti-corruption law at the postgraduate level at Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone.
Francis Ben Kaifala is an alumnus of the Sierra Leone Grammar School, where he was a respected School Prefect in his last two years. His academic excellence began in his school days, where he took 1st position in every class and passed the West African Senior School Certificate Examinations as one of the five top students of his generation. He holds an LL.B (Bachelor of Laws) with Honours from Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone, whereupon graduation, he was awarded the “Attorney-General Eke Ahmed Holloway Award” for Outstanding Performance for the Degree of Bachelor of Laws with Honours by the University of Sierra Leone. He was called to the Sierra Leone Bar in 2007, having passed the Sierra Leone Law School’s Bar Examinations as the “Star Pupil” and was the Valedictorian of his Class with several academic awards, including the “Chief Justice Ade Renner-Thomas Prize for Best Student”, the ‘Prof. Alghali Prize for Best All-Rounder, “Justice Gelaga-King Prize for Best Student in Construction of Legal Documents and Drafting”, “Professor C.P Foray Prize for Best Student in Equity and Trusts”, among others.
Francis holds the taught LL.M (Master of Laws) in Law and Economics, jointly awarded by the School of Law and the School of Economics and Finance at Queen Mary, University of London. His thesis, titled “Default, Ad Hoc Solutions, and Proposals for Reform: an Analytical Inquiry into Sovereign Debt Restructuring” was graded “Distinction .”He is also an alumnus of the prestigious Fulbright Programme and graduated with the taught LL.M (Master of Laws) in Comparative Constitutional Law, Administrative Law, and International Human Rights at the University of Texas at Austin, in the United States of America, where he won the “Dean’s Excellence Award” upon graduation. Francis holds an LL.M in Public International Law, Global Governance, and Leadership from Harvard Law School, where he pursued advanced cutting-edge courses jointly at the Harvard Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government in the 2023-2024 academic year. He was a Human Rights Scholar at the Bernard and Audre Rapoport Centre for Human Rights and Justice in Austin, Texas. He is an Obama Africa Leadership Fellow 2019 and Arch-Bishop Desmond Tutu Fellow 2022. He is a distinguished Scholar who has received multiple Professional Development training in various disciplines, including Leadership, Management, various specialty Laws; Anti-Corruption leadership, management, Strategy and Policy, Political Science, Arbitration, Mediation, Oil and Gas, Advanced business transactions, Corruption Strategy and Clean-ups, International Investment, sustainable development, amongst others.
He is a bilingual Lawyer who writes and speaks French fluently in addition to the English Language and also speaks five local languages – Mende, Madingo, Kissi, and Krio. Beyond that, he is a highly versatile lawyer and professional with specialisations covering Commercial Law, Public Law, International Law, etc. In the Commercial law Realm where he holds a joint Master’s degree in Law and Economics from Queen Mary University of London in the United Kingdom (UK), his areas of expertise and mastery include Legal aspects of International Finance, International Economic Law, Private International law, Regulation of Financial Markets, Corporate Finance, Structured and Secured Finance, Banking Law, Central Banking and Regulation, International Financial Law, International Investment Law, International Trade Law, Climate Change and Energy, Term Loans and Syndicated Lending, Sovereign Finance and Public Debt Management, Sovereign Debt Restructuring, Project Finance, the Law of the World Trade Organisation, International Financial Institutions (the IMF and World Bank), Arbitration and Mediation in International Trade and Investment Disputes (ICSID, UNCITRAL, etc.), Corporate Insolvency and Reorganisation, Derivatives Contracts and Transactions, Competition /Anti-Trust Laws, Islamic Finance Law, Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, Political and Constitutional Economics, Economic Analysis of Law, Behavioural Economics and Critical Thinking and Writing for Lawyers. In Public Law, where he holds another multi-disciplinary Master’s degree from the University of Texas in the United States of America (US), his expertise includes Comparative Constitutional Law, Administrative Law, Labour, Equality and International Human Rights, Comparative Judicial Politics, Global Constitutionalism, African Law, Constitutional Design, Constitutional Interpretation, Explorations in Global Constitutional Law and Politics and Human Rights Law in Africa. In Public International Law and Government, where he holds a Master’s degree from Harvard University, his areas of expertise include Global Anti-corruption Law; Public Problems: Advice, Strategy, and Analysis; National Security Law, Global Governance; Public International Law; International Environmental Law; Legislation and Regulation; International Criminal Law; Processes of International Negotiation; and Leadership and management for Lawyers.
On the International Scene, in 2015, Francis Ben Kaifala was trained by the United Nation’s Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and recruited on the “Young Africa Lawyers (YAL)” Programme as one of 20 Young Climate Change Negotiators who represent their country and Africa in Global Climate change and related Negotiations. He has worked as an elected Board member in the African Union Advisory Board on Corruption (AUABC) and as President of the Network of anti-corruption Association in West Africa (NACIWA)
Francis Ben Kaifala’s legal career and practice started with Wright & Co. (Solicitors) of Top Floor, 8 Pademba Road, Freetown – a leading Corporate/Commercial Law Firm – where he rose from a pupil/Associate to the Deputy Head of Chambers – the position he resigned in January 2014 to form his own Law Firm together with other Colleagues called Kaifala, Conteh & Co. which became an instant success with high ranking and local and global clientele. Since becoming a lawyer in 2007, Francis, now in his 16th Year at the Bar, has maintained a successful legal practice both as a Solicitor and a litigator in the High Court, the Court of Appeal, and the Supreme Court. He is a very well-respected young legal practitioner by his Clients, the Bench, and his colleagues at the Bar because of his diligence, integrity, and brilliance. Many who have witnessed his performance in court refer to him as a “superb lawyer”. His fight for Social Justice and the Rule of Law as one-time Chairman of the Renaissance Movement similarly won him the admiration and respect of many, in and out of Sierra Leone.
Francis Ben Kaifala was appointed to office in June 2018 by His Excellency, President Brig (Rtd.) Dr. Julius Maada Bio. When he took over, Sierra Leone was performing very poorly in all global indices on corruption. For instance, Sierra Leone failed at 49% in the Millennium Challenge Corporation’s Control of Corruption Scorecard. Under his leadership, the country moved to a respectable pass of over 70 in 7 consecutive years, which has made Sierra Leone pass that Scorecard 6 years back-to-back for the first time in its history and become eligible and has been selected for the Multi-Million Dollar US Government’s Compact award. Sierra Leone is now among the top ten performers in the lower-income countries. Moreover, Sierra Leone has registered its highest-ever scores since establishing the Transparency International Corruption Perception Survey – Sierra Leone scored thirty-four (35) and jumped 20 places upward from 130 in 2017 to 110 in 2023 in TI’s Global Country Rankings. Generally, all local and international indexes, surveys, and reports show a remarkable upward trajectory in the fight against corruption.
Commissioner Francis Ben Kaifala has introduced far-reaching reforms to ensure accountability in public life and make corruption unfashionable and risky with his trademark revolutionary enforcement regimes, resulting in solid investigation outcomes and convictions. The new reforms he promulgated and spearheaded are believed to be among the strongest anti-corruption legislative reforms in Africa. Under him, the Commission has made huge recoveries that quadruple all recoveries made by the Commission in its 18 years of existence combined before his appointment. He has also introduced the Special Anti-Corruption Division of the High Court, with state-of-the-art paraphernalia and resources to exclusively try corruption cases, which has resulted in a very high rate of corruption convictions and improved the prosecution period to an all-time higher speed and promulgated the National Anti-Corruption Strategy, rated “very strong” and believed to have the right blueprint for effective corruption control.
Francis Ben Kaifala’s model for the fight against corruption, fearlessness, tenacity, and bold approaches has helped the President, His Excellency Brig. (Rtd.) Dr. Julius Maada Bio positions the country on a firm path to consistently and sustainably control corruption and sets a new trajectory for accountability, effective service delivery, democratic good governance, and transformative development. This exceptional leadership and results have brought him multiple local and international awards and recognitions, including being honoured by the Department of State of the United States of America as one of 12 “International Anti-corruption Champions” in 2021. He was also named in 2021 as one of the “100 Most Influential People of African Descent” by the UN/MIPAD Initiative and was awarded “Alumni of the Year – Achievement 2022” by the Centre for Commercial Law Studies at Queen Mary University of London, among dozens of other prestigious local and international awards and recognitions he continues to receive.
1. The Driving Force for Choosing the Legal Profession.
Francis revealed that while in junior high School, he read the book “The Incorruptible Judge” by D. Olu Olagoke. “The book is about a young school-leaver who applies for a vacancy. Instead of giving the bribe of five pounds demanded of him, he reports the matter to a policeman, and this leads to the corrupt employer’s arrest and subsequent trial. It was a very interesting courtroom drama. I later played the role of one of the lawyers in this drama at school. I felt great, and many admired how well I performed as the lawyer for the state prosecuting the corrupt staff. I realised that that was my calling – to become a lawyer and nothing else. That was the spark. Since then, I only wanted to be a lawyer and would say so to myself, and when asked. Incidentally, that book also inspired me to become an anti-corruption campaigner – perhaps that is why I am today the Anti-Corruption Commissioner of Sierra Leone”, Francis said.
2. Qualities of an Exceptional Lawyer and How Young Professionals Can Cultivate Such Attributes.
Francis admonished young lawyers to seek mastery by continuously improving themselves in a fast-evolving world. He advises them not to allow themselves to stagnate or be mediocre, and at least a master’s degree in a field of their interest and further continuous professional development programmes on wide ranging areas (not just the law – leadership, politics, digital mastery, computer science, oratory, people-handling, etc. ) will keep them learned; not the mere Bachelor’s degree or the Bar Certificate. He emphasised that a good lawyer never stops learning – and every knowledge sought may distinguish them.
3. Next Groundbreaking Project or Initiatives and Possible Impacts.
Francis has served in the role of Anti-Corruption Commissioner for over a year and seen the challenges of his country firsthand. As his tenure is about to end, he desires to take up a higher leadership role to help redirect and shape the destiny of Sierra Leone. He believes that Sierra Leone has the potential to compete from a respectable place in the world and that there is a need for ethical leadership to move it forward. He therefore sees himself playing a pivotal role in that direction. So, for Francis, the next journey could be seeking political leadership – perhaps the Presidency.
4. Role Models and Impactful Books
“I have already made reference to ”The Incorruptible judge” as the earliest influence on who I became later”, Francis noted. He continued, “There have since been many books that have been useful in changing my life beyond the legal. Notable among them is “Who moved my Cheese”, “The Little Prince”, “Homo Deus” and many leadership books including “The Prince”, “48 Laws of Power” and all books written by Robert Greene, books in behavioural science, psychology, Economics, anthropology, physics, philosophy, etc. I am a lover of reading, and I read at least 100 books a year. So, there is just so much influence I have drawn from so many sources that have shaped my journey and experience and guide my path into the future.”
“On the legal person that has influenced me, that would be my Pupil Master, Mr. Rowland Wright – a very senior lawyer in Sierra Leone whose law firm took me in and I worked with him for 7 years as a junior. He taught me the tools of legal practice and how to weather the storms of the legal world successfully. He is also a brilliant mind who influenced how I think about the law and legal practice”, Francis said.
5. Advice or Guiding Principles for Young Legal Professionals and Advocates Trying to Find their Place and Purpose in the Legal Terrain.
Francis’s solemn advice to young legal professionals is this: “Do not focus on the money too early, let learning and the journey towards mastery of a chosen field of the law be the focus. Get a mentor to guide you, and do not prioritise material benefit – just learn and keep improving. Then when the time is ripe- usually after at least five to seven years, with sufficient learning, exposure, expertise and a name around a “niche” area of legal practice for yourself, everything else will follow, particularly the good things of life including money, luxury, travels, and enduring happiness. Focus precedes greatness!”
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Editorial Team
Silver Obioha
Clinton Nyamongo
Kazeem Afolabi
Dikeledi Matlhagare
Tolulope Olasunkanmi
Sulaimon Badmus
Aya Hamdy
Princess Maake
Jemilat Akerele
Vera Enubianozor
Brandon Otieno
Oluwabusayo Awodele
Kyenpiya Wonang
Gift Nwoke
Jessica Odoh
Tracy Karumba
Mary-Jones Ossi
Halimah Oladunni
Mary Linus
Peter Momoh
Jessica Omoruyi
