As African political itineraries go, that of Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, former president of Sierra Leone, who has died aged 82, was an unusual one. After a career as an international civil servant, he returned in the early 1990s to Sierra Leone, a country shaken by a cruel civil war and erratic military rule, and became president in multi-party elections in 1996, only to be deposed in a coup the next year.
He was restored to power in February 1998 by the troops of Ecomog, the monitoring group of the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas). When these were replaced by a UN force, the risk of a new collapse brought in British troops. The first unstable six years of his presidency may not have provided a heroic record, but his second term proved to be important in the restoration of democracy in a country deeply attached to it.