Bailor Barrie
Alhaji Mohamed Bailor Barrie, simply referred to as Bailor Barrie or M.B. Barrie (1934 – 1989) was a Sierra Leonean businessman, activist and philanthropist. He hailed from Sierra Leone's northern district of Koinadugu and was a member of the Fula ethnic group of which he later became a well known activist and leader. Barrie became prominent in Sierra Leone's post colonial economic environment in the 1970s as the first Fula to venture into the European-Lebanese dominated import business of motor vehicles. He became very successful in the booming diamond mining and trading industry in the 1970s  and 1980s, which established him as one of Sierra Leone's most successful businessmen, even without a standard level of education. Then president of Sierra Leone Siaka Stevens was using Barrie's success to defend himself against critics attacking him for ignoring the country's crumbling educational sector, by claiming that one could be successful like Barrie without any standard level of education.Barrie died in a road accident in 1989 on his way from Kenema, in the eastern part of Sierra Leone. Early life. Mohamed Bailor Barrie was born in 1934, in Sokurala, not too far from Kabala, Koinadugu  District, in British Sierra Leone, to prominent cattle herder and Fula chieftain Alhaji Bademba Barrie and one of his wives Haja Binta. Like many people who grew up in a typical Islamic-Fulani home, Barrie acquired Quranic education at an early age. He gained some level of Western education at an early age too, however he quit before completing the standard level of secondary school education during his time, due to a lack of interest - as he was very eager to jump into business. Business career. Alhaji Barrie was very successful and prominent in Sierra Leone's business environment from  the 1970s up to his untimely death in 1989. He was a fierce competitor to other prominent Sierra Leonean businessmen of his time, such as "Skipper" and Jamil Sahid. In 1956, as the Sierra Leone colonial administration decided to restrict the mining activities of the Sierra Leone Selection Trust (SLST), which had been solely responsible for mining diamonds in Sierra Leone since they were discovered in the early 1930s, licenses to mine were then granted to individuals to mine diamonds in Kono. This programme, referred to as the Alluvial Diamond Mining Scheme (ADMS), brought about a boom in trade of  the precious metal. Like many people, from different ethnicities, this attracted Barrie as well. It prompted him to ask his father for seed money to move to Kono to engage in the trade; later becoming legendary in the business. In order to finance this new business pursuit, Barrie's father had to sell some of his cattle to raise cash for Barrie's seed money. As his diamond business became profitable, he used such profits to diversify into other areas of the Sierra Leone economy, such as the motor vehicle trade. Barrie saw the diamond trade as the "cash cow