A deeply devoted Muslim, Kabbah was born in Pendembu, Kailahun District in Eastern Sierra Leone, though he was raised in the capital Freetown.

[2] Kabbah's first marriage, in 1965, was to Patricia Tucker, a devout Christian from the Sherbro ethnic group and a native of Bonthe District in Southern Sierra Leone.

He was soon returned to power after military intervention by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), led by Nigeria.

Kabbah went on to easily win his final five-year term in office in the presidential election later that year, defeating his main opponent Ernest Bai Koroma of the main opposition All People's Congress (APC) with 70.1% of the vote–the largest margin of victory for a free election in the country's history.

Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabbah was born on February 16, 1932, in the rural town of Pendembu, Kailahun District in the Eastern Province of British Sierra Leone.

He also married a Catholic, the late Patricia Kabbah, who was an ethnic Sherbro from Bonthe District in Southern Sierra Leone.

He also headed UNDP operations in Tanzania and Uganda, and just before Zimbabwe's independence, he was temporarily assigned to that country to help lay the groundwork for cooperation with the United Nations system.

The President's first major objective was to end the rebel war which, in four years had already claimed hundreds of innocent lives, driven thousands of others into refugee status, and ruined the nation's economy.

In November 1996, in Abidjan in Côte d'Ivoire, he signed a peace agreement with the rebel leader, former Corporal Foday Sankoh of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF).

The rebels reneged on the Agreement, resumed hostilities, and later perpetrated on the people of Sierra Leone what has been described as one of the most brutal internal conflicts in the world.

In 1996, a coup attempt involving Johnny Paul Koroma and other junior officers of the Sierra Leone Army was unsuccessful, but served as notice that Kabbah's control over military and government officials in Freetown was weakening.

Just nine months after the coup, Kabbah's government was revived as the military-rebel junta was removed by troops of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) under the command of the Nigerian led ECOMOG (ECOWAS Ceasefire Monitoring Group) and loyal civil and military defence forces, notably the Kamajors led by Samuel Hinga Norman.

On 18 January 2002, at a ceremony marking the conclusion of the disarmament and demobilization of ex-combatants under the auspices of the United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL), he declared that the rebel war was over.

In February 1998, he sent his troops to push out the infamous military junta and rebel alliance of Johnny Paul Koroma and Sam Bockarie, known as Maskita.

In May 2000, Foday Saybanah Sankoh, who was then part of Kabbah's cabinet, kidnapped several UN troops, and then ordered his rebels to march to Freetown.

[6] President Kabbah was very grateful to the British Prime Minister, calling his intervention "timely" and one that "Sierra Leonean people will never forget".

When the cease fire agreement with the rebels collapsed, Kabbah campaigned for international assistance from the British, the United Nations Security Council, the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States to defeat the rebels and restore peace and order in Sierra Leone.

The African Union special forces sent to Sierra Leone to assist the government in fighting the rebels were made up mainly of soldiers from Nigeria, Guinea, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Zambia and The Gambia.

The rebels finally agreed to be disarmed; in return the Sierra Leone government, led by Kabbah, offered them amnesty and career opportunities and counselling.

After the contribution made by the Bangladesh UN Peacekeeping Force in the war, Kabbah declared Bengali an honorary official language in December 2002.

"[12][13] Kabbah died at his home in Juba Hill, a middle class neighborhood in the west end of Freetown at the age of 82 on March 13, 2014, after a short illness.

On March 23, 2014, Kabbah's coffin was brought to the National Stadium, as thousands of Sierra Leoneans lined the streets of Freetown to say goodbye to their former leader.