He was previously the Deputy Minister of Information & Communications, to which he was appointed in December 2010 by President Koroma, whom he served as Press Secretary immediately before that.
Tarawalie is an English Honours graduate from Fourah Bay College (Sierra Leone's premier university founded in 1827), and he was the founder and one-time Editor-In-Chief of The Torchlight, a Freetown newspaper, in which he was very critical of the previous government of President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah especially through his weekly 'Black Tank' column.
When his initial asylum claim was turned down, he launched a well-supported local and national appeal from Manchester.
He got married in the Church of England to Rose Tarawalie (née Kabeera), a British national of Rwandan origins.
His current day job is with Citizens Advice SORT (Stockport, Oldham, Rochdale & Trafford).