Presidency
In 1973, the first elections under the new constitution were held. The polls were marred by violence and were boycotted by the SLPP, which gave the APC all 85 seats in the House of Representatives. In March 1976 Stevens was re-elected President unopposed by the House. Stevens's first vice-president from 1971 until leaving office in 1985 was Sorie Ibrahim Koroma.
Throughout the remainder of the 1970s, Stevens continued to consolidate his power, which culminated in a 1978 referendum on a new constitution that would create a one-party state with the APC as the only legally permitted party. Stevens billed the proposed one-party system as more African than Western-style democracy. However, the country had been a de facto one-party state since Sierra Leone became a republic. On 12 June, 97.1% of voters were reported to have voted for the new one-party constitution, an implausibly high total that could have only been obtained by massive fraud. Observers agreed that the elections had been heavily manipulated by the government. Proving this, even areas where the SLPP was still dominant were reported as supporting the one-party state by landslide margins.
Following the election, all opposition members of the House of Representatives were required to join Stevens's APC or lose their seats. Two years after being re-elected for a five-year term, Stevens was sworn in for an additional term of seven years, having by then adopted the title of "Dr." He also became known as "Pa Shaki".
President Stevens served as Chairman of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) from 1 July 1980 to 24 June 1981, and engineered the creation of the Mano River Union, a three country economic federation of Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. Stevens held additional office of Minister of Finance from December 1981 to early 1982.
Stevens' regime was very repressive and corrupt, even by African standards of the time. Many of his opponents, some of which were once close associates, were imprisoned and killed. The Internal Security Unit, a gang of unemployed urban youths amply supplied with drugs, was deployed as Stevens' personal death squad. He had actually shown a deep authoritarian streak long before making Sierra Leone an official one-party state; the late 1960s and early 1970s saw frequent states of emergency and numerous executions of political foes.
Among his close associates sent to the gallows were John Amadu Bangura, who had once plucked Stevens from political oblivion when the army obliterated civilian politics after the 1967 Huha elections; at that time, Stevens had been down and out, living in exile in Conakry, Guinea, with his main remaining option, a planned assault on the sovereignty of Sierra Leone and her citizens. Bangura was to be the ring leader, but the plan never materialised because of a coup headed by Bangura. Bangura, in turn, handed over power to Siaka Stevens as prime minister (Kpana:2005).
Another prominent Sierre Leonean murdered during Stevens' rule was Dr Mohamed Forna. He was hanged along with 14 other people in 1974 after trumped-up charges of treason. Dr Forna was the popular finance minister when Stevens came to power.
Stevens also grossly mismanaged the economy. He and his closest colleagues looted state resources, to the point that the state was unable to supply basic services. The education system was more or less non-existent. The poverty was especially pronounced in rural areas, which were largely isolated from Freetown. Although he had retired by the time of the Sierra Leone Civil War in 1991, the impact of his political, social, and economic policies directly contributed to that conflict.
