Sierra Leone Citizenship Act No.4 of 1973 (as amended 1976)
Published: 26/Août/1976
The law provides that:
2. Citizenship by birth
Every person who, having been born in Sierra Leone before the nineteenth day of April, 1971, or who was resident in Sierra Leone on the eighteenth day of April, 1971, and not the subject of any other State shall, on the nineteenth day of April, 1971, be deemed tobe a citizen of Sierra Leone by birth:
Provided that-
(a) his father or his grandfather was born in Sierra Leone; and
(b) he is a person of negro African descent;
3. Citizenship by birth in Sierra Leone
Every person born in Sierra Leone on or after the nineteenth day of April, 1971, in the circumstances set out in section 2, shall be deemed to be a citizen of Sierra Leone by birth.
Download from the Refworld website, incorporating amendments to the naturalisation provisions made in 1976)
The law was amended by the 2006 Citizenship Amendment Act to remove gender discrimination for those born in the country, and in 2017 to remove gender discrimination for those born outside Sierra Leone. The restriction to ‘negro-African descent’ remains.