Sept 17 (Reuters) - Sierra Leone's National Electoral Commission declared opposition leader Ernest Bai Koroma winner of the West African country's presidential election on Monday with 54.6 percent of votes cast in a Sept. 8 run-off.

Koroma, of the All People's Congress (APC), defeated Vice-President Solomon Berewa of the ruling Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP), who scored 45.4 percent.

Here are some key facts about Koroma:

-- Aged 53, he was born on Oct. 2, 1953 in Makeni, capital of the Northern province, one of eight siblings and the eldest of four boys. His parents were both northerners, his father from the Temne ethnic group and his mother a Limba. He was brought up as a Christian in the largely Muslim north and is married with two children. He is a keen squash player.

-- He was educated in Sierra Leone at Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone, where he read history, law and philosophy. He spent a year and a half in Britain on attachments with Lloyd's of London and other British insurance companies.

-- He joined Ritcorp general insurance company the year it started in 1985 and became managing director and chief executive in 1990, before retiring in 2001 to take up full-time politics. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Insurance Institute.

-- He was imprisoned for four weeks in the early 1990s by the ruling military junta for an alleged coup plot, which he denies. In the 2002 presidential election, he was runner-up after waging a major fight with the old guard of his APC party to become its leader.

-- He says he is used to being considered an outsider and fighting to achieve what he wants. "I have always been fighting," he says.

-- Koroma promises to revitalise Sierra Leone's war-scarred economy by focusing on developing agriculture and tourism, as well as the strategic mining sector -- illegal "blood diamonds" helped to finance the country's brutal 1991-2002 civil war.

But he has vowed to be implacable in fighting corruption.

"There will be no sacred cows. Everybody will be under scrutiny and if they are found guilty of corruption they will go to prison, including my family members," he says.

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