Liberia sits on heels of political tension and likely chaos as the country’s largest opposition movement vows resistance to President Joseph Boakai’s crackdown on former government officials over alleged misapplication of state resources.
Opposition leader and former President George Weah Wednesday denounced the administration’s anticorruption drive calling it “callous attempt to undermine the rule of law and security of the state.”
He accused the Boakai administration of using state resources to target its political rivals. The former president’s defiant stance is likely to further escalate the political standoff between the CDC and the ruling UP.
“The Unity Party can be assured that the CDC will use all legal and political means at its disposal to resist this move to weaponize the country’s judicial system to its selfish advantage. Yes Mr. Boakai, your actions to politicize justice will be resisted and resisted strongly,” he said in address to the nation..
“The Unity Party government, in the execution of their evil plans, choose to ignore legal and constitutional reliance, available evidence, and pursue reckless measures. The Unity Party must be reminded that these antics have only brought about disorder and confusion in Liberia’s recent history.”
Weah accuses the ruling Unity Party administration of orchestrating a series of “unlawful detentions” of former government officials in a “political move” targeting the opposition Coalition for Democratic Change.
He cited a litany of alleged transgressions, including the “harassment and removal of civil servants from the system based purely along party lines,” the “excessive use of force against citizens resulting in several deaths,” and the “disregard for the tenure laws of the country even in the face of the Liberia Supreme Court’s rulings.”
The ex-president who is seeking return to state power criticized his successor of skipping previous audit reports and cherry-picking to target only officials” of the former CDC government, which he said “undermines the fight against corruption.”
The CDC standard bearer vowed to engage with ECOWAS leaders and notify other international partners of the UP’s “plan to capture the political system in its favor.
CDC remains a “party of law and order” and will use its full and immense political resources to bear to stop the Unity Party in its tracks, he said.
Several high-ranking officials of the erstwhile George Weah administration have been indicted for their alleged role in the misappropriation of national security funds.
The indictment, issued Monday by the Liberian government through the Ministry of Justice and the Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission (LACC), implicates a number of prominent figures, including former Solicitor General Cllr. Nyenati Tuan, former Comptroller of the Financial Intelligence Unit (now the Financial Intelligence Agency) D. Moses P. Cooper, former Finance Minister Samuel D. Tweah, former Director General of the Financial Intelligence Agency (FIA) Stanley Ford, and Jefferson Kanmoh, the former National Security Advisor to President Weah.
According to the court documents, the defendants are accused of an “elaborate scheme to defraud the Government of Liberia” by conspiring to transfer large sums of money from the Central Bank of Liberia to the operational accounts of the FIA under false pretenses.
It is alleged that the defendants transferred 1.055 billion Liberian dollars and $500,000 USD from the Central Bank to the FIA’s accounts.
