By Sidiki Fofana | TRUTH IN INK
History does not simply repeat itself, it instructs, warns, and when ignored, punishes. Today, July 17, 2025, the Liberian people rise, not in rebellion, but in righteous demand for justice, inclusion, and accountability.
They rise because silence has failed them. They rise because promises made have become privileges hidden. They rise because their government has grown deaf to the very people whose votes gave it breath.
But as they rise, the road grows divided. The Boakai administration, faced with public dissent, can choose one of two paths: the path of repression and bloodshed walked on April 12, 1979, or the path of restraint and democratic maturity modeled on June 17, 2019. Both dates are seared into the national memory, not for their events alone, but for what they revealed about the character of those in power.
On April 12, 1979, the people protested against the arbitrary hike in the price of rice, Liberia’s staple food. That protest, organized by the Progressive Alliance of Liberia (PAL), was met with brutal force under the regime of President William R. Tolbert. The government fired live bullets into crowds. By the end of that day, at least 40 people were dead and hundreds wounded. Their blood stained not only the streets of Monrovia but the conscience of a regime that had lost its social contract.
The lessons of that day were obvious, yet ignored. Within a year, Tolbert’s government collapsed under a coup. As Marcus Garvey once said, “A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots.”
Fast forward to June 17, 2019, under the leadership of then-President George Weah. Thousands marched under the banner of the “Save the State” protest, criticizing corruption, rising hardship, and bad governance.
Unlike 1979, that protest was largely peaceful and relatively unhindered by security forces. The state showed a degree of maturity. Protesters exercised their constitutional right as enshrined in Article 17 of the Liberian Constitution, which provides:
“All persons, at all times, in an orderly and peaceable manner, shall have the right to assemble and consult upon the common good…”
This is not merely a legal clause, it is the bedrock of democratic engagement. The ability to criticize power is the highest expression of patriotism, not treason. As U.S. civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once declared: “A riot is the language of the unheard.” And when governments refuse to listen, the streets speak.
July 17 is not about resurrecting political ghosts or advancing the ambitions of any opposition figure. It is about a people bruised by inflation, suffocated by exclusion, betrayed by mass dismissals, and insulted by indifference, declaring: enough.
The Boakai administration, which rode into office on promises of “rescue,” must now rescue itself from the temptation of authoritarian instinct. The police must not be used as agents of fear. The military must not be mobilized as a political deterrent. Let not one tear gas canister be fired, nor a single baton raised against peaceful citizens. Let the state act with the wisdom it claims to have.
Because today, the question is not whether Liberians will protest, they already are. The question is how the government will respond. With maturity, or with malice? With law, or with lawlessness?
We must remember when governments suppress peaceful protests, they radicalize ordinary people. When they honor constitutional rights, they build legitimacy. As history has shown time and again, governments fall not when people protest, but when they are killed for it.
The path President Boakai chooses today will not only define his legacy, it will determine whether Liberia walks into a future of inclusion or limps backward into the dungeons of repression.
Let July 17 be a day remembered for civic bravery and democratic strength, not another date of national mourning. Lead with wisdom, or fall with arrogance.
