By Sidiki Fofana | Truth in Ink
When a man’s shadow still defines another’s ambition, legacy becomes a battlefield. That is the quiet war now unfolding in Nimba County. What started as a family matter between two blood relatives, Prince Yormie Johnson and his cousin Senator Samuel G. Kogar, has grown into a national conversation about loyalty, power, and legacy.
For decades, these two men have stood on opposite ends of the same family name. Both sons of Nimba soil, both molded by war, religion, and politics, yet divided by the one thing neither could share, dominance. Prince Johnson ruled Nimba politics with the confidence of a man whose word could shift votes and command loyalty. Kogar, equally ambitious, spent years in the long shadow of that dominance.
Now, with Johnson gone, Kogar stands where he once only looked. But even power inherited carries the burden of the past. As long as the late Prince Y. Johnson’s name remains alive on walls, in schools, in the very streets of Nimba, Kogar’s influence will always appear borrowed.
And that is why the current debate surrounding the fate of PYJ Polytechnic University has stirred more than dust. It has revived old rivalries, reopened silent wounds, and raised questions too loud to ignore.
PYJ Polytechnic, the university established by Prince Johnson in his name, was more than an institution. It was his pride; the evidence of transformation from a man once feared to a man remembered. To many Nimbaians, it symbolized redemption; the same hands once known for war could build for peace.
But recent reports suggest that the very institution is now at the center of a controversial sale arrangement, allegedly involving Senator Kogar and members of the Johnson family.
The story first surfaced when news broke that a foreign investor group was in negotiation to buy or manage the school for an estimated eight million U.S. dollars, nearly triple the Liberian government’s earlier offer that will also see the university keeping the name of its founder.
The late senator’s children, angered by what they call a betrayal, accused Kogar of masterminding an attempt to remove their father’s name and sell his legacy under the pretext of development. “They want to erase our father from history,” one family member reportedly said during a heated exchange in Nimba.
To them, this was not about fixing a struggling university; it was about rewriting who gets remembered.
Kogar, in response, has tried to calm the storm. “I do not own their property,” he told supporters at a reconciliation meeting. “I am only guiding the process.”
But in Liberia, such guidance often carries weight heavier than ownership. Every political action has a meaning behind the words, and for Kogar, “guidance” sounds more like control. It is no secret that the two cousins never saw eye to eye.
Long before Johnson’s death, their rivalry was an open secret in Nimba, one built on influence, respect, and the unspoken question of who would ultimately inherit the crown.
For those who know the politics of legacy, the sale of PYJ Polytechnic is more than a transaction. It is the symbolic removal of a name that still commands emotional allegiance across the county. To erase that name from the school is to silence the story of a man who, despite his contradictions, carried Nimba’s hopes and fears for decades.
Liberia has mastered a quiet form of political killing, not of people, but of remembrance. When leaders die, their monuments are the first to be attacked. Their portraits are taken down, their names replaced, their dreams sold. History is rewritten not by enemies but by those closest to them, in the name of reform, modernization, or development.
That is what seems to be playing out now. Kogar may not say it openly, but the symbolism of this move is unmistakable. If the school loses the “PYJ” name, if the walls are repainted and the statue taken down, then the legacy of Prince Johnson, flawed, complex, but undeniably influential, will begin to fade from the public consciousness.
In that fading, Kogar hopes then true rise will come.
Truth in Ink’s View
Development that destroys legacy is no development at all. Nimba’s story is not complete without Prince Y. Johnson, the good, the bad, and the contradictions he embodied. His university was not perfect, but it stood as proof that even the most controversial figures could give something back.
If Senator Kogar truly seeks progress, let him build his own school, his own legacy, and his own story. But to sell or rename PYJ Polytechnic without genuine consent from the Nimba people is not progress, it is political cleansing disguised as reform.
History is not always comfortable, but it must be preserved. Prince Yormie Johnson may have left the earth, but his legacy is not for sale. It belongs to Nimba, to the people who he lived and could die for, for children studied beneath its roof.
Truth in Ink: where facts confront power and silence meets its critic. Truth in Ink Editorial Board.
