By Sidiki Fofana | Truth in Ink
At fifty-nine, George Manneh Weah stood before hundreds of jubilant partisans, who came to wish him well on his birthday, and did more than thank them. Speaking extemporaneously yet with political precision, he offered a declaration:
“If you can’t trust me, then you can’t trust anybody else.”
Those words were not just comfort to supporters who now look up to him for the rebuilding of the Congress for Democratic Change (CDC) headquarters destroyed in the heat of defeat. They were aimed at the entire Liberian electorate. In that moment, the former president signaled not mere survival but readiness to return and seek the presidency again in 2029.
President Joseph Nyuma Boakai, whom Weah now clearly intends to unseat, has cast a cold verdict on those six Weah years, saying the administration “did little to nothing to improve the lives of ordinary Liberians.” That judgment echoes among market women still battling high prices with stagnant wages; teachers and health workers who say salary delays and shortages shattered faith in reform; young graduates idling on Monrovia’s sidewalks, waiting for work that never came.
“I voted Weah but the jobs he promised never reached us,” said Martha Kollie, a teacher from Kakata. “My pay came late; my rent went up; I had to borrow just to feed my children. When Boakai says they didn’t improve lives, I know what he means.”
Boakai casts his presidency as rescue, cleaning up “mismanagement,” stabilizing an economy he says was left adrift, restoring credibility in state spending. It is not just governance, for the president this is a survival and redirecting the blame strategy; if his reforms feel slow, or doesn’t come, he needs public frustration to point backward at Weah, not upward at himself.
Weah seems to understand that playbook. On his birthday, he fought it directly, framing “two Liberias.” One, the “old Liberia,” belongs to Boakai and a ruling class that dismisses progress it did not create. The other, a “new Liberia,” he says he began to build, symbolized by projects like the RIA highway and other roads and infrastructure projects started under his watch.
“I am flabbergasted,” Weah said, “that they will call all that we did as nothing. It’s because they are of the old Liberia. Our development efforts were of the new Liberia.”
“I still trust Weah,” countered Emmanuel Toe, a motorcycle rider near Red Light. “The roads we have now started with him. He’s from us, not from the elites. If he says he’s coming back to finish the work, I believe him.”
Weah casts himself not as defeated but re-ignited, but a man on a mission to finish what he started. His call is blunt; trust me again so I can complete the work of building the “new Liberia.”
But the truth is, Weah’s words echo not only among his supporters; they also command the uneasy attention of opponents who believed his political journey ended with his narrow defeat. “They are worried now,” said one Monrovia-based political analyst. “Even though it will take much more than asking for trust, trust will be the most vibrant currency in 2029.
The question is who can truly hold it?” Weah’s audacity to declare himself the one Liberians should trust sends a sharp warning to the ruling Unity Party. He intends to lead a charge fiercer than ever to unseat them.
Boakai insists that trust was squandered and cannot be reclaimed. Weah believes that with many Liberians, disappointment in rising frustration at what they call the arrogance and unfulfilled expectations of the Boakai government as it nears its third year might just trust him again.
Between them, voters weigh two records; one promising a second chance, the other asking for patience to prove change is possible.
As Liberia edges toward 2029, Weah’s birthday words though made to jubilant supporters, sends a challenge, a dare, and a plea “if you can’t trust me, who can you trust”?
