By D. Wa Hne, Jr.
The month of July 2025 is so crucial and timing to heal our national wounds. In an effort to achieve this, the love of politics and mass actions must give way to the love for national reconciliation, peace and unity.
This is possible only when we reflect the negative impacts divisive politics have had on Liberia in the past and during the immediate past administration of former President George Weah and learn to rise above them instead of celebrating and elevating them by introducing a vicious circle of “you did it to us and therefore we will not rest until you experience a triple dose from us”.
Certainly if anyone should promote this vicious circle in our politics, it should not come from the political organization or known individuals and circle of a man celebrated by Liberians and the international community as a man of peace and a reconciler.
Former President George Manneh Weah who has built for himself the international image of peace maker, Peace Promoter, UN Peace Ambassador, and have received many awards from reputable world organizations and leaders must protect those images by standing up to pursue national unity, peace and reconciliation no matter what the temptations and provocations are.
It is said that what a man truly is will be tested by adversities without a switch in his character, attitude and action. This is therefore the litmus test confronting the former President.
Will he step in to advise a halt to July 17 STAND’s nation-wide Protest being organized by the former Chairman of his Party Honorable Mulbah Morlu, a skilled mobilizer and organizer, who is known to be his Boy?
No disrespect to Honorable Mulbah Morlu for the description of a “Boy”. Or will the former President shrink to embrace a possible violence trend, disruption of the peace, rejection of the current healing process of his successor and willingly throw to the breeze what the world knows he stands for?
I am not suggesting here that protest is undemocratic and unconstitutional or that the Boakai’s Government is perfect and therefore mass actions are out of place. But can we try dialogue first for the sake of the nation and people? There is an important fact that life teaches and that is what a leader will become reflects the characters, minds or personalities that he surrounds himself with.
If their philosophies are built around the politics of resistance and reprisal as a means of attracting popularity and bringing their visions to reality, that leader will become those characters, minds and personalities because there is a hundred percent chance of adaptation and acceptance. A leader is as good as those he associate himself with or is as terrible as those he surrounds himself with.
The Congress for Democratic Change was built on the “change ideology” with grassroots based sensitivity and attraction, especially from the youthful population”.
Not only did the CDC enjoyed the mass support from youths and elders conspicuously mobilized by the current STAND leader, Hon. Mulbah Morlu who is now organizing the nationwide protests, it was given State Power through collaborative efforts from other political parties and leaders who believed in the CDC philosophy.
While we cannot deny the facts that President George Manneh Weah had the strength, energy, endurance, resilience, and commitment to develop Liberia which we can give enough credits to that he did a significantly great job despite recognized shortcomings as a human being before his tenure expired, we must also agree that governance was also new to him and the ruling CDC which occasioned missteps, more youthful exuberance than maturity, and much uncoordinated official activities, actions and pronouncements, much criticism to that of reported corruptions from GAC audits and lifestyle audits which attracted public outcries and condemnations that led to US Treasury Department sanctions placed on key officials of his government with closed ties to the President – exception being granted to the former President Pro-Tempore of the Senate Albert Chea who many believed was a victim of Treasury Department sanctions because of his outspoken-ness against the US Ambassador’s meddling into the internal affairs of Liberia.
Further there were widespread disenchantments from CDCians themselves leading to a great number giving their support to the opposition block.
Also within the Coalition, there were disappointments expressed over the handling of the formation of the government and governance issues. Key figures of the Coalition distrusted their own government which led to the gradual disintegration of the Coalition before the elections.
The over possessiveness of the President by a powerful cartel within the Coalition who controlled the machinery of the State and owned the Presidency as though it was a personal preserve of theirs led to the loss of the elections and the final disintegration of the Coalition which left the Congress of Democratic Change as a single party opposing the UP Government.
In view of the lapses in governance which intensified opposition aggressiveness against the CDC Government at the time and condemnations from USA Congressional leaders to the extent of branding the CDC a kleptocratic Government, the CDC should now put itself in the position of President Joseph Nyumah Boakai who also finds himself caught in complications that surround governance, especially taken into account the state of the nation inherited just as the CDC had complained in the past.
It shall take time for President Boakai to firmly adjust to the realities of governing a complicated country as Liberia and correct visible errors that are motivating the need for mass protests. President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf who fought to the destruction of the country in order to govern also experienced many shortfalls.
In light of the above, the CDC, as the immediate past administration should not be leading massive opposition or joining its past National Chairman, now a civil society leader believed to be operating as the extension of CDC, but to rather pursue rapprochement while the former President provides guidance and serves as statesman to ensure the peace and unity of the state by joining hands with President Joseph Nyumah Boakai in a healing process.
No one who has had the experience of governing this complex nation and complicated people and have experienced the unexpected that they didn’t expect should lead any process that they themselves were victims of.
Vengeful politics is disastrous as much as politics built on loyalty to personalities, commitment to one’s own political interests in guises of defending the rights of the masses. Rather, the nation and its development should matter most and be the priority of all Liberians and be elevated to improve the standards of life of the masses.
May this article never be considered a condemnation of former governments or their leaders or the organizers of the mass action, but rather, let it be taken in the right democratic and patriotic spirit which serve the nation best.
Those who surround the former President and in whom the former President finds his trust and confidence should not forget the mantra of peace, reconciliation, and national unity which earned him national and international accolades. He should never be led in a direction that robs him of those legacies.
Former President George Weah has a critical decision to make as a man of peace who desires national healing by joining and supporting the Boakai’s efforts to heal this nation no matter what personal enmity they have had or continues to have for each other.
This is statesmanship. His inner circle should be strategizing on how to mend the differences rather than escalating the feud to such an extent that is capable of repeating the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Samuel Doe scenario that led this nation to uncontrollable combustion.
President Boakai needs to reach out to former President Weah in a realistic and respectable manner and those who surround him need to understand his current agenda and stop being provocative, combative, and driving actions and policies that complicate his agenda and governance processes especially the justice aspects.
July 26, 2025 is a very important day to retrace our animosities and apply healing balms. It should attract all former Presidents, former officials, most importantly traditional leaders of native backgrounds and those of the settlers backgrounds in a reconciliation conference or dialogue to address historic wrongs and current wrongs in an effort to bring to an end the two nations in one geographic space polarization and the Americo-Liberians and native Liberians descriptions.
Not to join this effort which President Boakai has begun with the Doe and Tolbert family will be a dis-service to the nation and to the former President as a man of peace, he might stand the risk of his legacies being redefined.
