MONROVIA – Three senior officials of the Unity Party-led government have set tongues wagging after posting photos on Facebook of what they described as late-night strategy sessions with “Unit 2,” a label widely read in political circles as a reference to Vice President Jeremiah Kpan Koung.

By Rodney D. Sieh

The posts come at a delicate moment for the Boakai administration, which is still facing questions over its request that the European Union withdraw its envoy to Liberia, partly over remarks she allegedly made about the Vice President’s reach into sectors outside his constitutional remit. For many observers, the timing has sharpened a question already circulating in Monrovia: who is really running the country?

The Posts

Youth and Sports Minister Cornelia Wonkerleh Kruah captioned her photos: “To be a politician is not the thing… It’s the late-night meetings… Check-In with Unit 2…” She tagged the post #StrategicPartnership, #UnityParty and #PreparingForTheSecondLeg.

Mohammed “Mo” Ali, Managing Director of the Liberia Water and Sewer Corporation and a former Unity Party Secretary General, posted photos from the same room, writing: “These late-night strategic sessions keep things moving and on course.”

M. Boakai Jaleiba, Vice President for Administration at the National Oil Company of Liberia (NOCAL), followed with: “After a late-night caucus with Unit-2!”

None of the three posts mentions President Joseph Nyuma Boakai.

The EU Backdrop

Earlier this year, the Government of Liberia formally asked the European Union to recall and replace its Head of Delegation, Ambassador Nona Deprez, accusing her of making statements that undermined the country’s leadership, institutions and investment climate.

In a letter signed by Acting Foreign Minister Ethel Davis, the government alleged that the envoy made a series of derogatory and misleading comments during official engagements with Liberian authorities, investors and development stakeholders.

Some of the remarks were reportedly made at the Liberia-European Union Business Forum in Brussels on February 24-25, where the envoy allegedly questioned governance practices within the Liberian government and raised concerns about Vice President Koung’s role in the mining and energy sectors.

Critics of the move argued at the time that calling for the ambassador’s recall did not, by itself, clear the Vice President, and risked leaving the allegation unresolved in the public space.

Loyalty Signals

Against that backdrop, political watchers say the posts read less like routine party business and more like a public declaration of where loyalty lies. The hashtag #PreparingForTheSecondLeg is likely to be read as a nod to 2029, raising the question of whose second leg is being prepared.

The officials’ own histories add a layer of intrigue. FrontPageAfrica previously reported that President Boakai and his immediate circle blamed Mo Ali, Amin Modad, Cllr. Jeror Cole Bangalu and Rep. Clarence Massaquoi for the party’s defeat in Lofa. Massaquoi, now Chairman of the Liberia Telecommunications Authority, is Minister Kruah’s spouse. For some insiders, a visible alignment with the Vice President by figures once at odds with the President’s inner circle is hard to dismiss as coincidence.

‘The Prezzo Approved This Meeting’

A government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, pushed back on that reading.

“It is my understanding that the Prezzo had approved this meeting. It was primarily to discuss growing disenchantment among the young people in the party. Don’t mind the way it is being projected by the posts,” the official told FrontPageAfrica.

The source conceded, however, that the party’s troubles run deeper. “That, yes, is our biggest problem right now. People want to hold onto their jobs and not pay attention to the party. And even in their jobs, how many of the young people have they brought on board?”

Bad Optics

Critics are less forgiving, noting that most of those in the room owe their positions to President Boakai.

“These are people the President gave jobs. Is he supposed to tell them what to do? Should he provide them money? The optics are bad,” said the source.

Whatever the intent, the episode lands on a government already defending itself against claims that power has drifted from the Executive Mansion. If the meeting was sanctioned by the President, the officials chose to tell the public it was with “Unit 2,” not him. In Liberian politics, that kind of messaging is rarely accidental.

Monrovia – Former Minister of State for Presidential Affairs Nathaniel McGill has reignited political conversations about the future leadership of the opposition Congress for Democratic Change (CDC), declaring that the ruling Unity Party (UP) would not have won the 2023 presidential elections had he remained in government.

McGill, who currently represents Margibi County in the Liberian Senate, made the assertion while defending his political influence and electoral support, despite being placed under United States sanctions.

The former minister maintained that his political standing remained intact even after the sanctions, pointing to his election to the Senate as evidence that he continues to enjoy considerable grassroots support.

“If I had remained as Minister of State, the Unity Party would not have won. Despite being sanctioned, the Liberian people still voted for me and elected me as senator. I had the backing of the people,” McGill said.

His remarks come at a politically significant moment for the CDC, which is facing growing internal conversations over whether to retain its current chairman, Janga Kowo, or install a new leader as the party positions itself for a return to power.

McGill further suggested that the Boakai-led administration was already losing its political grip, declaring that the CDC has the political strength and personnel to reclaim the presidency.

“We have men, we have soldiers in the CDC. And we are coming back,” he said.

Political Scorecard and Claims of Unfinished Projects

Beyond his political declaration, McGill sought to challenge the Unity Party government’s development record, arguing that several projects being presented as achievements of the current administration were initiated or negotiated under the former CDC-led government.

He specifically referenced the Roberts International Airport (RIA) Road Project, the agreement for the construction of an overpass bridge, and a diagnostic laboratory at the 14 Military Hospital.

“The RIA Road Project belongs to us. We signed the agreement for the overpass bridge. The diagnostic laboratory at the 14 Military Hospital was also supposed to be dedicated. We completed more roads, yet this government has not commissioned a single one,” McGill claimed.

He argued that, had he remained Minister of State, he would have demanded explanations from the Ministers of Finance and Public Works over the failure to commission completed road projects.

While McGill’s comments reflect the CDC’s attempt to reclaim political credit for projects initiated during its administration, the claims also underscore the continuing political contest between the former ruling party and the government over development achievements.

Kowo’s Leadership Under Scrutiny

But beyond the exchange over political performance, McGill’s comments have drawn renewed attention to the unresolved question of who should lead the CDC as it attempts to reorganize following its defeat in the 2023 elections.

Janga Kowo currently serves as chairman of the party, having assumed the position following the resignation of Mulbah Morlu, who stepped down both as chairman and from the party.

A former Comptroller and Accountant General of Liberia, Kowo inherited the CDC during one of the most challenging periods in its political history.

His leadership has been credited by supporters with helping to keep the party together amid internal disagreements, political uncertainty and the transition from governing party to opposition.

Under his chairmanship, the CDC has remained vocal in its criticism of the Unity Party-led government. However, some partisans have questioned whether his leadership style is sufficiently assertive to reposition the party for a political comeback.

While critics favor a change at the top, others believe removing Kowo could deepen existing divisions and undermine the relative stability he has helped maintain.

The disagreement presents a difficult choice for the former ruling party: whether to prioritize continuity and internal cohesion or embrace a more confrontational leadership capable of energizing its base.

McGill, Koijee Emerge in Succession Speculation

Sources within the party indicate that former President George Weah and some members of the CDC hierarchy are considering possible alternatives to Kowo.

Among the names circulating is McGill, whose close political relationship with Weah and experience in the former administration have fueled speculation that he could be a preferred candidate for the chairmanship.

Although no formal decision has been announced, McGill’s recent remarks, particularly his declaration that the CDC has the political personnel to return to power, have added another dimension to speculation about his possible political ambitions within the party.

Another prominent name is former Monrovia City Mayor and CDC Secretary-General Jefferson T. Koijee, who has built a strong political following, particularly among the party’s youthful supporters.

Koijee rose through the ranks of the CDC Youth League and remains one of the party’s most recognizable and outspoken figures.

His popularity among younger partisans could make him an attractive option for those seeking a more energetic and combative leadership style. However, his inclusion in the succession conversation also raises questions about the political and reputational implications of his continued presence on the United States sanctions list.

McGill, too, remains under U.S. sanctions, creating a potentially complicated leadership choice for a party seeking to rebuild its national and international political standing.

The sanctions do not automatically disqualify either man from holding the party’s chairmanship.

Other Names in the Leadership Conversation

Other names being mentioned include Eugene Lenn Nagbe, a former commissioner of the Liberia Maritime Authority and special aide to Weah.

Nagbe’s experience in public service and association with the former president have placed him among the personalities being discussed as the party considers its leadership options.

Former House Speaker Jonathan Fonati Koffa has also been mentioned as a possible contender.

Koffa, who previously belonged to the Liberty Party before switching allegiance to the CDC, currently chairs the committee overseeing the construction of the party’s headquarters.

However, sources close to the former speaker say he has no intention of contesting for the chairmanship.

His name nevertheless reflects the broader search within the party for a leader who can command political respect, strengthen internal structures and help bridge differences among competing factions.

A Defining Moment for the CDC

The CDC’s leadership question goes beyond choosing a new chairman. It touches on the party’s identity, its relationship with former President Weah, the influence of its political heavyweights and the strategy it intends to pursue ahead of the next electoral cycle.

Kowo’s supporters see continuity as essential to preserving party unity, while those advocating a change believe the CDC needs a more assertive political figure to rebuild its mobilization capacity and challenge the ruling government.

McGill’s latest remarks have added to that debate, particularly because they come from a former senior official of the Weah administration who continues to command an electoral constituency despite the controversy surrounding his U.S. sanctions.

Whether his declaration signals a genuine interest in the chairmanship or is simply an assertion of his political relevance remains unclear.

What is increasingly evident, however, is that the CDC faces a delicate leadership decision. A poorly managed transition could expose existing divisions, while a carefully negotiated succession could provide an opportunity to rebuild the party’s structures and strengthen its opposition politics.

For now, Kowo remains chairman, and no formal succession process or final decision has been announced. But with McGill, Koijee and other prominent figures featuring in the conversation, the question of who will lead the CDC into its next political chapter is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.

Monrovia – On a humid January morning in 2018, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf stood at the Samuel Kanyon Doe Sports Stadium in Paynesville and handed the keys of the Liberian state to a former footballer, George Manneh Weah. It was the first time in 74 years that one elected Liberian leader had peacefully passed power to another.

By Rodney D. Sieh

On a continent where presidents often rewrite constitutions to stay, she simply left. Her own party had expelled her weeks earlier. Many in the crowd blamed her for what had not changed. She smiled, waved and went home.

Today, October 29, the woman the world calls Africa’s “Iron Lady” turns 88. Her journey from a Monrovia schoolgirl to a Nobel laureate is, in many ways, the story of modern Liberia itself: brilliant, battered, contested and still unfinished.

A prophecy in Monrovia

Family lore holds that when baby Ellen was born in 1938, an elderly visitor looked at her and declared that the child would be great. Her father, Jahmale Carney Johnson, was the son of a Gola chief who rose to become one of the first indigenous Liberians in the national legislature. Her mother was a teacher and preacher of mixed Kru and German heritage.

That mix mattered. For more than a century, Liberia was ruled by a small elite descended from freed American slaves. Sirleaf straddled both worlds: rooted in the indigenous majority, yet schooled among the settler class at Monrovia’s College of West Africa.

She married James Sirleaf at 17 and had four sons in quick succession. The marriage was turbulent and later ended.

In 1961 the couple left for the United States, where she studied accounting at Madison Business College in Wisconsin, worked as a waitress to pay her way, and later earned a master’s in public administration at Harvard’s Kennedy School.

The finance official who talked back

Back home, she joined the Treasury and quickly earned a reputation for saying what others would not. In 1969, she delivered a blunt speech warning that corruption and economic mismanagement threatened the nation. It was a dangerous thing to say in the one-party state of President William Tubman.

Under President William Tolbert, she rose to become Liberia’s finance minister in 1979. She was one of the few women at the top table, and among the most outspoken. Within months, the table would be overturned.

Coup, prison and exile

In April 1980, Master Sergeant Samuel Doe and a band of soldiers stormed the Executive Mansion and killed Tolbert. Days later, 13 senior officials were tied to posts on a Monrovia beach and executed by firing squad. Sirleaf was spared, reportedly because she had once criticised the old order. She soon fled into exile.

She worked for Citibank in Nairobi and the World Bank, but she could not stay away.

Returning in 1985, she called Doe’s regime “idiots” in a speech and was sentenced to 10 years for sedition. International pressure won her release. After a failed coup that November, she was arrested again and held for months. She later wrote of being threatened with rape by a soldier in her cell.

She won a Senate seat in Doe’s rigged 1985 vote, then refused to take it in protest. Once more she left the country, this time for banking jobs in Washington and, from 1992, a senior post at the United Nations Development Programme heading its Africa bureau.

The Taylor stain

The darkest chapter of her story began in 1989, when warlord Charles Taylor invaded from Côte d’Ivoire to topple Doe. Like many exiles, Sirleaf backed the rebellion at first. She later admitted giving Taylor’s movement money, a sum she put at about $10,000, before turning against him.

The civil wars that followed killed an estimated 250,000 people. Sirleaf ran against Taylor in 1997 and lost badly, finishing a distant second with under 10 percent of the vote. Taylor’s government charged her with treason, and she fled again. That early support for the man who became one of Africa’s most notorious warlords would haunt her for decades.

“Ma Ellen” takes power

When Taylor was forced into exile in 2003, Liberia was a ruin. There was no electricity grid in the capital and no piped water. Unemployment ran above 80 percent. The national debt stood near $4.9 billion, several times the size of the economy.

In November 2005, Sirleaf beat George Weah in a runoff with about 59 percent of the vote. Market women, who had campaigned for her door to door, called her “Ma Ellen”. In January 2006 she was sworn in as the first woman elected to lead an African nation.

Her government’s first-year budget was about $80 million.

She used her Washington Rolodex ruthlessly. Lights returned to parts of Monrovia. Schools reopened. In 2010, creditors cancelled about $4.6 billion of Liberia’s debt, one of the largest write-offs of its kind. She also asked that Taylor’s war crimes trial be moved to The Hague, fearing it would destabilise the region if held in Sierra Leone.

Nobel and Ebola

In October 2011, days before she sought a second term, Sirleaf shared the Nobel Peace Prize with fellow Liberian Leymah Gbowee and Yemen’s Tawakkol Karman. The committee honoured their non-violent struggle for women’s safety and for women’s full part in peace-building. Critics at home called the timing an election gift.

She won again, though her rival Winston Tubman boycotted the runoff and turnout collapsed to about 37 percent. Her second term brought its sternest test. In 2014 Ebola tore through Liberia, killing more than 4,800 people. Early quarantines provoked riots, and one boy was shot dead in the West Point slum. Yet by May 2015 Liberia was declared Ebola-free, and her letters pleading with world leaders were credited with speeding the global response.

The Iron Lady’s critics

Abroad she was a heroine. At home the verdict was far more complicated.

In 2009, Liberia’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission recommended that she be barred from public office for 30 years over her early support for Taylor. She apologised, saying she had been fooled by Taylor’s intentions, and the recommendation was never enforced.

To her critics, it remained proof that the peacemaker had once financed war.

Then there was family. Her son Robert ran the national oil company, Charles served as deputy governor of the Central Bank, and Fumba headed the national security agency. She defended them as qualified professionals. Many Liberians saw nepotism. In 2019, after she left office, Charles was jailed over the controversial printing of Liberian banknotes; the state dropped the charges in 2020. He died in Accra in June 2024, a private grief for a mother who rarely speaks of her own pain.

She also admitted that corruption, which she once called “public enemy number one”, outlasted her. Concession deals were faulted for weak oversight, and she conceded in her farewell years that she had not won that war. Supporters answer that she inherited a gutted state on a shoestring budget and gave it 12 years of peace.

The handover

The 2017 election exposed how lonely the top had become. Her vice president of 12 years, Joseph Boakai, ran as the Unity Party candidate but kept her at arm’s length. At one debate he likened himself to a race car left parked in the garage for 12 years. When Boakai lost to Weah, the party expelled Sirleaf, accusing her of quietly backing the opposition. She denied it.

She did not fight back. On January 22, 2018, she handed power to Weah, the former striker she had beaten in 2005. It was the first peaceful transfer between elected Liberian leaders since 1944.

Weeks later, the Mo Ibrahim Foundation awarded her its Prize for Achievement in African Leadership, worth $5 million over 10 years. The prize is so demanding that it has often gone unawarded. She was its first woman winner. She dedicated it to Africa’s women and girls.

Reinventing the wheel

Most former presidents fade into memoirs and golf. Sirleaf built an institution. In 2020 she assembled a small team to found the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Presidential Center for Women and Development in Monrovia, billed as the world’s first presidential center for a woman leader.

Its flagship Amujae Initiative selects up to 15 African women a year who are already rising in public life and trains them to aim for the very top. “Amujae” means “we are going there” in Kpelle. The fifth cohort launched in June 2026. In August, Senegal’s President Bassirou Diomaye Faye received her in Dakar before the centre opened its High-Level Leadership Forum there, with Namibia’s President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah among the leaders in the room.

The global stage still calls. In 2020, the World Health Organization chose her and former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark to co-chair an independent panel reviewing the world’s response to COVID-19, a nod to her Ebola years.

At home, her estranged former deputy, Boakai, won the presidency in 2023, and the Unity Party is back in power. In March 2026, she addressed the House of Representatives, which gave her a Special Legislative Citation of Distinguished Honor. She urged lawmakers to scrap the constitutional clause limiting citizenship to people “of Negro descent”, to fix land disputes and to elect more women; only 9 sit in the House and 3 in the Senate. On unfinished reforms, she said she would trust history’s judgment.

At 88

She still claims her share of credit. On a Monrovia radio talk show in April, she said many of the roads and projects now under way began under her government. In the same breath she insisted they were “Liberia’s projects”, not anyone’s trophies.

That is Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in miniature: proud, combative, impatient with ingratitude, yet disciplined enough to step aside. She was jailed by one dictator and wooed by a warlord. She was celebrated in Oslo and denounced in Monrovia. She buried a son and outlived most of her enemies.

Her legacy will be argued over in Liberian tea shops long after she is gone. But on one point even her harshest critics agree. When her time was up, she left. In much of Africa, that remains the rarest kind of greatness, and the old prophecy at her cradle may have meant exactly that.

MONROVIA – Liberia’s House of Representatives has ordered a sweeping review of salaries and benefits across government, days after a rare public disclosure of a senior official’s pay reignited anger over the cost of running one of the world’s poorest countries. 

By Emmanuel Weedee-Conway

In a unanimous vote on Tuesday, the lower house of the national legislature instructed two of its committees, on Ways, Means and Finance and on Public Accounts, to examine the pay and perks of government officials and report back within two weeks. The motion was brought by Representative Alex S. Noah of Sinoe County.

Lawmakers argued that they are wrongly blamed for the country’s swollen wage bill, while ministers and the heads of state-owned enterprises earn far more.

The disclosure that lit the fuse

The vote came less than a week after Euphemia G.T. Swen-Monmia, President Joseph Boakai’s nominee for Deputy Governor for Economic Policy at the Central Bank of Liberia, appeared on October 22 before the Senate Committee on Banking and Currency for her confirmation hearing.

Asked about her pay, she did something Liberian officials rarely do: she gave the numbers. She testified that her monthly salary is US$9,000, that she receives around US$5,000 in cash benefits on top of that, and that her housing allowance should be about US$15,000. She has served in an acting capacity since August 12.

That amounts to roughly US$168,000 a year in salary and cash benefits before housing is counted. A civil servant on the government’s US$150 monthly minimum would need more than seven and a half years of uninterrupted work to earn what she receives in a single month.

Swen-Monmia is a career central banker who joined the bank in 2010 as a management trainee and rose to director of its Financial Markets Department. The controversy is not about her qualifications but about what her testimony revealed: pay at the top of Executive agencies is generous, and almost never made public.

No lawmaker cited her testimony by name during Tuesday’s debate. But the timing, and the focus of the two letters that triggered it, on officials earning more than US$5,000 a month, suggest the disclosure handed fresh ammunition to a chamber long cast as the main villain in Liberia’s debate over official pay.

‘We are suffering’

On the floor, several members described their own compensation as “peanuts” compared with Executive officials and argued the legislature deserves more because representatives serve larger numbers of constituents.

Representative Moima Briggs-Mensah of Bong County said a US$2,000 budget line meant for constituents’ school scholarships often never arrives, and that lawmakers lack the insurance enjoyed by Executive officials.

“We don’t even have Social Security benefits. We are suffering and people in the Executive are making mockery of us,” she said.

Representative Anthony Williams of Maryland County said lawmakers were being “falsely crucified” by the public while benefits such as fuel arrive months late.

“The Executive, especially SOEs are reaping the honey, while we are being falsely crucified,” he said, demanding that state enterprises disclose their gross and net pay and benefits to the House.

The numbers tell a different story

Lawmakers’ complaints sit uneasily with the figures. Senators earn US$8,000 a month each, according to the draft 2026 budget, and a bill to cut that to US$5,000, first introduced by Senator Abraham Darius Dillon in 2020, has stalled for years. In 2025, House members’ basic salary was put at roughly US$8,569 a month, with additional funding for security guards, drivers, cooks and other support staff.

The legislature as a whole has also grown more expensive. The draft 2026 budget gave lawmakers US$51.7 million, up from US$41.3 million in 2024.

That is in a West African nation of about 5.2 million people still rebuilding from 14 years of civil war that ended in 2003, whose national budget crossed US$1 billion for the first time this year. About half the population lives below the poverty line.

Meanwhile, front-line public servants struggle to get paid at all. Teachers’ U.S.-dollar pay has gone unpaid since October 2025, and nurses are demanding a monthly minimum of US$500.

A chamber in revolt

Tuesday’s vote follows weeks of turmoil inside the House over lawmakers’ own money. More than 40 members boycotted the legislature’s reopening session on October 9 in protest over unpaid benefits and allowances, including constituency visits, district projects, fuel and medical allowances. Calling themselves “Reformists,” they accused the chamber’s leadership of withholding benefits and legislative support funds.

The Senate faces its own scrutiny. A proposal from its Committee on Rules, Order and Administration, reported by FrontPageAfrica, seeks US$792,552 in the 2027 budget to raise salaries for 224 Senate staff, with some increases as high as 71 percent. The Senate has disputed the reporting and demanded a retraction; FrontPageAfrica stands by its story.

Two letters, two tones

The review was triggered by letters from two lawmakers who framed the problem very differently from their colleagues on the floor.

Representative Sumo Kollie Mulbah of Montserrado County asked the House to hold up the national budget until the Finance Ministry reports all salaries and benefits above US$5,000 a month for ministers, directors, county governors and commissioners. The central bank deputy governor’s testimony would place her nearly three times above that threshold.

Mulbah singled out housing allowances, fuel and phone-credit coupons, and overseas medical treatment on top of health insurance.

“While these elite benefits are sustained, critical national priorities like the increment of the minimum wage are continuously set aside,” he wrote.

Representative Musa Hassan Bility of Nimba County called for a special committee to review salaries, allowances, wasteful spending, duty-free privileges and tax exemptions across all branches of government, and insisted the legislature go first.

“We cannot continue to demand sacrifices from ordinary Liberians while protecting our own excessive privileges,” Bility wrote. “This must not be another selective exercise intended to embarrass particular officials for public applause.”

What to watch

The two-week deadline lands as the Executive prepares to send the 2027 budget to the legislature by October 31. The government projects total spending will fall to US$1.02 billion next year, meaning any gains for one group of officials will likely come at someone else’s expense.

The test is whether the committees follow Bility’s call to start with the legislature, or whether the review becomes, as he warned, a selective exercise aimed at the Executive. Liberians have heard promises of pay cuts before. A proposal to cut senators’ pay to US$5,000 has been on the table for six years without passing.

A Liberian judge convicted a former national security aide of statutory rape and kidnapping but cleared him of gang rape. Four days later, his lawyers filed a motion arguing that the two halves of the ruling cannot both stand.

By Rodney D. Sieh

MONROVIA — When Judge Wesseh Alphonsus Wesseh Sr. delivered his verdict on Friday, October 23, he framed the case around three questions: whether the evidence supported a conviction for gang rape, for statutory rape, and for kidnapping. He answered no to the first and yes to the other two.

That split is now the battleground. On Tuesday, October 27, at 11:12 a.m., lawyers for Peter Bon Jallah, 63, a former special assistant to the director of Liberia’s National Security Agency (NSA), filed a motion for a new trial at Criminal Court “E” in Monrovia. The filing, received by Acting Clerk of Court Abraham Richards, asks the judge to set aside his own verdict.

The motion is the first formal test of a ruling that, by the court’s own record, states its conclusions on each charge without detailing how it weighed every witness and exhibit. That gap is what the defense is trying to exploit.

What the court decided

Jallah was arrested on January 7, 2026, after the mother of a 16-year-old boy complained to the police Women and Children Protection Section. The boy did paid chores at Jallah’s home.

A grand jury indicted Jallah and two unidentified men in February on charges of gang rape, statutory rape and kidnapping. The indictment alleged abuse at Jallah’s home on November 29 and December 24, 2025. It also alleged that on January 1, 2026, Jallah lured the boy with an offer of football boots, drove him to a building off Camp Johnson Road in central Monrovia, and held him there for three days while he and two other men abused him.

The two other men were never brought before the court. Jallah, who has denied all the allegations, chose to be tried by a judge rather than a jury.

The court acquitted him of gang rape, finding the prosecution’s evidence insufficient. It convicted him of statutory rape and kidnapping. Jallah was remanded to Monrovia Central Prison pending a pre-sentence report from the Ministry of Justice’s Bureau of Probation Services. No sentence has been imposed.

The prosecution’s case

According to the written verdict, the prosecution called 13 regular witnesses and six rebuttal witnesses. The defense called eight witnesses, including Jallah, plus three subpoenaed witnesses from the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, the mobile operator Orange Liberia and the John F. Kennedy Medical Center.

The state’s strongest scientific evidence came from Pascal Bavugirije of the Rwanda Forensic Institute, which analyzed exhibits after Liberia sent them abroad. He testified that DNA profiles from four clothing exhibits matched Jallah’s reference sample. Material collected from the alleged scene produced a mixed profile from unknown people that matched neither Jallah nor the boy.

The boy testified in August that he was assaulted three times, and the court admitted his police statement over defense objections. Investigators also told the court that phone records placed Jallah near one of the alleged scenes, contradicting his account that he had no contact with the boy.

The defense’s four arguments

The motion, signed by Counsellor G. Wiefueh Alfred Sayeh of the Law Offices of Sayeh & Sayeh, makes four main claims.

1. The kidnapping conviction contradicts the gang rape acquittal. The defense argues that the kidnapping charge rests on the alleged three-day confinement off Camp Johnson Road, the same episode at the heart of the gang rape charge. If the court found too little evidence that the gang rape happened there, the motion says, it cannot find that the boy was held there. It describes the conviction as “contrary to weight of the evidence.”

2. The court lacked jurisdiction over kidnapping. Criminal Court “E” is Liberia’s specialized court for sexual offenses. The motion argues it has no jurisdiction over kidnapping as a separate crime. This is a purely legal question, and if the judge or a higher court agrees, it could void that conviction regardless of the evidence.

3. Penetration was never proven. Under Liberia’s rape statute, penetration is an essential element. The defense points to three pieces of testimony:

* A JFK Medical Center doctor, called by the defense, testified that an examination under anesthesia shortly after the boy’s January rescue found no evidence of trauma. The hospital’s operative record lists the post-procedure diagnosis as “normal findings.” The motion says the prosecution offered no rebuttal.

* The Rwandan forensic examiner testified that DNA analysis cannot establish guilt or innocence and that his report did not show whether penetration occurred.

* A nurse examiner from the hospital’s One Stop Center for survivors of sexual violence, a prosecution witness, testified that she could not say the boy was not raped, adding that she was there only to report what she saw. The defense argues that statement does not prove rape and creates doubt that must favor the accused.

The motion goes further, accusing the judge of attributing the words “penetration” and “blunt object” to the nurse’s testimony when, it says, no witness used them.

1. The defendant did not get a fair trial. The motion alleges the judge remarked in open court that the prosecution was “asking weak questions.” It also says that after reviewing the defense’s Orange phone records, the judge on his own initiative subpoenaed Jallah’s records from a second carrier, Lonestar Cell MTN, over a defense objection that the court could not introduce evidence on the state’s behalf.

How strong are the arguments?

Each claim faces hurdles, and none has yet been tested by the prosecution’s response.

The medical findings do not settle the question on their own. Forensic medicine broadly recognizes that the absence of physical injury does not rule out sexual assault, particularly when an examination comes days after an alleged act. The prosecution can also point to the DNA findings and the boy’s testimony. A judge sitting without a jury is entitled to weigh credible testimony against an inconclusive medical record.

The kidnapping argument may be harder to dismiss. The acquittal on gang rape could reflect doubt about the two unidentified men rather than about the alleged confinement itself. Whether that distinction holds depends on reasoning the published verdict does not spell out.

The fair-trial complaint about the phone subpoena raises a recognized principle: a judge in an adversarial system is not supposed to build the prosecution’s case. How much weight the court gave those records is not clear from the verdict.

What happens next

Judge Wesseh must rule on the motion. If he denies it, the case moves to sentencing once the probation report arrives. The defense has already said it will appeal to the Supreme Court of Liberia, and the arguments in this motion offer a preview of that appeal.

The case has been closely watched in Liberia because of Jallah’s position close to the head of the country’s main intelligence agency, and because it tests how the courts handle sexual violence against children. It has already passed through two courtrooms, a failed prosecution bid to move the trial out of Monrovia, and a change of judge.

The Ministry of Justice, which prosecuted the case, had not filed a response to the motion as of Tuesday.

Monrovia – Few Liberian presidents have been in a position to remake the Supreme Court from top to bottom. President Joseph Nyuma Boakai is on course to do exactly that. If the justices retire as the Constitution requires, every seat on the five-member bench will have been filled by Mr. Boakai by the time Liberians vote in the October 2029 general elections, or shortly after.

By Rodney D. Sieh

The arithmetic is set by Article 72(b) of the 1986 Constitution, which requires the Chief Justice and Associate Justices to retire at 70. They may stay on only to finish cases they began hearing before that birthday. Justices are nominated by the President and confirmed by the Senate.

Three down, two to go

Mr. Boakai, who took office in January 2024, has already made three appointments.

In July 2024, the Senate unanimously confirmed Judge Ceaineh D. Clinton-Johnson, his nominee, to replace the late Associate Justice Joseph Nagbe. She was the first nominee confirmed under a new Senate rule requiring a two-thirds vote, or 20 senators, for tenured presidential nominees.

A year later, Chief Justice Sie-A-Nyene Yuoh reached the mandatory retirement age. Mr. Boakai nominated Associate Justice Yamie Quiqui Gbeisay, Sr. to succeed her. Mr. Gbeisay had joined the Court as an associate justice in October 2022, under former President George Weah. He was confirmed as Chief Justice in July 2025.

To fill Mr. Gbeisay’s former seat, the President nominated Cllr. Boakai N. Kanneh, chairman of the Law Reform Commission. Mr. Kanneh is a former deputy foreign minister for legal affairs and public defender, and has taught at the Louis Arthur Grimes School of Law. He is also the brother of Gbarpolu County Senator Botoe Kanneh, a family tie that has drawn political attention.

The retirement calendar

The remaining seats will open on a predictable schedule:

• 2027: Associate Justice Jamesetta Howard Wolokolie, the longest-serving member of the bench, appointed in 2007 under President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

• 2028: Associate Justice Yussif D. Kaba, born July 19, 1958, appointed under President Weah in 2019.

• 2029: Chief Justice Yarmin Quiqui Gbeisay, born May 3, 1959, turns 70 in May 2029, five months before the election.

• 2029: Associate Justice Clinton-Johnson, a Boakai appointee, is also due to retire in 2029.

• 2041: Associate Justice Kanneh, the youngest member of the Court.

By 2028, the last two justices appointed by earlier presidents, Ms. Wolokolie and Mr. Kaba, will have left. Mr. Boakai will then fill the Chief Justice’s seat and Ms. Clinton-Johnson’s seat in 2029, in the middle of an election year. If all of these appointments are made and confirmed, the full bench will be his.

Why it matters

In most democracies, the makeup of the highest court is decided gradually, by several presidents. That spread is one of the quiet protections of judicial independence. No single administration owns the bench, and justices are less likely to be seen as one leader’s choices.

Liberia’s fixed retirement age makes turnover predictable, but it can also cluster vacancies. That is what is happening now. A Court made up entirely of one president’s nominees is not illegal or improper by itself. Whether it becomes a problem depends on who is chosen and how they rule.

Concerns have already been raised. When Mr. Gbeisay was nominated as Chief Justice in 2025, a veteran lawyer told allAfrica that three Supreme Court appointments in less than two years signaled growing executive influence over the judiciary. The lawyer also questioned Mr. Gbeisay’s firmness, pointing to his lone dissent in the Court’s December 6, 2024 ruling on the House speakership crisis.

That crisis shows why the Court’s independence matters. In November 2024, a majority bloc of lawmakers declared the Speaker’s seat vacant and elected Rep. Richard Koon outside a formal session. Speaker J. Fonati Koffa refused to step down. The Executive began recognizing Mr. Koon after a Ministry of Justice opinion in favor of the bloc. In April 2025, the Supreme Court declared Mr. Koffa the constitutional Speaker, but he resigned weeks later and Mr. Koon took the gavel.

The tension has not gone away. This week the Court reserved its ruling in former Rep. Yekeh Kolubah’s appeal against his April 2026 expulsion. The House voted to expel him a day after Justice Kaba ordered it to halt the proceedings. These cases put the Court at the center of disputes between the Legislature, the Executive and individual lawmakers. A future bench will decide many more.

The 2029 election

The timing of the final vacancies raises its own questions. Two seats are due to open in 2029, the year Liberians choose a president. A bench appointed entirely by the sitting president could be asked to rule on election disputes, including challenges involving that president or his party. Liberia’s Supreme Court is the final arbiter of electoral disputes. Its rulings in 2017 and 2023 helped settle contested results peacefully.

The Senate’s two-thirds confirmation rule gives senators a real check. Nominees now need broad support, not just a governing majority. How the Senate uses that power in 2028 and 2029, in the heat of a campaign, will be closely watched.

There is also a longer-term effect. Justices appointed in their fifties will serve into the 2040s. The next president, whether it is Mr. Boakai in a second term or someone else, may inherit a bench with few scheduled vacancies. Mr. Kanneh alone is set to serve until 2041. Unless justices die, resign, or are removed through impeachment, a new president could serve a full six-year term without appointing anyone.

Is there room for young lawyers?

The Constitution sets a low floor. Under Article 68 and Section 2.4 of the Judiciary Law, a justice must be a Liberian citizen for at least 10 years, at least 30 years old, a Counsellor-at-Law of the Supreme Court Bar, and engaged in active practice of law for at least seven years before appointment.

In practice, the path is long. A Liberian lawyer usually earns an undergraduate degree before law school, then a law degree, typically from the Louis Arthur Grimes School of Law. After passing the bar, the graduate is admitted as an Attorney-at-Law. Only after years of active practice can an attorney petition the Supreme Court to be admitted as a Counsellor-at-Law. The Court has cited a five-year practice requirement for that petition. Candidates are then examined by committees of senior lawyers.

Can someone be a Counsellor-at-Law at 30? On paper, yes, but only with an unusually early start. A lawyer who finishes a first degree at 21, completes law school by 24 and is admitted to the bar at 25 could, after five years of practice, petition at about 30. Most Liberian lawyers reach that point in their mid-thirties or later.

Because of the seven-year practice requirement, the earliest realistic age for appointment to the Supreme Court is the early-to-mid thirties. No Liberian president has come close. Liberia’s justices have generally been appointed in their fifties or sixties, after long careers as judges, government lawyers or senior practitioners. Mr. Kanneh, the youngest on the current bench, will serve until 2041, which suggests he was appointed in his early fifties.

So for lawyers aged 30 to 45, the honest answer is: not soon. With the bench likely to be filled by 2029, the next wave of scheduled vacancies may not come until the late 2030s and 2040s. Today’s young counsellors who build strong careers as judges, scholars or advocates may be the leading candidates then. A president could choose to appoint a younger justice sooner, but that would break with long practice, and the Senate would have to agree.

A test of institutions, not just appointments

Mr. Boakai did not create this calendar; the Constitution and the birthdates of sitting justices did. How he uses it is a choice. He can pick nominees known for independence and legal skill, from a range of backgrounds and regions, and give the Senate time for real scrutiny. Or the appointments can be seen as political rewards. The first path would strengthen a Court that Liberians and Liberia’s international partners increasingly rely on to settle political disputes.

For a country that rebuilt its institutions after 14 years of civil war, the Supreme Court is one of its most important achievements. The next five appointments, more than any single ruling, will decide whether the Court stays a check on power or becomes an extension of it.

MONROVIA – A 63-year-old resident of Monrovia’s Airfield area will spend the coming weeks in the Monrovia Central Prison awaiting sentence. On Friday, Criminal Court “E” found him guilty of statutory rape and kidnapping of a 16-year-old boy who, according to the indictment, ran errands and did domestic work at his home.

By Rodney D. Sieh

Judge Wesseh Alphonsus Wesseh, Sr., sitting without a jury at the defendant’s own request, found Peter Bon Jallah guilty of statutory rape and kidnapping. He acquitted Jallah of gang rape, the most serious-sounding charge in the three-count indictment. The court ordered the Bureau of Probation Services at the Ministry of Justice to prepare a pre-sentence report “as soon as possible,” and suspended the matter until then.

The verdict closes one chapter of a case that has moved slowly through the system since the boy was found by the roadside in Sinkor on the night of January 3, 2026. It also raises questions about how such cases are prosecuted, what the split verdict means, and why a ruling of this weight was issued with its legal reasoning still unwritten.

What the State Alleged

According to the indictment returned by the Montserrado County Grand Jury in its February 2026 term, the abuse began in late 2025. Prosecutors alleged that on November 29 and December 24, 2025, Jallah lured the boy to his residence and sexually abused him there.

The indictment says the most serious episode began on New Year’s Day. Prosecutors alleged that after the boy played in a community football match, Jallah met him outside his fence and offered to take him to buy football boots. He told the boy to go home, bathe and come back. The boy returned and got into Jallah’s car.

Instead of a shopping trip, the indictment alleges, the boy was taken to a building in the Camp Johnson Road area. He was held there for three days, given noodles that made him dizzy, and abused repeatedly. Prosecutors alleged that two unidentified men took part.

On the night of January 3, the indictment says, the boy was hidden in the back of Jallah’s vehicle and left on the roadside on 15th Street, Sinkor. Private security guards found him and alerted his family. His mother and relatives took him to the John F. Kennedy Medical Center for examination.

Why Gang Rape Fell Away

The court’s ruling does not explain why Jallah was acquitted of gang rape. The two men named alongside him in the indictment were never identified, never arrested and never brought before the court. Jallah was severed from them and tried alone.

Gang rape by definition requires proof that more than one person took part. With the alleged accomplices still unknown, the prosecution may simply have been unable to prove their involvement to the court’s satisfaction. That is an inference, not a finding. The court has not yet said why. Each of the three findings ends with the same note: “legal citations are pending.”

That phrase matters. The public, the defense and any appellate court now have the outcome without the reasoning. Until the full opinion is filed, it is impossible to say which evidence the judge found credible and which he set aside.

A Long Road to Trial

The case was first filed before Criminal Assizes Court “A” before being transferred to Court “E.” Court “E” is Liberia’s specialized court for sexual and gender-based violence. Jallah was arraigned on June 18, 2026, pleaded not guilty, and chose a bench trial.

The trial then stalled. The prosecution’s motion for a change of venue was denied. Prosecutors went to the Supreme Court seeking a writ of certiorari, which the Justice in Chambers also denied, and the case was ordered to proceed. It stalled again when the court’s regular term expired before evidence could be taken. Hearings finally began on August 5 under a reassigned judge.

The record shows a heavily contested trial. The prosecution called 13 witnesses, including the boy himself and police officers, plus six rebuttal witnesses. The defense called eight witnesses, including Jallah himself. It also subpoenaed three institutions: the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, the mobile operator Orange, and the JFK Medical Center. The Orange subpoena suggests phone records were part of the defense’s case.

The Wider Picture

The case is unusual in one important way: the victim is a boy. Liberia’s 2005 rape law amendment made rape gender-neutral. Advocates nonetheless say sexual abuse of boys remains heavily under-reported, shadowed by stigma and the assumption that only girls are at risk. A conviction in a case involving a male child, especially one in which the accused held a position of trust and patronage over the victim, is rare in Liberia’s courts.

It also shows a familiar pattern. Prosecutors alleged that Jallah had small, everyday power over the boy, as an employer for errands and the man who could buy him football boots. Child-protection workers say that kind of power is often the doorway to abuse.

What Comes Next 

Jallah is remanded until the probation report is ready, after which the court will hand down its sentence. Under Liberian law, rape of a minor by an adult is a first-degree felony that can carry a sentence of up to life imprisonment. The defense is expected to have the right to appeal to the Supreme Court once judgment is entered.

For now, the boy’s family has a verdict. What it does not yet have, and what the public is owed, is the court’s written explanation of how it got there.

Monrovia — Thousands of students in school uniforms marched on Liberia’s legislature on Tuesday, chanting “We want to learn too.” They were protesting months of disruption in the public schools of the capital, Monrovia, where unpaid teachers have repeatedly walked out of classrooms.

By Rodney D. Sieh

The students’ anger has a paper trail. Liberia’s own 2026 budget documents show that the Monrovia Consolidated School System (MCSS), which runs the city’s public schools, receives US$7.23 million. That is 0.58 percent of a national budget the government celebrates as the largest in the country’s history.

The same documents show that schools in the system get US$65,000 a year for educational materials — less than they get for stationery. They also show that three-quarters of the money recorded as the system’s capital spending last year was booked against an airport, a Finance Ministry headquarters and electoral reform.

A billion-dollar milestone

Liberia, a West African nation of about 5.2 million people, is still rebuilding from 14 years of civil war that ended in 2003. Its national budget crossed US$1 billion for the first time this year. Lawmakers approved US$1.25 billion for 2026, up 41.9 percent from the year before, according to an analysis by the budget-monitoring group BudgIT.

President Joseph Boakai’s development plan, known as the ARREST Agenda, names six priorities. The “E” stands for education. The “A” stands for agriculture, which receives about 1.19 percent of the budget even though the Agriculture Ministry’s own target is 10 percent.

The Monrovia Consolidated School System was created by law in 1964 to run public schools in the capital and surrounding communities. Families who cannot afford private fees depend on it. It is where the gap between budget promises and classroom reality is easiest to see.

“Our patience must not be mistaken for weakness”

Tuesday’s march, organized by the MCSS Students Union, lasted more than two hours. It followed a 24-hour ultimatum that expired the same day. Students gathered between the University of Liberia and the Capitol, the seat of the legislature, and handed lawmakers a petition with four demands.

They want the government to carry out a March 27 agreement with the school system on teachers’ pay and status. They want an investigation into alleged intimidation of student leaders. They want the dismissal of an assistant superintendent, Emmanuel Kyne Robertson, whom they accuse of disrupting classes and threatening students. And they want a bigger school budget and more transparency in how it is spent. The allegations have not been independently verified.

“Our patience must not be mistaken for weakness,” the union wrote, “and our commitment to peace must not be used to justify continued inaction while students’ education remains at risk.”

The House of Representatives read the petition in plenary and gave its education and petitions committees one week to report back.

Hours after the march, the government said it would add the remaining 201 volunteer MCSS teachers to the national payroll from October. That brings the number of verified MCSS volunteers absorbed to 409. Back pay is promised one week after October salaries. Teachers’ demands for higher pay were deferred to a government-wide salary reform, for which no date was given.

Where the money goes instead

Education receives US$136.3 million in 2026, or 10.9 percent of the budget. Security and rule of law receive US$154.9 million, about US$18.6 million more than education. Debt service takes US$230 million, 1.7 times the entire education sector.

Capital spending tells a similar story. Of the US$289.7 million set aside for investment projects, education gets 5.3 percent. Roads and energy together take about 61 percent.

Then there is the legislature. The draft budget gave lawmakers US$51.7 million, up from US$41.3 million in 2024. Their travel, goods and services line alone rose to US$14.6 million.

Put differently: the legislature’s running costs for travel and supplies are 38 times what the capital’s public schools get to run their classrooms for a year.

Stationery over science

The school system’s own pages in the 2026 budget book show how little reaches the classroom.

Salaries take 67 percent of the MCSS budget. Capital projects take 28 percent. Everything needed to actually run schools — books, chalk, cleaning, repairs, fuel — gets 5.3 percent, or US$380,000 for a whole year.

Within that sliver:

• Educational materials: US$65,000, down 35 percent from US$100,000 in 2025. That is less than the US$70,000 budgeted for stationery.

• Laboratory supplies: US$5,000 for every science lab in the system, cut from US$25,000.

• Generator fuel: US$54,500, up from US$2,000 — a 27-fold increase. It now nearly equals the entire budget for learning materials.

• ⁠

The outlook gets worse, not better. The government’s own projections cut the system’s operating budget by another 44 percent in 2027, to US$212,112. Educational materials would fall to US$36,282.

The budget also files every dollar of the school system under a single program: “Administration and Management.” There is no separate line for teaching.

The system’s payroll of US$4.85 million covers 1,088 staff, an average of about US$372 a month. That figure includes non-teaching staff. The budget keeps that headcount frozen through 2028, even as hundreds of volunteer teachers are added to the payroll.

An airport, a ministry and an election law

The most striking entry is on page 294 of the budget book. It lists the school system’s estimated capital spending for 2025 at US$388,691.

Only US$94,320 of that — 24 percent — is labeled as school renovation. The remaining US$294,371 is recorded under projects with no apparent link to schools: electoral legal reform (US$117,865), support for small and medium enterprises (US$84,306), a new Finance Ministry headquarters (US$82,135) and an upgrade of Robert International Airport (US$10,065).

The budget book contradicts itself. Elsewhere it records the system’s 2025 capital spending as US$320,150, all on furniture and fixtures, and none under the investment plan at all.

The entries may reflect a coding error rather than diverted money. But either way, the official record of what Liberia spent on its capital’s schools cannot be trusted as published.

For 2026, the budget promises US$2 million for renovating and furnishing MCSS schools. The system’s own list of 2025 achievements, however, claims only that it completed the procurement process to renovate four campuses — not the renovations themselves.

A school system running on volunteers

In December, Finance Minister Augustine Kpehe Ngafuan returned to his old school in Monrovia and announced a 60 percent increase for the capital’s schools, including a US$2 million fund to fix them. On paper, the promise holds: the MCSS budget rose from US$4.52 million to US$7.23 million. Take out the US$2 million capital line, much of it not yet delivered, and the increase is about 16 percent.

The teacher shortage the students are protesting is national. The Education Ministry says Liberia relies on 6,198 volunteer teachers who work without government salaries. In October, the ministry said it had removed more than 1,000 teachers who had abandoned their classrooms from the payroll. Lawmakers have also pressed officials over the U.S.-dollar portion of teachers’ salaries, unpaid since October 2025.

A mid-year supplementary budget, approved in May, added US$7.25 million for education. About 73 percent of it goes to closing payroll gaps and absorbing volunteers — paying for the past rather than building classrooms. MCSS received US$514,510. That includes US$200,000 for its volunteer teachers, roughly US$995 for each of the 201 now being added.

That money is fragile. About nine of every ten dollars in the supplementary package came from the World Bank, not Liberian revenue. BudgIT warned that moving volunteers onto the payroll creates permanent salary costs a one-off top-up cannot sustain. Meanwhile, the government projects total spending will fall to US$1.02 billion in 2027.

The largest share of that mid-year package — 27.8 percent — went not to schools or clinics but to public administration. It included an ambassador’s residence lease in Accra and Independence Day celebrations.

Who lives on the budget

The students did not cite budget codes on Tuesday. But their demands — pay the teachers, fix the classrooms, show where the money goes — line up closely with what the government’s own figures reveal.

The pattern echoes agriculture. A government that puts farming first in its slogan gives it about 1 percent of the budget. A government that puts education among its pillars gives the capital’s public schools less than 1 percent, and less for learning materials than for stationery.

The House committees have until next Tuesday to report on the students’ petition. The salary reform teachers were promised has no start date. The 2027 budget, now being prepared, is projected to be smaller.

For the students who marched, the question is simpler than any budget table. When a country spends US$1.25 billion in a year, why are they still waiting for a teacher to show up?

MONROVIA – For most of this year, Jos Leijdekkers has lived in Liberia as a whisper. Security officers traded sightings no one could pin down: a convoy on the Bo Waterside road, a boat slipping down the coast from Freetown. Each time FrontPageAfrica asked for a name, a date or a document behind the talk, the answer came back the same.

By Rodney D. Sieh

“We couldn’t confirm because it was all ‘they-say,’” a member of Liberia’s Joint Security investigative team told FrontPageAfrica, speaking on condition of anonymity. “We have no confirmation based on our investigation. Jos knew both European and US officials were looking for him and Liberia was a no-go.”

But Liberia’s security establishment has not always treated Leijdekkers as rumour. FrontPageAfrica can now report that in July, days after the record cocaine seizure off the RIA Highway, a senior security official named the Dutch fugitive as the mastermind behind the attempt to traffic US$19 million worth of cocaine through Roberts International Airport on June 8. It was the first time a Liberian official had tied the country’s cocaine crisis directly to Leijdekkers. FrontPageAfrica has not independently verified the claim beyond the official’s account, and no charging document naming Leijdekkers has been made public.

On October 14, The Guardian newspaper in London went further. Its investigation, built on what it describes as dozens of interviews with intelligence and police officers on two continents, says Leijdekkers has turned Sierra Leone into the world’s first true narco state and built operating bases across the region, Liberia among them. It also attributes July’s record Liberian seizure, not the smaller airport shipment, to him.

Three accounts now sit side by side: an official who named him in July, an investigator who says his presence was never confirmed, and a foreign newspaper that says he was here and owned the biggest haul of all. They cannot all be fully right. Which one holds will shape the most consequential drug prosecution in Liberia’s history.

What Liberia Knew in July

The June 8 airport case was the first crack. Screeners at RIA flagged six cargo boxes declared as Maggi cubes and lappas. Inside were 198 compressed plates of cocaine, 237.6 kilograms in all, valued at about US$19.2 million and bound for London via Brussels Airlines.

Six weeks later, on July 21, a Joint National Security Investigative Task Force raided a compound on Cement Road in the VOA Community, off the RIA Highway. Investigators recovered 3,971 plates of cocaine, nearly four tonnes, which the State values at US$317.68 million. They also found diving suits, a firearm, GPS trackers, a drone and Starlink satellite equipment. Two foreigners were arrested at the scene: Johann David Garces Grajales, who carries Colombian and Spanish passports, and Srdan Seles, a Serbian national.

Justice Minister Oswald Tweh said at the time that the evidence pointed to a sophisticated, well-funded trafficking network that had operated in Liberia for more than six years. Inspector General of Police Gregory Coleman said both the June and July shipments entered Liberia from Sierra Leone. Within 48 hours of the raid, at least two senior officers of the National Security Agency and the Liberia National Police had been detained for questioning.

Even then, the case had loose ends. Colombia’s Honorary Consulate in Monrovia told FrontPageAfrica it had no record of Garces Grajales as a Colombian national and could not vouch for his passport. Reports at the time said the Liberia Immigration Service could not produce a record of his entry into the country. And investigators noted that the June and July shipments were packaged differently, an early sign that more than one network might be at work.

The Promises: An Indictment and a Dutch Team

The July official’s claim did not come alone. That same week, National Security Advisor Samuel Kofi Woods and Justice Minister Tweh met Dutch government officials in Accra, Ghana. The two sides agreed that the Netherlands would send a team to Liberia in August. Two senior government officials told FrontPageAfrica that Liberia was preparing an indictment against Leijdekkers, treading carefully because of his ties to the Sierra Leonean government.

Three months later, neither commitment is visible on the public record. The Ministry of Justice has not said whether the Dutch team arrived or what it found. No indictment naming Leijdekkers has been filed in any Liberian court. Inspector General Coleman promised in July to pursue suspects abroad through extradition and mutual legal assistance; FrontPageAfrica has seen no request to Freetown or The Hague.

Instead, the cases moved in other directions. In August, prosecutors charged former Vice President Jewel Howard-Taylor in connection with the US$317 million seizure. On October 7, a 55-page indictment named her, former NSA deputy director Gerald Folley Smith, former airport operations chief Mark Kuiah and others. All are presumed innocent. Leijdekkers’ name appears in neither the airport indictment nor the VOA indictment.

‘They-Say’: The Presence Question

The Joint Security source and the July official are not necessarily contradicting each other. One is talking about where Leijdekkers was. The other is talking about whose network moved the cocaine.

A trafficker of Leijdekkers’ reach does not need to set foot in Liberia to run cocaine through it. His operation works through proxies, corrupt port workers and a small circle of trusted lieutenants, keeping the boss far from the product. The investigator’s point is narrower: Liberian agencies never established that he entered the country.

The Dutch appeared to believe he did, or planned to. In May, De Telegraaf reported that Dutch special forces twice came close to seizing Leijdekkers in international waters off Sierra Leone as he travelled by boat to Liberia. Both operations were called off at the last minute; one, according to Omroep Brabant, because he never left Sierra Leone. Dutch prosecutors would neither confirm nor deny the account. If the Dutch had intelligence that Liberia was his destination, it is fair to ask whether that intelligence was shared with Monrovia, and what the promised August team brought with it.

What the Guardian Adds

The Guardian’s Liberia claims are brief, but each lands on a raw nerve in Monrovia:

* A base in Liberia. The report says Leijdekkers has established operating bases in Liberia, Guinea-Bissau and, most recently, Ghana.

* Diplomatic passports and an open border. It says he and his men move around the region on diplomatic passports, and cites witnesses who describe Liberian police applauding his convoy as it crossed the border.

* Ownership of the record haul. It describes the nearly four tonnes found near Monrovia on July 21 as Leijdekkers’ cocaine.

* Presence on the eve of the bust. It says sources reported that he returned to Freetown from Liberia the day before the July bust was announced, and that the same sources recognised the man arrested with the Monrovia cocaine as someone seen with Leijdekkers in Freetown.

The report quotes a Dutch official warning that “the entire West Africa region is at risk.” It does not say whether Liberian authorities were asked to comment on these claims, and none is quoted. Its sourcing, on Liberia as on Sierra Leone, is largely anonymous intelligence and police officers. Leijdekkers’ lawyer has dismissed the allegations as politically driven. The Guardian reports that Leijdekkers is married to Agnes Bio, daughter of Sierra Leone’s President Julius Maada Bio, while stressing there is no suggestion the president is implicated in any illegal activity linked to him.

Where the Accounts Collide

The sharpest problem is not whether Leijdekkers entered Liberia. It is which cocaine was his.

In October, Liberian investigators told FrontPageAfrica they had found no connection between the US$19 million airport case and the US$317 million VOA case. The airport pipeline, they say, ran Sierra Leone–Liberia–United Kingdom/Netherlands, moving cocaine out by commercial airfreight under false declarations. That fits the July official’s account, which placed Leijdekkers behind the airport shipment.

The VOA case, as laid out in the October indictment, is a different operation: cocaine landed from the Atlantic in May, a fishing business and a front airline as cover, and protection allegedly bought from senior Liberian officials. Investigators describe its route as Colombia–Brazil–Liberia–Ghana–Eastern Europe–Dubai.

The Guardian attributes the VOA haul to Leijdekkers. Liberia’s investigators do not. There are three ways to read the gap. The Guardian’s sources may have folded Liberia’s two seizures into one story, as many Liberians did for months. Liberian investigators may have drawn the line between the two networks too neatly. Or the networks may be separate on paper but connected at the top, with Leijdekkers or his associates touching both.

One thread makes the third reading hard to dismiss. In September, FrontPageAfrica reported that investigators had traced four Balkan-linked operatives tied to Liberia’s drug trade, including one named Seleš, to multiple visits to Freetown, with what officials described as strong indications of ties to Leijdekkers. Srdan Seles, the Serbian arrested at the VOA compound, shares that name. The Guardian says the man arrested with the Monrovia cocaine was seen with Leijdekkers in Freetown. Whether these refer to the same man is a question Liberian investigators can answer, and so far have not.

The official account has also shifted on how the VOA cocaine came ashore. In July, investigators told FrontPageAfrica it was run in by speedboat and canoe at Robertsport, Grand Cape Mount County, about 10 miles from the Sierra Leone border, with divers in wetsuits bringing it in from the water. The October indictment places the landing on the Po River at Royesville, in Bomi County. Either the cocaine moved through both, or the State revised its account. Defence lawyers will want to know which.

How the Report Changes the Investigation

1. Silence is no longer an option. Until now, Liberian officials could treat Leijdekkers as speculation in public while naming him in private. A major international newspaper has now stated on the record that Liberia’s biggest drug haul belonged to him and that Liberian police cheered his convoy. If that is false, the Liberia National Police, the Liberia Drug Enforcement Agency and the Ministry of Justice need to say so, with reasons. If it is true, they need to explain why their own investigators say they found nothing.

2. The Accra commitments are now a test. The July meeting in Accra produced two promises: a Dutch team in August and an indictment against Leijdekkers. The Guardian report makes both a matter of public interest. If the Dutch came and shared intelligence, Liberians are entitled to know what the State did with it. If the indictment was shelved, they are entitled to know why.

3. The border and immigration questions are now specific. The claim that police applauded a convoy at the border, and that the network travels on diplomatic passports, points to named institutions: border police, the Liberia Immigration Service and whoever authorises diplomatic courtesies at entry points. The State still has not publicly explained how Garces Grajales entered Liberia without a record. Inspector General Coleman has already named officers he says took about US$5,000 each to escort a cocaine landing. The Guardian’s claim widens that circle.

4. The prosecution has a new vulnerability. The State’s theory in the VOA case is a Latin American and Balkan network shielded by Liberian insiders. A credible public claim that the same cocaine belonged to a Dutch kingpin operating from Freetown is a gift to defence lawyers looking for doubt, as is a landing site that moved from Robertsport to Royesville. Liberia has been here before. In 2022, officials found 520 kilograms of cocaine, worth about US$100 million, at the Sonit compound in Monrovia; a jury acquitted all four defendants in May 2023, a judge ordered US$200,000 in seized cash returned, and the men left the country. Weak chains of custody, thin forensics, and trouble proving who owned the cargo sank that case. This one is eight times heavier.

5. Liberia’s reputation is now tied to Freetown’s. Europe is already tightening scrutiny of passengers from Liberia and Sierra Leone on Brussels-bound flights. Ghana has arrested men accused of representing Leijdekkers’ network after French customs seized nearly 3.9 tonnes of cocaine in Dunkirk. A suspect linked to Liberia’s case was arrested in Accra at Liberia’s request and then reportedly vanished. Every week Liberia spends unable to say clearly what it knows makes it easier for partners to treat Monrovia and Freetown as a single problem.

The Questions That Remain

* Did the Dutch team arrive in August, and what intelligence did it share on Leijdekkers’ links to Liberia?

* Is the indictment against Leijdekkers still being prepared, or has it been set aside?

* What evidence led a senior security official to name him as the mastermind of the June airport shipment?

* Is Srdan Seles the same man investigators traced to Freetown, and has anyone placed him with Leijdekkers?

* Did the VOA cocaine land at Robertsport, Royesville or both?

* Has the Liberia Immigration Service checked entry records at the Sierra Leone border for the dates the Guardian’s sources cite, including the eve of the July 21 bust?

* Will the Ministry of Justice publicly respond to the Guardian’s claim that the US$317 million haul was Leijdekkers’ cocaine?

Myth or Map?

Liberia’s security establishment has said two things about Jos Leijdekkers this year. In private, a senior official named him as the hand behind the airport shipment, and colleagues spoke of an indictment. On the investigative team, he remains “they-say.” The truth may sit between: a man who never crossed into Liberia himself, but whose money, people and cocaine did.

What has changed is the cost of not knowing. A rumour can be ignored. A published claim that Liberian police cheered Europe’s most wanted trafficker across the border cannot. The Guardian has done what months of whispers could not: it has made Leijdekkers Liberia’s question to answer, in public.

Jos Leijdekkers has not been charged with any crime in Liberia and, through his lawyers, denies the allegations against him. All defendants named in this report are presumed innocent unless proven guilty by a court of competent jurisdiction.

Monrovia – A top legal officer at the Liberian Senate could soon take home US$2,920 a month. That is roughly 20 times what the law guarantees an unskilled Liberian worker, and the raise alone, US$1,216 a month, is more than eight months of minimum wage.

By Rodney D. Sieh

The figure is contained in a proposal from the Senate Committee on Rules, Order and Administration (ROA), seen by FrontPageAfrica. It asks Senate leadership to set aside US$792,552 in the Fiscal Year 2027 budget to raise salaries for 224 Senate employees and hire four new maintenance staff.

The proposal lands as the Executive prepares to send the FY2027 budget to the Legislature by the October 31 deadline, and as ordinary Liberians struggle to put rice on the table.

What the Senate Committee Wants

Committee chairman J. Gbleh-bo Brown of Maryland County forwarded the proposal to President Pro Tempore Nyonblee Karnga-Lawrence on October 12, five days after the committee signed it. Six of seven committee members signed; Senator Augustine Chie’s signature line is blank.

Most of the money, US$554,712, would go to the 174 personal staff working in 29 senators’ offices. Another US$199,320 covers 50 civil servants in Central Administration, and US$38,520 would hire four new maintenance workers.

The Senate Pay Raise Proposal at a Glance.

The committee says the plan will “promote harmony” and align Senate pay with comparable jobs in the Executive Branch, in line with the National Remuneration Standardization Act of 2019. It also asks that remaining staff be reviewed in the FY2028 budget, signalling more requests to come.

Life Outside the Capitol

For most Liberians, the numbers in the Senate proposal belong to another world. The legal minimum wage for an unskilled labourer is US$5.50 a day, and US$3.50 for a domestic worker, rates unchanged since 2015. Labour Minister Cooper Kruah has had to warn security firms paying guards as little as US$75 a month, about half the legal floor.

The hardship is measured, not imagined:

* Roughly half of Liberians live below the national poverty line, and analysts project it could reach 51 percent this year.

* About 52 percent live in multidimensional poverty, according to the World Food Programme.

* Nearly five in ten households spend more than 65 percent of their income on food alone, the government’s own food security survey found.

* About one in three Liberians is undernourished, and 30 percent of young children are stunted.

* Liberia grows less than a third of the rice it eats, leaving families exposed to every swing in import prices.

Public workers who keep schools and clinics running are not spared. Lawmakers this year summoned education and health officials over teachers whose US-dollar pay had gone unpaid since October 2025. Nurses are now demanding a US$500 monthly minimum, less than a fifth of the Legal Counsel’s proposed salary.

Put another way, the US$792,552 the committee wants could pay 440 civil servants at the US$150 government floor for a full year, or 132 nurses at the salary they are asking for.

Biggest Raises Go to the Top

The committee’s own document quotes the 2019 Act’s goal of narrowing “the inequality gap in government.” Its numbers do the opposite: the higher the job, the bigger the raise.

The Legal Counsel’s pay would jump 71 percent, from US$1,704 to US$2,920 a month. Directors would get 56 percent and Chiefs of Office Staff 47 percent. At the bottom, Executive Secretaries would get 17 percent, and Technical Supervisors just 7 percent.

Today the Legal Counsel earns about US$1,150 a month more than an Executive Secretary. Under the proposal, that gap nearly doubles to about US$2,270. The secretary’s raise is US$96; the lawyer’s is US$1,216.

The single largest line is the 29 Chiefs of Staff in senators’ offices, whose raises alone cost US$166,692 a year. Personal staff, hired by and loyal to individual senators, take 70 percent of the total package.

A Budget That Only Grows

The proposal asks for new money. It does not say what the Senate would cut to pay for it.

The Senate’s budget rose from about US$14.6 million to a proposed US$16.4 million for FY2026, according to figures cited by the staff association. The Legislature as a whole was allocated US$51.7 million in the draft FY2026 budget, up from US$41.3 million in 2024. That is nearly four times the US$13.7 million set aside for agriculture, in a country that cannot feed itself.

Senators themselves earn US$8,000 a month each, the figure carried in the draft FY2026 budget. A bill to cut that to US$5,000, first introduced by Senator Abraham Darius Dillon in 2020, has stalled for years and, when it resurfaced, met open murmurs of resistance. Senators’ combined salaries exceed US$3 million a year.

A Senate that will not trim its own pay is now asking taxpayers to fund raises of up to 71 percent for its staff, while asking nothing of itself.

The Staffers Have a Case

Senate employees are not the villains of this story. The Liberian Senate Staffers Association says salaries have not moved “even a dime” since 2015, while the Senate’s budget has grown every year. Last December, staff protested and threatened to sue the Senate for ignoring the 2019 Act it passed.

Their complaint mirrors that of teachers, nurses and civil servants across government: eleven years of rising prices on a frozen wage. President Joseph Boakai said in September, after domestic revenue crossed US$1 billion for the first time, that civil servants should see the reversal of salary harmonization cuts.

The question is not whether Senate workers deserve better. It is whether the Senate should move its own staff to the front of the line, at these rates, before the teacher in Gbarpolu or the nurse in River Gee.

Questions the Proposal Does Not Answer

A close reading of the document raises issues the full Senate should settle before voting:

1. Where are the benchmarks? The plan says it aligns Senate pay with “similar positions” in government, but names no Executive salary it is matching. Why is a Senate Legal Counsel worth US$2,920?

2. Which branch? The cover letter cites the Executive Branch only; the proposal itself cites the Executive and Judiciary.

3. What did fuel cost? The committee says it has already standardized fuel and gas benefits for directors, secretaries, drivers and others, but discloses no amounts.

4. Who filled the Maintenance Department? The committee calls it a “dumping ground” with many staff and few skills. It proposes four new hires, but not what happens to those already there, or who put them there.

5. Do the numbers add up? The proposal’s table shows a US$152 raise for the Procurement Analyst; the arithmetic, and the committee’s own spreadsheet, show US$138. The objectives even promise to improve staff “inefficiency.”

6. Why not reallocate? The Senate’s budget has grown by about US$1.8 million in a single year. The proposal does not explain why raises cannot come from within it.

7. ⁠

Bread Before Butter

The Senate is right that pay across government should follow a fair, published scale. That is exactly what the 2019 Act demands. But fairness that starts at the top of the Capitol and works down rarely reaches the market woman in Red Light or the volunteer teacher still waiting for a payroll slot.

If the Senate wants to lead on standardization, it could start where the Act points: lift the lowest-paid first, publish the Executive benchmarks, fund raises from its own growing budget, and finally vote on the bill to cut senators’ salaries. A raise that narrows the gap would win public support. One that widens it, in a year when families are skipping meals, will be read for what it is.

The FY2027 budget will show whether Liberia’s lawmakers have heard the bread-and-butter cries of the people they represent.