THE BRUTAL 2023 PRESIDENTIAL elections are long gone. Joseph Nyumah Boakai, after a season of political discontent is limping toward the end of his first month in office, with actions resembling his predecessor, he and his Unity Party blamed for throwing Liberia back to the dog days.
THE PRESIDENT WAS CLEAR in his inaugural address when he declared: “We see hard times, we see disfunction, we see culture of impunity, we see corruption in high and low places. It is these and similar conditions that we have come to RESCUE.”
THE NEWLY MINTED PRESIDENT said all the right things, pushed all the right buttons and seemed to be aware of what Liberia wanted and where it needs to be going.
AS WITH MOST politicians, President Boakai pledge on his inauguration day that he would act in the first hundred days of his administration, and then diligently pursue his party’s rescue mission.
SAID THE PRESIDENT of his predecessor: “We were initiating false starts, building on poor foundations. We were deepening our differences, creating new social fault lines. Inclusive and accountable governance was at an all-time low. We created a culture of unfinished business, engaged in ad hoc undertakings, making this behavior the “new normal.” We were chevaliers about the rule of law. We lowered standards in many domains of our common life as a people. We seem to have lost our way, lost hope.
IRONICALLY, SINCE assuming the presidency, President Boakai appears to be following a familiar refrain from Liberia’s recent past, drawing shady and tainted characters to his government and lowering the bar, even lower than the one he inherited.
THE APPOINTMENT OF Rudolph Merab, who was a key business partner to former President Charles Taylor as head of the Forestry Development Authority (FDA) raises a lot of red flags for a government preaching change.
AS ONE OF THE LEADING LOGGERS of the Taylor era, Merab is one of those barred from doing any logging business in Liberia. Between 1989 and 2003, Merab’s company, Liberia Wood Management Corporation (LWMC), was the subject of international reports and was an issue during ex-President Taylor’s war crimes trial.
ACCORDING TO THE regulation, wartime loggers are required to file a sworn statement with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), admit their illegal activities and cooperate with the FDA to recover funds the government lost due to their illegal activities. However, the regulation is silent on whether or not a wartime logger is eligible to head the agency.
MERAB, WHO IS A LONG-TIME friend of President Boakai from their days at the College of West Africa and the Rotary Club, does not meet the requirement of the job as part of the FDA Act which requires the head of the agency to be “professionally educated in forestry.” Merab’s degree in physics.
THE RECENT APPOINTMENT of Cllr. Cooper Kruah as Attorney General also raised questions about President Boakai’s judgement of characters.
KRUAH WAS FOUND guilty by the Grievance and Ethics Committee of the Supreme Court and liable for theft of money in violation of the Code of moral and Professional Ethics of lawyers in Liberia.
ADDITIONALLY, in a September 2016 Amicus Brief by Cllr. Tiawan Gongloe, who was appointed to the case, it was requested that Kruah be ordered to account for the money or face suspension from the practice of law. The brief emphasized the need to protect the integrity of the legal profession based on the facts and circumstances of the case. Another disconcerting revelation suggests that Kruah, while working as a lawyer for MARDCO between 2009 and 2012, received a significant sum of money on behalf of the company but failed to fully account for it. These allegations have led to claims that Kruah is indebted to MARDCO in the amount of US$58,814.08, as confirmed by the company to President Boakai and Vice President Koung.
EVEN PRESIDENT WEAH, when confronted with a similar situation involving Charles Gibson, the nominee for Attorney General, did the right thing by withdrawing the nomination amid public outcries. This is the Weah, that the current ruling party came to rescue Liberia from – and rescue it must.
THEN LAST WEEK, the President, at the urging of his Vice President Jeremiah Koung, appointed Daniel Johnson as Secretary General of the Roberts Flight Information Region.
JOHNSON was indicted on September 19, 2007, by a grand jury of a US District Court of Columbus for allegedly diverting US$240,000 of the IRC’s money into his personal account. According to the US court record, Mr. Johnson served as Project Accountant for the IRC in Monrovia from June 2004 to July 2007 at which time the act was allegedly committed.
THE US GOVERNMENT SENT agents to Liberia to pursue Johnson and have him sent to America to join two other Liberians, Joe Bondo and Morris B. Fahnbulleh for trial in the United States District court on charges of Wire Fraud and Theft of Property.
AT THE TIME, Liberian prosecutors and defense attorneys debated the issues surrounding the case at the Monrovia Magisterial Court over the extradition of the defendant Johnson to the United States.
LIBERIAN PROSECUTORS argued that the crime of Theft of Property allegedly committed by defendant Johnson was not political, and as such, he should be flown to the U. S. to answer charges levied against him. The prosecutors further argued that a 1937 treat exits between Liberia and the USA.
PROSECUTORS ADDED that the Liberian government had met all requirements to extradite defendant Johnson. However, lawyers representing the defendant contended that their client cannot be tried under a foreign jurisdiction because the crime was allegedly committed in Liberia. The US had previously been successful in having Liberians extradited to the US for crimes committed in the US.
THE FIRST TWO years of any government are always the most important. It is for this reason that leaders who are serious about change put their best foot forward in the first two years in a bid to ensure that they get the best results.
WHAT PRESIDENT BOAKAI appears to be doing is following the pattern of his predecessor, President Weah, with a wave of appointments lacking experience, seriousness, and maturity.
EVEN MORE CONCERNING is the fact that the President and his supporters who trumpeted a campaign of rescuing Liberia from the ills of the past, declared his assets last week without making it public in the name of transparency and accountability.
SUPPORTERS OF THE PRESIDENT will argue that his predecessor, former President George Weah also declared his assets but did not make it public. So, where’s the change? What is the difference? Where is the rescue and who is really doing the rescue?
LAST WEEK, the Center for Transparency and Accountability in Liberia (CENTAL) while commending the President for taking positive actions geared toward promoting accountability, has urged the President to make his declaration public.
THE FACT OF THE MATTER IS, it is too early for President Boakai to begin straying off his promises to the Liberian people. The appointments so far do not suggest a government serious about rescuing Liberia. There are simply too many missteps happening too early. It seems the President has surrounded himself with a bunch of aides and supporters looking out for their own interests under the guise of rescuing Liberia.
PRESIDENT BOAKAI, LIKE his predecessor and many more before him must realize that Liberians voted for change, the voted against everything that was wrong during the past six years of the George Weah era. If change was trumpeted and preached about yesterday, it must also be trumpeted and preached about today. No one has monopoly over Liberia. This country belongs to everyone – and each and every Liberian has a stake in how the political story begins- and how it will end.
