MONROVIA – With only 21 days remaining until Liberia’s General and Presidential Elections, Senator Prince Johnson, a prominent ally of former Vice President Joseph Boakai from the Unity Party, has raised concerns about potential election interference by the ruling establishment and has threatened to fight back with arms in the cause of the people.
In a press conference held on Monday, the Nimba County Senator, sanctioned by the U.S. Department of Treasury for ‘Pay for Play’ and corruption, says the impressive turnout exhibited during the launch of the Unity Party campaign is an indication of the people’s resolve to remove President George Weah from power.
“Before the October elections, Liberians are coming out under the banner ‘Don’t Try It’ – any attempt, the people’s power would be exercised like the Arab Spring. You’ll shoot your gun; you’ll kill us or you’ll die. No more fear, Liberians don’t have fear anymore,” Sen. Johnson said.
The Arab Spring or the First Arab Spring was a series of anti-government protests, uprisings, and armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s. It began in Tunisia in response to corruption and economic stagnation.
Sen. Johnson’s statement re-echoes Amb. Boakai’s emphatic declaration of his preparedness to resist rigging of the October 10 elections.
He made the statement in his message during the launch of his campaign on Sunday.
Boakai noted that he is ready to work with international prosecutors to expose and arrest those who would foster electoral violence and derail our hard-won peace.
Boakai also took some solace in the recent statement made by the United States government regarding safeguarding the integrity of these elections. He said, “While we welcome the imposition of sanctions on those who would attempt to thwart the will of the Liberian people, we call on ECOWAS, the United States, the European Union, the African Union, and organizations such as the International Foundation for Electoral System (IFES) to fully, thoroughly, and actively engage the process now to avert any threat that will undermine these elections by acknowledging and understanding the significance of identifying and combating any attempts to undermine this fundamental aspect of our society.”
The Nimba County Senator, who prides himself as the ‘godfather’ of the vote-rich party, was an ardent supporter of Pres. George Weah until his sanctioning by the United States.
He says his reason for terminating his support for the Weah-led government was because the President had failed to make true his promises to the people of Nimba by giving them prominent positions in his government.
This has also raised many questions about his support for Amb. Boakai of the Unity Party, especially with Boakai’s vice standard bearer being a member of Sen. Johnson’s political party – the Movement for Democratic Reconstruction (MDR).
However, he is on record for saying that a victory for Joseph Boakai would be an easy path for Nimba County to assume the Presidency since the 78-year-old standard bearer is too frail to run the affairs of the country and would, therefore, rely heavily on Senator Jeremiah Koung, his vice standard bearer, to handle his affairs.
During the civil war, Johnson was notorious for killing anyone who opposed or criticized his actions. When Hare Krishna devotees, who were distributing food to starving people in Monrovia in the midst of the chaos of the civil war, sent him a letter begging him to stop killing people, he personally orchestrated the murder of Hladini devi dasi—born Linda Jury—and five of her students on the bank of the Saint Paul River on the night of Thursday, 13 September 1990.
On September 9, 1990, Johnson’s supporters abducted President Samuel Doe from ECOMOG headquarters in the Monrovia port district. Doe was tortured and executed in Johnson’s custody on 9 September, with the spectacle videotaped and broadcast around the world. The video showed Johnson sipping a Budweiser beer and being fanned by an assistant as his men cut off Doe’s ear.
Johnson later denied killing Doe. Ahmadou Kourouma (who depicted Doe’s assassination in his novel Allah Is Not Obliged) also accused Johnson of war crimes in the form of the abduction and torture of several Firestone executives.
After Doe’s death, Johnson briefly claimed the presidency of Liberia. Johnson’s claim to power ended following the consolidation of rebel power under Charles Taylor. In an attempt by the weak national government to reconstruct Liberian politics, the INPFL was recognized at a conference held in Guinea, where Amos Sawyer was elected president.
