MONROVIA – Rodney D. Sieh, one of Liberia’s most accomplished journalists, will on Saturday, March 11, 2023 present the world with his new book entitled “The Unofficial Biography of George Weah –the Story of Africa’s Footballer President.”
By Selma Lomax, [email protected]
Giving an inkling into the kind of accounts readers should expect, Sieh, Managing Editor of the FrontPageAfrica newspaper, Thursday said his book details the life and times of the one-time world’s footballer of the year, his journey from the soccer pitch to politics, and how he has governed in his first six years of his presidency.
“One of the things about writing this book was to talk to people who had been at odds with President George Weah to understand what they thought about him, and James Debbah, his one-time rival, was one person I reached out to explained to me what he knows about the president’s willingness to forgive,” Sieh said during his appearance on the BBC’s Focus on Africa.
Asked whether President Weah still has a loving relationship with the youthful voters who have consistently put their hopes and faith in him, Sieh added. “The thing about George Weah is he has a lot of youth vibrant around him, and that’s been helping him a lot. But you can’t put less emphasis on how much suffering people are going through in the country. People are complaining everyday there is no food, they can’t put their kids in school. The ordinary people feel the government needs to do more. It’s just difficult how you navigate yourself around the fact that how he’s a populist and these things are following him.”
“He does inspire kids who saw him come from the dirt in New Kru Town, Logan Town and Gilbratar and rose to become a great player, but when they look around their community they see people suffering, and they wonder why.. The contradiction is just glaring for all to see, I think he doesn’t have the political will to change the lives of the ordinary people,” he added.
Sieh’s effort is a product of a four-year research and writing, including traveling across Africa, Europe, the Americas and the Caribbean.
Asked whether he interviewed President Weah for contents, Sieh said: “I tried for months to interview the president but it didn’t materialize as I was informed by one of his aides that the president had said the time wasn’t right to tell his story.”
whetAlthough he did not get “Mr. Weah’s blessings” to write a book about him, because the latter “felt it wasn’t the right time to tell his story,”
Sieh said he gathered his contents through interviews with former teammates, peers, political allies and nemeses.
The book is structured around twenty-seven (27) chapters, from “Prophecy” [of the destiny man] in chapter one to “‘Forgive Me’” [because the sports pitch is when I came from to this honorable office] in chapter 27. Individually each chapter with its telling title brings to light a key period or episode or decision point in the life of George Weah. Collectively the chapters tell a fuller story of the boy from slum community of Gibraltar in Monrovia to Cameroon, to Monaco, to FIFA World Best, to the Liberian Senate, and, ultimately, to the Presidency.