President George Manneh Weah has used coded Liberian parlance to issue veiled threats against the life of Ambassador Lewis Brown, former Permanent Representative of Liberia to the United Nations. President Weah’s threats were contained in a sermon he delivered to the congregation of the Forkay-Klon Church on Sunday, October 2, 2022. Forkay-Klon is a church built by President Weah, and he preaches there during the worship service.
According to President Weah, Lewis Brown had told him that he was unfit to be President, but now he is President. “The same man (Lewis Brown) that we sacked from the Foreign Ministry in America said—and it’s very serious and I am going to say it—that ‘George Weah will not go to election’. Well, I want to tell him: He thinks he’s a rebel but other people crazy more than other people. You think your craziness is pass mark…No! Some people own, it pass more than mark,” President Weah said while delivering his sermon.
President Weah’s veiled threat against Ambassador Brown comes only a few weeks after Brown had declared support for the presidential bid of opposition political leader, Alexander Cummings, who heads the Collaborating Political Parties (CPP).
While endorsing Cummings to replace Weah in the 2023 general and presidential elections, which was broadcast on radio, Ambassador Brown accused the Weah Administration of “failures and disappointing the Liberian people”. He described President Weah as lacking the leadership needed to move Liberia forward.
Ambassador Brown pointed to the worsening economic hardships Liberians are facing daily, and the repeated international scandals the country’s image was sustaining under President Weah as reasons to reject his second term bid. “In only 5 years, President Weah has destroyed the country’s image and worsened the living condition of the people. He will therefore be a one-term President,” Ambassador Brown stated while endorsing Cummings.
However, it appears like Ambassador Brown’s view about the state of affairs under the Weah administration did not go down well with the Liberian leader, who has responded with what many describe as “words of threats”.
What is worrying about the President’s statement is that, under his administration, Liberia has seen a spate of mysterious killings and unsolved murders, including at least four auditors who were said to have been working on various accounts of the government. Recently, a member of the CDC and Representative of Montserrado County’s district #7, Solomon C. George, told the President to name him head of the Liberia National Police (LNP) so that he can oversee the “disappearance of opposition members” in the country. The President, who was in attendance when Representative George made the remarks, laughed and cheered for him, without cautioning him or reminding him of the security implication that his statement bears.
It can be recalled, also, that the Lord Mayor of the City of Monrovia and head of the ruling party’s Youth League, Jefferson Tamba Koijee, once warned of meeting opposition protests with “blood”.
The international community continues to warn against employing violence in the upcoming presidential and general elections slated for October 2023, but all seems to be landing on deaf ears. The Weah government has been variously accused of recruiting ex-combatants and former warring factions’ generals into the security sector, many believe, to target political opponents. The ruling party has also been called out for recruiting young people as militias. This, many say, is not a good sign for the country’s semi-mature democracy and weak security system, as his followers or Ambassador Brown’s critics could use the vulnerable statement to inflict harm on Brown and link the statement to the act.