President Joseph Boakai, during his inaugural New Year address this week, stood before the nation and issued a stern, carefully calibrated appeal for a 'lowering of the temperature.' He spoke with the measured gravity of a seasoned statesman, calling for civility, restraint, and national unity in a country historically scarred by the embers of civil war. Yet, to those observing the calculated trajectory of his administration over the past two years, the plea felt less like a genuine olive branch and more like a performative act of breathtaking hypocrisy. For President Boakai to lecture the Liberian people on the necessity of calm in January 2026 is akin to a ship’s captain drilling holes into the hull and then scolding the passengers for the panic caused by rising, freezing waters.
The political climate in Liberia is not heating up by accidental or spontaneous combustion; it is burning because the Executive Mansion has spent the entirety of its tenure dousing the public square in high-octane gasoline. Let us be clear: this is not a matter of rogue officials acting beyond the purview of their leader. The political rot of the current administration begins at the head, in the quiet, mahogany-paneled corridors of the Executive Mansion. When a President observes his cabinet ministers assaulting journalists, witnesses his police force demolishing opposition headquarters, and watches as his partisans execute political rivals—all while keeping these figures firmly in power—he is no longer a bystander or a victim of circumstance.
He is a primary stakeholder in the chaos. If the President truly wishes to understand why Liberia feels like a powder keg on the brink of ignition, he need not look toward the opposition. He should look at the men sitting at his own dinner table. The Ministry of Information and Cultural Affairs (MICAT), theoretically the bridge between the government and the governed—an institution designed to foster transparency and discourse—has been systematically repurposed as an engine of intimidation.
Minister Jerolinmek Piah has consistently behaved less like a government spokesperson and more like the commander of a partisan militant wing, blurring the lines between state interest and party vengeance. We remain haunted by the events of September 2025 in Sanniquellie, Nimba County, where FrontPage Africa journalist Franklin Doloquee was assaulted after daring to ask a legitimate question regarding the Vice President’s whereabouts. Rather than fielding a standard, professional government response, Piah allegedly seized the journalist’s device and purged his digital records—a direct, primitive assault on the freedom of the press that recalls the darkest chapters of Liberia's history of information control. This was not an isolated incident; earlier in the year, Piah was accused of publicly berating a Blaze FM reporter in a Monrovia supermarket simply for the offense of requesting an interview.
Alongside him, Deputy Minister Daniel Sando has transformed the government podium into a theater of character assassination, launching vitriolic, ad hominem attacks on any citizen, civil society leader, or legislator who dares to hold the administration accountable. By retaining these men, President Boakai signals to the nation that the intimidation of the press and the slander of critics are not merely tolerated—they are state-sanctioned policy, codified by the silence of the Commander-in-Chief. While MICAT handles the war of words and the erosion of democratic norms, Police Inspector General Gregory Coleman manages the war of physical force. The President frequently invokes the 'rule of law' as a shield during international forums, yet his Chief of Police consistently operates under the rule of brute, partisan force.
The defining image of this administration’s vindictiveness remains the August 2025 demolition of the Congress for Democratic Change (CDC) headquarters. Under the pretense of a legal eviction, state police did not simply clear a property; they pulverized a political symbol. They razed the Munah Pelham Vocational Center and uprooted the iconic sycamore tree, erasing a physical and historical footprint of the opposition in a way that suggests a desire to rewrite history through destruction. This 'scorched earth' strategy expanded further when the Liberia National Police targeted the Solidarity and Trust for a New Day (STAND) movement, raiding their offices in May and conducting mass arrests of peaceful protesters in December.
When the Inspector General of Police acts as a private militia for the ruling party—demolishing political homes and silencing dissent—and the President remains silent, it is clear who is pulling the strings. In the context of Liberia’s fragile peace, such actions are not merely administrative; they are inflammatory provocations that threaten the stability of the entire Mano River Union region. History teaches us that when institutions meant to protect the peace become tools of political exclusion, the result is rarely stability. The human toll of this administration’s 'new' Liberia is littered with names that should be etched into the conscience of our democracy, serving as a reminder of the price of silence.
We think of Joshua Solomon, the fashion model and CDC partisan who died from internal injuries sustained during a brutal beating by Unity Party supporters in Sinkor, a death that remains unpunished by the very state that claims to uphold justice. We think of Momo Peters, hunted down and killed in Foya, the President’s own political stronghold, during partisan clashes that exposed the administration’s inability to maintain order even on its home turf. We think of the two protesters in Kinjor, shot down by state security forces in February 2024 while rightfully demanding better conditions at the Bea Mountain mining concession. In each of these cases, the machinery of justice has ground to a halt.
There have been no meaningful dismissals, no transparent prosecutions, and no institutional accountability. The President’s silence in the face of these atrocities is not 'calmness' or the restraint of a wise elder; it is explicit, cold-blooded consent. The double standard is glaring, and the Liberian public is no longer fooled by the performative rhetoric of the New Year. One cannot speak of national unity while simultaneously deploying state security to dismantle the infrastructure of the opposition.
The economic implications of this instability are equally dire. Foreign investment relies on the sanctity of the rule of law and the predictability of the political environment. By signaling that property rights—as seen in the CDC headquarters demolition—can be violated at the whim of the executive branch, Boakai is effectively spooking the very international partners he claims to be courting. Investors are watching the smoke, and they are wary of the arsonist holding the matches.
The social contract is fraying; when citizens see that their voices are met with the baton and their leaders with the brick, they lose faith in the ballot box. This disillusionment is the seedbed of radicalization and broader civil unrest. Mr. President, you cannot unleash Jerolinmek Piah to harass the media, authorize Gregory Coleman to dismantle the political opposition, and then stand at a podium to play the role of a peacemaker.
You demand that the populace lower its voice, even as your own ministers raise their fists to strike it down. The national temperature will not drop until you stop fueling the arsonists within your own cabinet. If you truly desire peace, prove it: terminate the bullies in the Information Ministry, purge the partisan elements within the Police High Command, and ensure the independent, transparent prosecution of those responsible for the violence inflicted on our citizens. Stop treating the state as a weapon of the party.
Until these fundamental steps are taken—until the actions of the Executive align with the platitudes of your speeches—your New Year’s message remains mere smoke. And the Liberian people, exhausted by broken promises and state-sponsored fear, are weary of choking on it. The path forward requires more than rhetoric; it requires the courage to clean your own house, Mr. President.
Failure to do so will define your legacy not as a unifier, but as the architect of a new, avoidable era of instability.
