Making Liberia a True Sweet Land of liberty for all Liberians

The Perspective
Atlanta, Georgia
October 1, 2022

The Principal and members of the faculty
The leadership and members of the Parents Teachers Association
Distinguished guests
Members of the Graduating Class
Other distinguished ladies and gentlemen

A day of graduation is a day of happiness for the graduates and their family members. Let me begin by thanking the administration of the school and members of the faculty for the great sacrifices made by them to prepare the students for this day. Also, I want to thank parents and guardians for the time and money that they spent on getting their children to reach this far on their educational journey. The best gift that a parent can give to his or her child is education. Education is the key to a better life. No matter the amount of money spent on a child, no matter the quality of education provided by a school, and the dedication of its teachers, if a student is not interested in education, the efforts of the parents and the school will go in vain. Therefore, I want to thank the students for cooperating with their parents and the school to make this day possible. Let me pause here and ask the parents, the school administration, teachers, and the students to all clap for themselves for this day. I thank you.

As great as graduation is, it is only the beginning of the educational process. Some of the graduates may choose to pursue a university education and some may decide to obtain technical school to develop their skills for the job market. Whatever direction a graduate here chooses, the parents and guardians will be required to spend additional money to get them through. However, it is getting financially hard for the parents in this country to afford to spend on their children’s education because of the increasing level of poverty. The difficulty imposed by the level of poverty that most families are facing these days is creating hopelessness, unhappiness, and despair. No Liberian can say today that Liberia is “a glorious land of liberty”, as our national anthem says. What is true about Liberia today is that it has become an inglorious land of liberty for thieves in public service. The thieves in public service are exercising the liberty to steal because the Government of Liberia will do nothing to them. This situation has made Liberia a bitter land of liberty for thieves and suffering for most Liberians. It has, therefore, become a compelling duty of every upcoming Liberian leader to come up with strategies that will make Liberia a sweet land of liberty for all Liberians.

Against this background, I have chosen to speak today on the topic: of “Making Liberia a sweet land of liberty for all Liberians.” In order for Liberia to be a sweet land of liberty for all Liberians the following steps must be taken:

1. In 2023 Liberians must elect a leader who is prepared to lead by example- a leader, in the words of Dr. Togba Nah Tipoteh, who walks the talk;
2. That leader must be someone who has a track record of respecting the rule of law and human rights;
3. That leader must be a Liberian who has an anti-corruption track record of working in the government of Liberia and resisting the temptation to be corrupt;
4. Liberians must collectively join their new leader to fight corruption by  virtually sweeping corruption from every government office in Liberia;
5. Liberians must elect candidates for the legislature and the presidency based on their plans for strengthening the rule of law, combating corruption, improving the economy, and providing social services such as free access to quality education for all Liberian children from kindergarten to twelve grade;   rehabilitating drug affected young people in the streets of Monrovia and other urban areas, and providing them technical skills, growing more rice and other food crops, providing cheap electricity and building more roads and maintaining them.

These five steps will lay the foundation for Liberia to be placed on the path of becoming a sweet land of Liberty for all Liberians. The most important step among the five steps is to elect a leader who leads by example. I want to conclude by leaving you a few words about leadership by example. Let me start with the family. If you are a father and you tell your children not to lie but you lie to others and your children get to know about it, they will follow your example. If you are a father and you steal from your workplace and bring it home, your children will follow your example. If you are a leader of a country, whatever you do is what your ministers and other officials of your government will do and not what you say. So, for example, if you become a president of a country and you steal, it is more likely that your ministers and other officials of your government will steal also. The negative effects of a president and his officials of government stealing are a poor educational system, poor health system, poor security, mass poverty, and mass hunger. Mass hunger leads to mass anger and mass anger leads to civil conflict. This is what led to a coup d’état on April 12, 1980, followed by 14 years of civil conflict that began on December 24, 1989.

In 2023, we Liberians must vote for politicians who have no history of stealing public money. We must not vote for bags of rice, bags of cement, or bundles of zinc provided by political investors and election-time humanitarians.

We must collectively say never again will they fool us during election time and steal from us for six years or nine years.
Government is a place to serve and not to steal.

I thank you.

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