Former President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has thrown jibes at President George Weah and Veep Jewel Howard-Taylor during the state funeral held for former President Amos Claudius Sawyer on Saturday, April 2 in Monrovia.
Though she did not call names but as leaders of a country whatever is going wrong or right, one must take full responsibility which background this may have prompted or drawn strong criticisms from the former President.
During the state funeral of former President Sawyer, it was observed mainly among keen observers including the former President of the limited number of foreign dignitaries in attendance, seems not to have gone down well.
Nigeria’s former President, Goodluck Jonathan, and a Representative of the Coalition for Dialogue and Independent (CDI) of Amazonia (English speaking South and Western Cameroonians) group seeking succession from French speaking Cameroun, and the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) were the only foreign guests who paid tributes.
But Johnson-Sirleaf in a short and strongly worded tribute attributed to the small attendance of foreign guests during former President’s State Funeral due to the “darkness” of the Roberts International Airport (RIA).
“Our government must take keen note of the limited number of foreign guests’ presence is because of the darkness of the Roberts International Airport where there has been no electricity for sometimes now,” she noted.
The former President advanced further that no dignitary (ies) desiring of attending such state functions of a former President would like to land at an international airport in darkness.
Her comments then got the audience murmuring to the extent that the master of ceremony had to call for perfect decorum to enable the former President to continue with her tribute on the late President’s mortal remains.
Besides the RIA darkness, President Sirleaf also commented on the government’s inability to get the policy house called the Governance Commission (GC) once headed by the late President Sawyer for 10 years.
She stated among many other things that it is from the Governance Commission during Sawyer’s tenure that gave birth or blended the Ministries of Finance and Economic Affairs to Finance and Development Planning; Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission (LACC), Law Reform Commission (LRC), the decentralization programme among others.
In her tribute, Sirleaf said Sawyer was a strong pillar of Liberia and global politics as he was the rallying point for all organizations, institutions and individuals that came in contact with him for knowledge-seeking, based on him and others’ advocacies or works for almost 5 decades.
“Though, I was not a member of the Movement for Justice in Africa which Sawyer and others founded and was the driving force behind the achievement of a multi-party system in our country, but I support MOJA’s aims and objectives as a Pan-African body,” Ellen noted.
She noted further that MOJA supported the political struggle and independence of many countries, not only on the African continent but globally and all of these were the relentless brave work of sawyer and others for which they must be accredited.
Sawyer, who was buried at Kaiser Memorial Lawn in Brewerville outside the capital, Monrovia, died on Wednesday, February 16,2022 in the United States following a period of sickness.
He was founding member of MOJA, and founding Chairman of the Liberian People’s Party (LPP). He once served as chairman of the Political Science Department of the University of Liberia (UL) before during the course of the Liberian civil war and headed the Interim Government of National Unity (IGNU) from 1990-1994.
Meanwhile, the government has named the Liberia College of the University of Liberia the Amos Claudius Sawyer College of Social Sciences and Humanities.
Foreign Minister Dee Maxwell Saah Kameyah made the pronouncement on behalf of the government during the state funeral of the former President.