Joseph Nyuma Boakai still believes that the former President, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, could have done much, much more during the governance of the Unity Party.
According to Boakai who served as Vice President to Johnson Sirelaf, lots of opportunities were squandered during the party’s 12 years leadership. He admitted that Johnson-Sirleaf could have used the enormous support given her government as the first female president in Africa to deliver effectively in key sectors of Liberia.
“I am not saying we didn’t do anything, but we could have done much, much more and that is why I said we squandered opportunities. We could have done more on roads, we could have done more to dislodge the young people that followed Weah,” the former Vice President noted.
These comments were made recently on a local talk show in Monrovia. Boakai claimed the UP regime under the watchful eyes of Johnson-Sirleaf could have provided training opportunities to the young people of Liberia on grounds that those young people, at the time, were looking for opportunities to be trained. Boakai, the standard bearer of the Unity Party, asserted that Ellen government should have made a possible outcome from the visit of United States senior diplomat, Nancy Pelosi, who came to Liberia and promised to have lighted Liberia.
However, presidential aid Sekou Kalasco Damaro see the statement from the former Vice President as “deception” and “an attempt to seek sympathy” from the Liberia populace.
He added: “With over 20 billion in foreign direct investment and other donors’ contributions to Liberia, the Unity Party failed to translate those into opportunities for Liberia and its people, by deliberately ignoring the plight of the young people.”
“This is guilt by admittance, the inability of Boakai and the Unity Party to provide those opportunities in 12 years will also be accounted for in 2023, while Weah’s massive transformation made in education and health, road construction and housing, and other social development programs impacting the lives of the Liberian people positively will be provided to the electorates,” he wrote.
Boakai also performed supervisory functions over a number of institutions and agencies, including the Liberia National Lotteries (LOTTO), the Liberia Marketing Association (LMA), the Liberia Agency for Community Empowerment (LACE) and the National Commission on Disarmament, Demobilization Resettlement and Reintegration (NCDDRR).
