Boakai’s Two Faces: Preaching Peace Abroad, Practicing Exclusion at Home
- Michael T
- Oct 12
- 2 min read
On October 11, President Joseph N. Boakai stood before African leaders in Lomé and urged them to embrace forgiveness and dialogue. But in Monrovia, his administration’s actions have raised doubts about the sincerity of those ideals.
When former President George Weah returned to Liberia in February 2024, he and his wife were denied access to the newly built presidential VIP lounge at Roberts International Airport—a lounge dedicated just weeks before by Weah himself.
Orders from above, security staff confirmed, locked the door on Liberia’s former leader. Weah, who permitted ex-ministers to use the lounge during his own presidency, described the move as an unnecessary slight.
Tensions escalated in August 2025 when police and court sheriffs arrived before dawn to evict the opposition Congress for Democratic Change (CDC) from its headquarters in Congo Town. The court-ordered operation, backed by a ruling in favor of the Bernard estate after a lengthy legal dispute, ended the party’s twenty-year occupation. CDC officials condemned the timing and force of the police presence as politically motivated and unconstitutional. The government remained silent on the criticism, while CDC supporters watched their stronghold demolished and their protests ignored.
These incidents, coupled with ongoing allegations of political purges in the civil service and accusations of police overreach, have deepened concerns about exclusion and selective justice under Boakai’s rule. Independent reviews point to a pattern: campaign promises of reconciliation and inclusivity are overshadowed by acts that marginalize rivals and entrench executive power.
Boakai’s split-screen—calls for unity and dialogue abroad, exclusion and heavy-handedness at home—shows the fragile credibility of Africa’s “homegrown” solutions for regional peace.
“Africa’s leaders must reconcile their appeals for peace with the practice of inclusion,” said ECOWAS advisor Jean-Claude Ayité.
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