The Liberian Tragedy Known As the George Manneh Weah Presidency

Posted November 19, 2022

By Tewroh-Wehtoe Sungbeh

A president who leaves his or her country and people for a month, a few days, or even a week during a crisis to embark on a self-centered foreign funfest tour when that president is needed at home to engage in crisis management to solve the nation’s problems, is a failed leader.

George Manneh Weah, the callous President who left Liberia in October to attend his son, Timothy Weah’s World Cup debut as a player, and is expected to be away from the country for nearly two months, is that failed leader.
Certainly, as a proud father to my son, I will do all I can in my power to support my son and my children in every way, shape, and form.

So I am not beating on George Weah for supporting his son.

I am beating George Manneh Weah for his lack of leadership and his insensitivity to the nation’s problems.
However, to leave a troubled nation that needs your leadership for over a month just to attend the world cup, when you could have departed the country a day before, not a month, and not say a word to the Liberian people, and you are being paid to attend your son’s debut as a player in the world cup from the nation’s meager resources, is a smack of arrogance.

As usual, Mr. Weah’s enablers are quick to refer critics to the operating methods of past administrations, when Weah is the current leader whom the Liberian people look to for a change - and not the previous administrations.

The seven-week trip reportedly will pay President Weah a daily per diem of $2,000 and will take Mr. Weah and his entourage to other countries before reaching his final destination - way too early before the World Cup even begins, which will cost the Liberian taxpayers nearly $100,000 (one hundred thousand dollars).

When Samuel D. Tweah, Jr., was asked about the total budget for the president’s trip that he signed in his official capacity as Minister of Finance and Development Planning, he claimed not to remember the amount.

Folks, this is Liberia, poor Liberia, a country that normalizes former warlords and rebel leaders-turned-lawmakers, and harbors despotic presidents who are unaccountable to the people that supposedly elected them to the highest office in the land.

George Manneh Weah showed the Liberian people in real-time his selfish, insensitive, and disconnected side, and also showed the nation where his heart is, his poor decision-making skills, and his lack of compassion, and proved over and over that he shouldn’t be reelected to another term as President of Liberia.

Just as Mr. Weah’s ascension to the presidency caught us all shaking our heads in disbelief, his profound lack of curiosity, vision, and intellectual foundation tests our fragility and interest in ourselves and robbed us of our humanity as his emboldened loyalists continually insults us and exploit the gullibility that defined us as a people.

President Weah, always exploiting our gullibility and the nation’s historic culture of impunity that protects the recklessness and shameless vanity that shroud his bloated and naked ego, took his extended vacation at a time when the entire country is in disarray amid controversies surrounding the National Population and Housing Census, and the on-going rice shortage that plagued the country, even before he embarked on his whirlwind international tour.

The National Population and Housing Census was scheduled to take place from October 24 to November 7, 2022, but was postponed to a later date in November. Highly obvious also is the fact that census workers have not been paid their honorarium after they sat for the aptitude tests and completed their training.

Even worse is the allegation of corruption and ineffectiveness surrounding The Liberia Institute of Statistics and Geo-Information Services (LISGIS), the government agency tasked with organizing and conducting the nationwide census.
The Executive Branch of government which the President of Liberia heads is authorized by a Joint Resolution recently passed by the Liberian Legislature to conduct the census.

President George Manneh Weah, aware of the official role of the Executive Branch, declared November 11, 2022, a national holiday to conduct the census.

So, why did President Weah leave the country for his months-long vacation knowing that this huge task for which he declared a national holiday needed his leadership?

The Liberian people always knew that George Manneh Weah was unprepared and unfit for the office of president.
The heavy irony, however, is that this guy, as insensitive and uncurious as he seemed to be, was elected President of Liberia knowing that he was bad medicine for a country that bled from self-flagellation from a 14-year civil war that almost obliterated it from this planet, tore families apart, and sent over 200,000 Liberians to their graves.

Sadly, these same Liberian people who knew about George Weah’s dullness, insensitivity, and lack of interest in their affairs are the ones who will gather at the airport to greet him and celebrate his arrival once his plane touches down.
Can Liberians ever learn from their mistakes?

George Manneh Weah's Presidency is BAD for the country.

Get rid of George Manneh Weah!!