President George Manneh Weah’s Criminal Syndicates: Arrest Them, Seize Their Properties and Bank Accounts, and Lock Them UP!

Posted August 16, 2022

By Tewroh-Wehtoe Sungbeh

Amid public declaration that corruption is a necessary evil he engages in to develop Liberia, his way, Nathaniel McGill, Minister of State, together with two of his partners in crime, Bill Twehway, head of the National Port Authority; and Cyrennius Cephus, Solicitor General, Republic of Liberia were outed publicly and slapped with sanctions by the United States Government through its envoy Michael McCarthy, for engaging in public corruption.

It's about time that the George Manneh Weah criminal syndicates be held accountable for their broad daylight stealing and other crimes against the Liberian people.

So, after these three criminals, who’s next?

President George Manneh Weah, Samuel Tweah, Jefferson Koiyee, etc., and some in the legislature should be outed, sanctioned, and held to the same standard.

Now that the US government has just spoken boldly and decisively, the Liberian people ought to take on the challenge, take to the streets and take their country back.

If it means deposing George Weah from office, arresting these criminals, confiscating their stolen properties, seizing their bank accounts, and locking them up, so be it.

Let Justice Be Done!

These three corrupt Liberian government officials, according to Executive Order 13818, which implements the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Acts, target perpetrators of human rights abuse and corruption around the world.

Brian E, Nelson, Undersecretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence said: “through their corruption, these officials have undermined democracy in Liberia for their own personal benefit. The US Department of Treasury’s ‘designations demonstrates that the United States remains committed to holding corrupt actors accountable.’

This is about time that outsiders, especially global policymakers, pay attention to the plight of the Liberian people, pay attention to the country, and also listen to Liberian activists and others who sympathize with the Liberian people and their cry for accountability and justice in Liberia.

Nothing works in Liberia.

And corruption has undermined Liberia’s growth, development, and progress throughout the years risking the promising lives of Liberians who could have thrived in their own country and be somebody.

Institutions are broken or they don’t exist at all, only to hear from some in the diaspora that “Liberia is sweet” and George Manneh Weah’s the messiah that the country craved and always wanted for over a century.

How can it be, and why is it that only a few Liberians can tell the difference between enjoyment and suffering in Liberia when a vast majority of the population can barely afford to buy a cup of rice and eat it with satisfaction or can afford to send their kids to school in a country where the strongest are expected to survive?

People are suffering in Liberia, on George Weah’s watch.

Come to think of it, I realized the crude fact that those that speak highly of Liberia as ‘sweet’ are either (visiting) diaspora Liberians – the ones who receive and benefit from sound fiscal and social programs and policies in the United States (401k, Social Security benefits, disability payments, retirement benefits, etc.), but hates progress, development, democracy, and the advancement of their own people through compassionate government policies and programs.
The other group are either retired in the United States or are still working and receiving a regular paycheck and other benefits but see a future working in any government in Liberia to steal.

A way that these individuals accomplish that goal is to support a bad administration and its policies, embrace corruption, and support criminals.

An argument can be made (as the pro-government enablers have always done) that bad governance and corruption did not start with the Weah administration.

They are so right.

But I am living in the present and not the past, and George Manneh Weah’s the current President of Liberia, and the buck stops at the doors of the Executive Mansion.

President George Manneh Weah’s leadership style of reticence, detachment, inaction, go-along, get along and play along as the Liberian people suffer and the country crumbles before his naked eyes, even as his right-hand man, Nathaniel McGill, publicly embraced public corruption as a necessary evil, and incriminates himself shows that Mr. Weah is not ready to govern.

A serious president governing in a genuine democracy, not a semi-democratic nation such as Liberia with broken and loose institutions coupled with a bunch of corrupt, inept, and pandering-bench-warming partisan hacks or legislators, would have called Nat McGill before the legislature for hearing and even called for his firing.

Even as words got out that his boy-Mayor Jefferson Koiyee was allegedly involved in the July 26 near-death beating of student activist Christopher Walter Sisulu Sivili, George Manneh Weah showed no leadership.

The mysterious death of Princess Cooper and others has yet to be solved and the perpetrators are roaming freely.
The recent flooding of Monrovia and elsewhere did not even warrant any presidential concern from Weah to feel his people’s pains. The Ministry of Public Works, Water and Sewer, and the municipal government of the city of Monrovia were all missing in action.

In Liberia, especially in George Manneh Weah’s Liberia, it is business as usual.

And a way that he governs is to engage in children’s plays, silly unpresidential antics, and throwing sprinkles of cheap and unsafe homes and a swimming pool in his chosen locations to fool the public that he is indeed their “development” president.

The Culture of Impunity Lives and George Manneh Weah has shown over and over that the presidency is a heavy load he’s unable to carry.

A 175-year-old country cannot continue to be run the way it is today. The Liberian people are suffering and the poison of corruption is killing them slowly.

Get rid of George Manneh Weah and his criminal gangster friends.

“Corruption and bribery are like poison and a horrible disease, which need to be put down with an iron hand,” are the immortal words of Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, Father of the Nation, and the country’s first Governor-General,

dorbioh@hotmail.com