During a two-day private visit to Chicago last week, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf taped an appearance on the Oprah Winfrey show that will air on Wednesday.
Africa's first woman president also was hosted at a VIP breakfast by Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. and presented with a gift of 25,000 HIV test kits for pregnant women from Abbott Labs by Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich. In addition, she addressed the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations and made a school visit with Mayor Richard M. Daley, who launched a "Give the Gift of Reading" program to assist needy elementary school libraries in both Chicago and Liberia.
Winfrey and Sirleaf were both included in the recent Time magazine list of 100 "people who shape our world," in the "Leaders & Revolutionaries" category. The Sirleaf profile, authored by Laura Bush, who attended the presidential inauguration in Monrovia in January, called the Liberian leader "an example of what can happen when girls are educated." Writing about Winfrey in the magazine, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who also went to the inauguration, said the TV star is "a woman of moral character and a source of strength for millions of her admirers."
Winfrey's U.S. audience of 49 million viewers makes her show one of the most popular on the air, and the program airs in 122 other countries as well. Sirleaf's appearance with Oprah Winfrey is the second meeting the president has had this year with an influential and wealthy African American.
During her 10-day visit to Washington in March, when she delivered an enthusiastically received address to Congress and was hosted for lunch by President and Mrs. Bush, Sirleaf also held an unannounced meeting with entrepreneur Robert Johnson.
During a discussion at Blair House, the residence across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House where official guests of U.S. presidents are housed, Sirleaf outlined Liberia's investment for Johnson and stressed the central role she sees for private capital in providing employment opportunities. The nation's unemployment rate is estimated at a staggering 85%, following a quarter century of conflict that killed hundreds of thousands of people.
Johnson's sale of Black Entertainment Television to Viacom in 2000 for $3 billion reportedly made him the wealthiest African American. He indicated an interest in visiting Liberia to look at business opportunities, particularly in the hotel and banking sectors where he has recently expanded his involvements.
Sign up for free AllAfrica Newsletters
Get the latest in African news delivered straight to your inbox
The meeting was arranged by Richard Tolbert, economic advisor to Sirleaf and chairman of Liberia's investment commission, and Derek Saleeby, a former hedge fund manager who is chief investment officer for RLJ companies, Johnson's portfolio of financial services, real estate, hospitality, professional sports, media and entertainment, and gaming enterprises. Saleeby's father is a former Liberian finance minister and Central Bank governor.
Sirleaf has made economic growth and eventual self-sufficiency one of the key goals of her six-year presidency, since taking office in January. In her address to the U.S. Congress and other meetings during her March visit, she argued that international assistance to Liberia now is a cost-effective use of funds that will take Liberia off the list of perpetually chaotic nations that need emergency interventions and continual handouts. She cited the nine times in 15 years that the United States has evacuated official Americans from the country and the hundreds of millions of dollars the U.S. treasury is paying to support UN peacekeepers.
Congress is currently debating an emergency spending bill, mostly for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, which includes $50 million in humanitarian and rebuilding aid to Liberia passed by both the Senate and the House of Representatives. Liberia supporters are pressing to keep that appropriation in the final bill, which negotiators from both houses say they hope to pass within the next two weeks, although the Senate bill remains $14 billion higher than the $95 billion that President George Bush has said he will sign. The measure also includes aid for other humanitarian emergencies, including Darfur.
RELATED: Groundbreaking American Businessman Offers to Serve As Bridge for Liberia
