Former vice president Joseph N. Boakai has urged President George Weah to take bold and decisive steps and policy actions aimed at unifying Liberians within the remaining months of his administration.
Mr. Boakai, the political leader of the former ruling Unity Party said Weah, a former Peace Ambassador under the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf regime now has the opportunity to ensure that the intent and essence of the foundation laid by former President William V.S.Tubman, when setting aside May 14 in 1960, as a National Unification Day is realized.
In his Unification Day message to the nation, Mr. Boakai, who doubles as the standard-bearer of the UP notes that National Unification Day was a day set aside by an act passed in 1960 to recognize benefits that the unification and integration policy of Tubman brought to Liberia.
Boakai continues: "As we celebrate the aspiration of the policy of national unification and integration, let us pay tribute to the late President William V.S. Tubman, whose vision brought national attention to issues of disparity, division and exclusion in the governance of our country. The magnitude of deprivation of basic human rights by State actors led to the promulgation of the National Unification and Integration Policy."
However, he noted: "Today's celebration comes at a time when the former Peace Ambassador under the Unity Party-led administration is now President of Liberia. Being fully in charge in his fifth year in office, we can only still hope that the President will use the remaining months to take bold and decisive steps and policy actions aimed at unifying Liberians; for this was the intent and essence of the foundation laid by former President William V.S.Tubman.
Today, let us soberly reflect and remind ourselves that it is befitting to celebrate our individual rights to think different and be different without enduring prejudice, marginalization or exclusion. Let us celebrate our difference in tribe, gender, religion and in party association, for these are inalienable rights that NO ONE can deny anyone.
Regardless of our perceived differences, we are people with shared values of common citizenship. We are all the same; nobody is different; Liberia belongs to all of us."
