Liberia: CDC Accuses Boakai Administration of Offering $275,000 Bribe to Convict Tweah

The Congress for Democratic Change used a National Unification Day press conference Thursday at its temporary headquarters on Fifth Street in Sinkor's Plumkor community to accuse the Boakai administration of payingUS$275,000 to bribe jurors in the corruption trial that ended last week with the full acquittal of former Finance Minister Samuel D. Tweah, Jr.

The party named Amos Tweh, Managing Director of the Liberia Petroleum Refining Corporation and Secretary General of the ruling Unity Party, as the conduit for the alleged payment. It further alleged that after the jury rejected the bribe and returned a not guilty verdict on all counts, the administration ordered retaliation against the jurors who voted to acquit, and that the new AREPT investigation opened against Tweah five days after his discharge is part of that campaign.

"UP's campaign of lies relied on repetition, accusation, political propaganda, and attempts to bribe jurors with about US$275,000 linked to Amos Tweh," the party's official statement read, delivered from the podium by CDC National Women's League leader Mamasee Kaba. "The objective was to create a public spectacle, damage reputations, and convince Liberians that allegations alone were equivalent to guilt."

Retaliation Against Jurors, New Indictments

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The CDC said the government, having failed to secure a conviction through the courts, has now moved to punish those responsible for the acquittal.

"We have received information that the regime has ordered its surrogates to harm patriots who served as jurors, as a lesson to future jurors to convict former CDC officials," the statement said.

The party linked that allegation directly to a series of new investigations it said are being opened against former Weah administration officials. "No wonder we have seen horrid new indictments against the same former Minister Samuel Tweah Jr. and others, including former Commerce Minister Madam Mawine Diggs, former Deputy Minister for Fiscal Affairs Mr. Samura Wolokoli, and plans to use jungle justice against former Chief of Protocol Ambassador Nora Finda Bondo," the statement said.

The Asset Recovery and Property Retrieval Task Force summoned Tweah on May 13, five days after his acquittal, for questioning over the alleged misuse of more than US$20.5 million in rice subsidy funds. The CDC described the summons as confirmation of a coordinated campaign of persecution rather than a good-faith anti-corruption effort.

"The failure of the political prosecution of Samuel D. Tweah Jr. transcends personal vindication," the statement said. "It stands as a decisive unraveling of a prolonged campaign marked by misinformation and political persecution under the Unity Party regime."

Boakai Called Illegitimate

"When the sovereignty of a republic is being sold to another country, you do not exist as a president," the party's youth spokesperson, Alvin Wesseh, said from the podium. "You are not a president. You are just a mayor occupying an empty Executive Mansion with no constitutional mandate and democratic responsibility to the state."

They compared President Boakai's leadership to Zimbabwe's decline under Robert Mugabe, suggesting Liberia is now following that path. "The hand of Mr. Boakai is not guiding the nation, but drawing it towards anarchy and the slow collapse of the state," the statement read. "Economic misery is tightening its grip, pressing the nation backward into the dark lightness of wartime conditions, when hunger was king and hope a forgotten tongue."

The party used the occasion of National Unification Day, a public holiday established to commemorate Liberia's national cohesion, to reject the celebration outright. "There is nothing here called Unification Day under Boakai," the Wesseh declared. "Unification Day, which has been legislated and enacted by law,has currently been desecrated by the chief patron and transporter of chaos and regional instability."

The CDC named the expulsion of Rep. Yekeh Kolubah from the legislature as dismantling democratic norms. The removal of former Speaker Fonati Kofaa and what the party described as Liberia's destabilizing involvement in Guinea's internal affairs were presented as evidence that the administration cannot be trusted to lead on any front, domestic or regional.

"How can you celebrate unification when you went after Yekeh Kolubah simply because you disagree with him politically, manipulated the legislature, and undermined the constitutional and democratic franchise?" Wesseh said.

Non-Compliance Declared

According to Kaba, "The CDC will adopt a non-compliant posture to prevent the Boakai-Koung regime from degenerating the nation into bloody warfare."

The party did not define precisely what non-compliance would entail in practice.

"Every revolution that does not meet the will and aspirations of the people is a failure," she said. "If your government comes to power on the basis of democratic premises and does not respond adequately to the democratic needs and aspirations of the people, then your government is on the table."

Militant Month in Grand Gedeh

Amid the political confrontation, the party announced that theCDC's annual militant month will be held in Zwedru, Grand Gedeh County, from June 23 to June 27, 2026, coinciding with the party's 22nd founding anniversary, which falls on May 27.

"This year's gathering will celebrate the sacrifices that built the movement over 22 years, honor those who have remained steadfast, and renew the party's commitment to the peaceful democratic pursuit of justice, dignity, and national transformation," the statement said.

The party announced two organizing structures to manage the event: a Central Planning Committee and a Grand Gedeh County Subcommittee, which will coordinate logistics, programming, mobilization and local arrangements. The choice of Zwedru, the political heartland of former President George Manneh Weah's southeastern base and historically one of the CDC's strongest electoral territories, is deliberate. The party framed the gathering not merely as a celebration but as a show of organizational strength ahead of the 2029 elections, declaring its intent to return to power as "the next ruling party."

Institutions Named, Security Apparatus Accused

Beyond the attacks on President Boakai, the party furtheraccused the Liberia National Police, under Inspector General Gregory Coleman, of developing what they described as a pattern of heavy-handed responses to peaceful dissent. National Security Adviser Samuel Kofi Woods was named as a central figure in what the party called the transformation of the national security apparatus into an instrument of political suppression, with the party alleging that under their combined watch Liberia has taken on the characteristics of a narco-state.

The CDC also accused the administration of treating Supreme Court rulings as optional, a reference to the Kolubah expulsion case in which the executive branch has been slow to enforce a high court order reversing the legislature's action against the opposition lawmaker. "Constitutional and statutory tenure laws are being treated as inconveniences rather than binding legal safeguards," the statement said.

This paper reached to the party through accused Tweh via mobile call and text messages but could not make any response to the CDC's allegations.

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