On April 24, 2026, while guests who attended the townhall meeting hosted for President Joseph Nyuma Boakai were departing the hall at California State University, Sacramento (CSUS), I went past a group of people. The attendees were chatting about how they were really impressed by the way President Boakai was able to effectively address issues regarding the prevailing state of affairs in Liberia.
One of the ladies in the group then turned to me and asked: "Mr. Journalist, all the good things the President spoke about related to progress being made in our country (Liberia), how come it's not being reported in the news for people to know?" She talked about the border crisis with Guinea, for example, where news reports and social media posts have created the general impression that the President is not doing enough to deal with the crisis.
The lady indicated that listening to the President was like "hearing from the horse's mouth," about progress Liberia was making. Despite growing political agitations in the country, such as the crisis involving the recent expulsion of Montserrado County Representative Yekeh Kolubah from the National Legislature, she said she was comforted by the peaceful expressions and actions of President Boakai, who assured that he would not allow the country to be consumed by corruption, disregard for the rule of law, or dragged into a border conflict.
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I was also deeply moved when President Boakai, in his customarily low and quiet but reassuring grandfatherly voice, explained how over 250,000 Liberians perished and almost the entire country was destroyed due to the bloody civil war. Since the war ended, he added, the country faces very serious challenges in rebuilding the devastated infrastructure, such as schools, medical facilities, expansion of road and electricity, in order to improve the living conditions of the Liberian people.
Urgency to Improve Government Information Dissemination
It is a demonstration of mature leadership that President Boakai did not allow a politically fragile Liberia to be provoked into a war with neighboring Guinea.
Since the border crisis started, bellicose rhetoric (aggressive, warlike, or hostile language intended to threaten or provoke conflict) have been used by some politicians, and ex-combatants from the recent Liberian civil war. There are concerns that some unscrupulous elements are looking for an opportunity to ignite a spark of another armed conflict, which could also lead to attempts to remove the current Boakai government from power by force of arms.
The increasingly toxic political climate and agitation, aggravated by the ongoing high profile corruption trials of former Finance Minister Samuel D. Tweah and other officials of the past government, as well as Representative Kolubah's expulsion for his pro-Guinea utterances in the wake of the border crisis, are turning Liberia into a powder keg.
The government has been accused of using the legal system to witch-hunt former officials of the government of President George Weah, who was voted out of power for gross inefficiency, alleged rampant corruption and abuse of power - for which several of his top officials have been charged. Meanwhile, Representative Kolubah's expulsion is viewed with trepidation (fear) as an example of growing political intolerance and infringement on freedom of expression in the country - a development for which the Press Union of Liberia (PUL) and others have raised alarm.
I was struck by the lady's question as to why many good things happening in Liberia are not adequately publicized, while news in the mainstream media and social media have been consumed by negative developments in the country.
The Boakai administration, like the failed Weah government that he replaced, appears to be following a similar path of poor government information dissemination, amid growing reports of bad governance.
Opportunities Missed to Promote Liberia in California
This brings me to how President Boakai's recent visit to Sacramento was an opportunity missed to establish stronger bilateral ties with the State of California, which has the fourth largest economy in the world - because of poor coordination and inadequate information dissemination. Because of poor coordination by the Liberian Embassy in the U.S., the President was not able to meet with the Governor of California and the Mayor of Sacramento City.
President Boakai visited Sacramento from April 23-26 to receive an impressive international peace award from the Center for African Peace and Conflict Resolution (CAPCR), at the CSUS.
Since the award was launched following the establishment of CAPCR in 1996, several prominent African leaders, from now late South African anti-apartheid legend Winnie Mandela to President Paul Kagame of Rwanda are among the distinguished recipients. This is why President Boakai's selection as this year's distinguished recipient was an opportunity to highlight the progress made by his government and post-war Liberia as a whole. It was also an opportunity missed to promote Liberia.
Liberia could also benefit from a strong partnership with California, ranked as the world's fifth largest supplier of food and agricultural commodities. With agriculture as the first pillar of the Boakai administration's agenda for national development, an effective engagement with California could help modernize Liberia's agricultural sector.
Even though it was announced during the President's visit that the Liberian government and a delegation from California's agricultural, academic, and investment sectors have "launched a joint initiative to eliminate Liberia's $200 million annual rice import bill and modernize the country's farming sector," no further information has been announced.
Many questions have been raised regarding the "multi-stakeholder strategy session" convened in Sacramento that led to said agreement, which is billed as a partnership that "marks a turning point for Liberian agriculture." Since the President's visit in April, no further information, including the name and contact of the partnership entity, has been publicly released.
President Boakai's visit to Sacramento, CA, could have also yielded more tangible benefits to post-war Liberia in various national development endeavors. For example, the City of Sacramento is recognized as one of the largest urban forests in the world and is ranked as the greenest city in the United States. With the Liberian capital Monrovia baked in heat, among other environmental challenges facing the country due to deforestation, what lesson can Monrovia or Liberia as a whole learn from Sacramento about the importance of urban vegetation or reforestation to mitigate climate change?
It is also important to note that the State of California has played a major role in the development of Liberia's educational sector, particularly the establishment of the Monrovia Consolidated School System (MCSS), which was modeled on California's public school system. For example, San Francisco State University in San Francisco, California, played a very critical role in training the original group of Liberian educators in the establishment and early operation of the MCSS, of which I am a proud product. William V.S. Tubman High School, the first MCSS secondary school, was once rated among the best modern secondary schools in Africa.
During the administration of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, at which time President Boakai served as Vice President, more than 14,000 textbooks were shipped from Sacramento as donation from the San Juan Unified School District to the MCSS, as well as various public schools across Liberia through the Education Ministry.
The Liberia textbook project, which was spearheaded in 2006 by a 9th grader named Casey Robbins, was the outcome of an interview I, then an official at the Information Ministry in Monrovia, had with Capitol Public Radio, the Sacramento branch of National Public Radio (NPR). In the interview, I emphasized the health and educational challenges facing post-war Liberia. Part of the reasons for the success of the book project was that Madam Christina Bendu Hunter, then ACFLi president, played a critical role as community liaison, while Firestone Rubber Company undertook the shipment of the books to Liberia free of charge.
During his two-day visit, President Boakai was not able to meet with the California Governor and the Sacramento City Mayor because the Liberian Embassy in the U.S. failed to coordinate properly with leaders of the Association of Citizens and Friends of Liberia (ACFLi), regarded as one of the most prominent African organizations in the California state capital.
It was the ACFLi leadership, headed by its president, Ms Angela Khani, who organized the traditional welcome ceremony at the airport for the President and also made arrangements with the local media that enabled the President's beautiful African arrival ceremony to be covered by KCRA-3, the local affiliate of NBC television. The resolution also officially welcoming President Boakai to the State of California was obtained by the ACFLi leadership.
The ACFLi leaders had requested for the President to attend a town hall meeting to engage with members of the Liberian community. The ACFLi leaders had planned to submit two recommendations to the President at the townhall meeting, which was tentatively scheduled to be held in a hall at the California State Capitol - seat of the state's government. The first recommendation, which was to be presented by Mr. J. Mwah Polson, a veteran engineer working in the area of city water treatment, was to seek the assistance of the State of California for the rehabilitation of MCSS. The other proposal, which was to be presented by ACFLi President Angela Khani, regards early childhood education, aimed at strengthening and modernizing early childhood learning programs in Liberia.
The community townhall meeting, which was proposed in place of the townhall meeting hosted by CAPCR, was denied on grounds that the President was in Sacramento strictly as guest of the university, and therefore his visit was being conducted in keeping with established protocols for heads of state and government.
Besides the official CAPCR ceremonies he attended, President Boakai was also engaged in a series of meetings at the hotel with business people and others who were approved by the Embassy. However, no time was allotted for the President to meet with Liberian community leaders from various parts of the state, who had gathered in Sacramento to welcome him.
As another reflection of very poor diplomatic representation, the Embassy of Liberia has yet to reach out to the Liberian community leaders to demonstrate gratitude for their sacrifices, since President Boakai departed Sacramento more than a month ago.
A Call to Foreign Minister Nyanti to investigate
Considering the ineffective representation by the Liberian Embassy, this is to call upon Foreign Minister Sara Beysolow Nyanti to engage with the ACFLi leadership, in order to determine what went wrong, so as to put corrective measures in place to ensure effective representation by the Embassy. In addition to the toxic attitude towards the community leaders, there were also disparaging utterances by some of the "top dogs" within the close cycle of the presidency that Foreign Minister Nyanti is too politically ambitious and must be watched - even though she is widely regarded to be one of the best performing officials within the Boakai government.
For the two days that I closely interacted with the presidential delegation in Sacramento, I was left with the impression that there was a clique of narrow-minded, insecure individuals, who appear to have formed a close cycle around the President to protect their jobs and political interests. They are ones engaged in gaslighting competent, credible individuals such as Foreign Minister Nyanti to protect their turf.
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As a career journalist, author, and former Liberian diplomat to the U.S. in charge of public diplomacy, I was requested to assist in planning the visit of the President, a cause for which I took four days off work without pay.
Unfortunately, because of my advocacy for more active community involvement during the President's visit, I was branded as being anti-government. Certain officials of the President's delegation openly accused me of being anti-government. As an example of my anti-government activities, they pointed to recent press statements issued by former leaders of the PUL regarding the prevailing state of affairs in Liberia. The former PUL leaders, Isaac D.E. Bantu, Emmanuel D. Abalo, and I, have issued statements critical of the government in many areas, including poor public information dissemination about developments in the country, including the border crisis.
This accusation triggered a conversation between several officials of the President's delegation and me. Even though some of them leaned towards such frivolous accusations, Information Minister Jerlemik Piah was the only person who said that those articles he had seen were critical, but he was never left with the impression that they were anti-government.
The following day, the official who spread the falsehood was confronted by a close family member of President Boakai, who was very disturbed by the accusation. As a very good friend of mine who and I have worked on many endeavors related to Liberia, she demanded a meeting with the official to seek clarification. His only response was to apologize, noting that he was misled.
It may be recalled that I was dismissed from my diplomatic post in Washington and abandoned as a diplomat by the Liberian government after George Weah became President. I was accused of being anti-government because of articles critical of Weah I had written as a journalist before my service in government, long before Weah's presidency.
Following my dismissal, Weah's government refused to pay my rental and salary arrears, leaving my landlord to take me to court. Even though the court ordered the sheriff to have me, a diplomat, evicted, Weah's government refused to come to my rescue. To date, the government of Liberia has not settled the amount ordered by the court, as well as my salary arrears.
Several months ago, I wrote a letter to President Boakai appealing for his kind intervention to bring me relief from the court, because many of my important financial decisions are being negatively impacted by the court's ruling. Unfortunately, I was unable to meet with the President during his Sacramento visit, because of the anti-government accusation levelled against me.
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