A NATIONAL DUTY, NOT A PARTISAN BATTLE
The decision by President Joseph Nyuma Boakai to dismiss public officials connected to the ongoing cocaine trafficking investigation is noted. But let me be clear from the outset. The fight against narcotics trafficking is not a partisan contest. It is a patriotic obligation that belongs to every Liberian, regardless of political color. A criminal enterprise now threatens our national security, corrodes our youth, hollows out our public institutions, and endangers the future of this Republic. No party banner is large enough to hide behind when the nation itself is the target.
That said, patriotism demands more than applause for dismissals. It demands scrutiny of whether those dismissals represent real accountability, or nothing more than camouflage.
DISMISSALS WITHOUT ANSWERS
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Discover moreOpinion & CommentaryGeographic ReferenceCampaigns & Elections A serious security review does not stop at names removed from a payroll. It examines the architecture of appointment, loyalty, and command that allowed a narcotics network to operate inside the machinery of the state.
Consider the pattern. Dismissed Deputy NSA Director for Administration Patrick Doe has long been known as a close operative of former Defense Minister and current Yellow Machine coordinator Brownie Samukai, who now oversees the importation of $51 million in equipment, and under whom Doe previously served directly at the Ministry of Defense. Doe's documented proximity extends further, to National Security Advisor Samuel Kofi Owusu Woods, a longtime associate, and to Executive Protection Service Director Sam Gaye. These are not casual acquaintances. These are men who worked alongside one another, for years, inside the security establishment. It strains credulity to believe that trained, senior security professionals who shared this proximity for so long were entirely blind to the cartel's penetration of the very institutions they were sworn to protect.
The same pattern repeats at Roberts International Airport. Dismissed Deputy Director for Operations Mark Egon Kuiah and dismissed Director of Security Mohammed O. Gbowrah are both understood to have been personally recommended for their posts by the President's son, Jojo Boakai, with whom both maintained close personal ties. Appointments built on proximity to power, rather than vetted institutional merit, are exactly the vulnerability a trafficking network is designed to exploit.
At the Liberia National Police and the Liberia Drug Enforcement Agency, the list of dismissed officers, including Moses Jallah, Deputy Commander of the LDEA, Johnny Bolar Dean, Commissioner of Police for Criminal Investigation, Intelligence and INTERPOL, and Patrick Komasu, seconded to the LDEA, raises a further and deeply troubling question. Several of these officers had previously been dismissed for corruption under an earlier administration, only to be rehired and promoted by current Police Inspector General Gregory Coleman. That is not oversight. That is not coincidence. Officers who used their badge and uniform to shield armed robbery and narcotics operations do not return to service by accident. Someone chose to bring them back. Liberians deserve to know why Inspector General Coleman restored known, previously disciplined officers to positions of trust within the very units now responsible for stopping cocaine.
57 DAYS OF SILENCE
It has now been 57 days since the $19 million cocaine seizure bound for Europe, specifically London, came to light. Credible intelligence indicates this was neither the first nor the second such shipment routed toward the United Kingdom under the current administration. This is not simply a matter of reputational embarrassment. It is a direct threat to one of Liberia's oldest and most cherished relationships. The United Kingdom was the first nation to recognize Liberia's independence in 1847, and the Liberian people remain permanently grateful for that bond. A government that allows its territory to become a transshipment route for narcotics destined for London is gambling with a friendship two centuries in the making.
Fifty seven days on, the Boakai and Koung administration has yet to tell the Liberian people where this cocaine, and the nearly half a billion dollars in narcotics seized since, actually came from. Are we meant to believe these volumes are being manufactured on Liberian soil, under the watch of officials appointed by this very administration? Silence is not an acceptable answer to a question of this size.
THE BURNING THAT RAISED MORE QUESTIONS THAN IT ANSWERED
Adding to public unease was the widely publicized burning of seized narcotics, conducted under the direction of Inspector General Gregory Coleman. A disposal operation staged around burning tires, in a chaotic and poorly controlled scene, does not inspire confidence. It invites suspicion. It is now openly rumored that cartel operatives embedded within the security apparatus substituted the actual cocaine before the burn, returning the real product to criminal networks while the public was shown a symbolic bonfire. If these reports prove true, this is not mere negligence. It is the surrender of a piece of Liberia's sovereignty to a transnational criminal enterprise, staged in plain view of the nation.
REJECTING A DESPERATE DISTRACTION
This moment calls for national seriousness, not political theater. It is precisely for that reason that we reject the reckless and legally baseless claim by Executive Protection Service Director Sam Gaye, who tried to assert that Liberia's cocaine trafficking problem originated under the CDC government in 2022. This is not analysis. It is a desperate deflection from a man attempting to redirect national attention away from the entrenchment of cartel influence within his own administration's security apparatus.
The historical record says otherwise. In 2013, the UK Guardian reported that a presidential motorcade commander, Perry Dolo, was arrested alongside three other security officers for trafficking narcotics into Liberia from Sierra Leone, under the presidency of Joseph Nyuma Boakai during the Unity Party's earlier tenure. In 2015, another Guardian investigation documented a US Drug Enforcement Administration sting in Liberia that led to the arrest of a Colombian drug lord and the discovery of a cocaine processing facility in downtown Monrovia, guarded by men carrying Kalashnikov rifles. That period, under Unity Party governance, marks the documented origin of transnational cocaine trafficking infrastructure in Liberia. History does not support Director Gaye's revisionism, and Liberians should not be asked to forget it.
Liberia's survival matters more than any party's propaganda. This is not about scoring points against the Unity Party or defending the CDC. It is about refusing to let anyone, from any side, rewrite the record to escape accountability.
LIBERIA'S PATRIOTS
In a moment defined by cynicism, some public figures have chosen courage over convenience, and they deserve to be named.
Senator Amara M. Konneh of Gbarpolu County has used his platform with genuine and patriotic urgency, demanding an independent investigation and refusing to let this crisis fade from public attention. Senator Edwin Melvin Snowe Jr. of Bomi County has stood alongside him, applying steady legislative pressure and insisting the Liberian Senate exercise its full oversight authority. Their joint advocacy has forced the national security establishment to answer questions it would otherwise prefer to avoid.
In the media, journalist Rodney D. Sieh and FrontPageAfrica have shown unwavering dedication in pursuing this story, continuing a tradition of fearless reporting on corruption that has defined Sieh's career for two decades. President of the Press Union of Liberia, Julius Kullie Kanubah, has likewise shown nationalistic resolve in defending the media's role in holding power accountable during this crisis, alongside the many journalists working under difficult conditions to keep this story before the public.
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I further extend appreciation to Liberia's international partners, particularly the Government of the United States for dispatching a team to assist Liberia's efforts, and the United Kingdom, whose continued support in combating transnational organized crime reflects the strength of our historic friendship.
THE SILENCE OF MONTSERRADO'S SENATOR
Yet one voice remains conspicuously and troublingly absent. Montserrado County, the very county where the largest narcotics seizures in Liberia's history have occurred, and whose residents bear the direct brunt of this crisis, is represented by Senator Abraham Darius Dillon. Where is his voice? Where is the legislative light that once positioned itself as a champion of accountability? His silence, in the county most victimized by this cartel, has become impossible to ignore. Liberians are entitled to ask directly, has Senator Dillon been compromised into quiet? The people of Montserrado, and of Liberia, deserve principled leadership from every one of their elected officials, not selective courage.
CONCLUSION
History will not remember how many names appeared on a dismissal list. History will remember whether Liberia found the courage to dismantle, root and branch, the criminal networks now embedded within its own security institutions. Dismissals are a first sentence, not a conclusion. The Liberian people deserve the full story: the origin, the network, the protectors, and the true fate of every kilogram seized. Anything less is a mask, and the mask must come off. JTK.
Hon. Jefferson Tamba Koijee serves as Secretary General of the Congress for Democratic Change (CDC). The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of FrontPage Africa.
