Liberia Elections: How Joe Boakai Is Already Failing The Leadership Test

MONROVIA- In few days, Liberians will go to the polls to elect the 24th President of the Republic of Liberia. Interestingly, incumbent Vice President Joseph Boakai, is positioning himself as the most experienced candidate in the race touting his no show, unproductive, sleep filled 12 years as the reason to be elected as president.

As if the 12 years of weakness, ineptitude, dormancy, laziness and senility demonstrated by Uncle Joe was not sufficient proof that he is not fit for the task, throughout this 2017 campaign, the Old Man has done a lot to convince everyone that he does not possess the skills, qualities and acumen of a leader. On every major decision that his campaign needed to take, he pussyfooted until the last minute.

For example, he named his vice running mate within few hours to the close of the nomination process. For someone who was amongst the first to announce that he was running for president, naming your running mate that late was a sign of poor decision-making, especially when that decision nearly brought his campaign to a point of collapse. In fact, as we were informed, the National Chairman, Wilmot Paye, nearly didn’t sign the nomination form. Another example is the naming of the Campaign Team which came extremely late in the day. The same can be said of many other decisions that Uncle Joe have had to make.

To be a leader, one must be DECISIVE. This characteristic is inherently lacking in Uncle Joe and therefore unqualifies him for the Presidency, where major decisions have to be made in split seconds and if you have to take a “lifetime” to think about it, you would have missed the moment and suffered the consequences.

Of late, we have begun to see a lot of insults been rained on President Sirleaf by supporters of Uncle Joe. For many Liberians, there are three (3) critical questions that must be answered:

1. Is he the one sending these surrogates to perform these acts of disrespect to someone who took him from obscurity and brought him to prominence? If he is responsible for sending these unruly persons then one wonders is this how he strongly feels about Madam President? if so, then let him be man enough to raise those issues for public consumption and judgement. This is an act of cowardice and a lack of leadership to send innocent stooges to fight for you on important issues like these. It simply shows how weak and lazy Uncle Joe is on issues of significant importance.

2. Secondly, we are left to think shouldn’t Uncle Joe have the courage to confront whomever he is vex with? After all, his 42 years in gov’t should mean something when it comes to been upfront. But again, maybe he is too weak and desperate and do not know how to tell them. The country witnessed this similarly when Varney Sherman went in the national press and indicated that Joe Boakai does not need President Sirleaf’s support in order to win. It took Uncle Joe and the Unity party several weeks to issue a very weak statement to distance itself from Sherman. Of course by then the damage was already done. How can a leader be so indecisive and weak?

3. Should we assume that uncle Joe is aware of all these things but just does not care? What kind of leader is he to not care when your supporters are insulting the one you want to succeed? That he does not or cannot consider the negative consequences of these decisions really speaks volume and provides more evidence that he is not fit to lead this country. Our country is at a major crossroad. To elect a leader who really does not care is scarifying and terrifying to say the least.

The combination or aggregate of all these things, clearly exposes uncle Joe inability to be trusted as a leader and why he has been missing in action for 12 years as vice president. He is too weak and lazy or very wicked and revengeful - that under his reign as president, this country could be destroyed either with his acquiesces or due to his inability. Or is it that he is just too sleepy? In either case, it will be under his watch. The good news is that we can stop it from happening. All the signs are on the wall.

Let’s not deceive ourselves that leadership is about being old, senile and looking sorrowful. It is about being strong, healthy, decisive and bold. A leader must be able to make thoughtful, firm and timely decision. To this end, Sleepy Uncle Joe is already failing the leadership test.