Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and George Manneh Weah Industrial Swindle: How The L$ 16 billion Disappeared

During the height of the 2017 Representatives and Presidential Elections in Liberia, we alerted the Liberian people that former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf had devised a scheme to rig the election in favor of her preferred candidate in former soccer star George M. Weah. Our claim didn’t reach many receptive ears, as some of the people were captivated by the razzmatazz of celebrity, which was George Weah’s only stock-in-trade in a contest which should have been characterized by alternative policy prescriptions on key questions of governance, the economy and social services.

Some of the people wallowed in the fantasy of soccer not knowing that kicking a football on a field and running an impoverished country is mutually exclusive. Suffice it to mean that when a player blunders in a game the consequences could be grave but not so far-reaching to affect unborn generations and lead to a chain reaction of tragic consequences, but when a nation falls it affects the unborn generations and creates a chain reaction of paralysis. This is what distinguishes amusement from governance. George Weah’s Montserrado popularity blinded their eyes to the fraud that Ellen and her criminal children orchestrated on the Liberian people.

Here we are Weah has been openly exposed by the L$16 billion Liberian dollars scandal. Ellen ordered the printing of the money in Lebanon when the Liberian Senate approved her request to print new bank notes to replace mutilated notes in 2016. But it was a financial windfall that she used to do her bidding and aid and abet the campaign of George Weah who struggled to have campaign paraphernalia and vehicles for the process. She printed excess of the money to feather her nest and compromised anybody who will stand in her way or object to the electoral swindle she had devised. Ellen only delivered to the Central Bank few notes to give to commercial banks and she kept the rest of the money at an unknown place where she and her son could use at any time to support the Presidential candidate of their choice.

That was the money Ellen used to support the campaign of George Weah from July 2017 to the end of the second round. She started such with Cllr. Brumskine of the Liberty Party but had to divert to Weah because Brumskine had gossiped her that he would have prosecuted her and the criminals she breed for 12years if he were to rise to the presidency. Ellen even changed some of the money to USD and bribed Nimba County Senator Prince Johnson in order to support George Weah in the second round of the 2017 Election. Prince Johnson money was given to him in Nigeria when he and Weah attended Pastor JB Joshua’s Church after the first round of the 2017 Elections. Another batch of money that Ellen printed in Lebanon arrived in the country in November. But they could not clear it from the Free Port of Monrovia due to the crisis which engulfed the election and the time consumed by the plan for inauguration.

When George Weah was inaugurated Ellen told him he could now clear the money and use 7billion for himself and give the rest of the money to the Central Bank. But Weah and his criminal stooges took delivery of all the money from the port and refused to give the CBL any to place in its vaults. Milton Weeks knows this. Charles Sirleaf knows! Senior staffs of the CBL know this. They know that it is Weah who diverted the containers on February 2, 2018 and March 31, 2018. President Weah ordered the container of money to be offloadedfrom an unknown destination instead of the Central Bank of Liberia. Milton Weeks did a report on this but the Ministry of Justice has ordered the report not to be made public. It is this report that Ellen Johnson Sirleaf talked about in her interview with Front-page Africa. Why is the criminal call Justice Minister Frank Musah Dean refusing to make public the findings of the internal investigation of the Central Bank of Liberia? It is because Weah Manneh Weah is deeply implicated!

This is why the government will never indict and jail Milton Weeks, Charles Sirleaf or any of the culprits from the Central Bank of Liberia. All those people have already written their personal statements and given to their respective lawyers and families. Any attempt for the government to jail any of them, Weah will be exposed and his presidency will 100percent be at stake. So all the releases the Ministry of Justice is coming out with are meant to develop divided opinion and delay with the aim of making the people to forget after some days as they know it is normal of Liberians. But this is an exercise from the rogue government that will not work! They will provide answers! The young people will demand answers. Our mothers will demand answers. Even civil servants will demand answers! The army and police are divided on this. Any attempt for the regime will crush any mass action from the people will be met with resistance from the progressive wings of the army and police.

This scandal is beyond party lines. This is about our future and the future of our country we so love. It is about where we want this country to go. We have gone through a lot as a people and country since 1822. Our people were dying of flood while George Manneh Weah was busy building houses. Our mothers are being crushed by the economic hardship while Weah is around having football matches and dishing out money to Nigerian players as well as having weekend parties at his newly constructed Jamaica Resort. Parents cannot find money to pay school fees for this academic year but Finance Minister Samuel Tweah is riding first class on Emirate Airline habitually.

We must move into history! And I am happy that CDCians are coming out to ask questions and not be blinded by the empty Weah’s sentiment that has brought nothing positive to the lives of the people. We must demand answers. Ellen and Weah must produce the money and not only apologize to the people but be prosecuted for the economic mayhem they have orchestrated against our people. Weah must also do the honorable thing by resigning. He has lost the legitimacy to lead. He has lost the confidence of the people. He must go!

Garsua studies sociology with emphasis in Public Administration at the University of Liberia. He is a young Liberian with passion for social development and volunteerism. You can reach him through [email protected] .