In 2018, George Weah, Liberia’s 25th president, was crowned the world’s best footballer and had a promising presidency. However, his presidency was marred by corruption, leading to his defeat in 2017. Weah’s inauguration speech emphasized the importance of ensuring public resources do not end up in the pockets of government officials. His transformation from a slum dweller to the only African winner of the Ballon d’Or and to Liberia’s highest office made headlines worldwide.
Almost six years later, Weah lost the presidential vote to former Vice President Joseph Boakai. Voters denied Weah a second term due to several reasons, including his failure to establish a war crimes court and the effects of a drug epidemic. Corruption was the main issue that drove protests in Liberia since the end of Liberia’s second civil war in 2003. Liberian academic, activist, and author Robtel Neajai Pailey criticized Weah for squandered opportunities to score the country’s most important goal of socioeconomic transformation.
Anderson Miamen, lead campaigner at the Centre for Accountability and Transparency in Liberia, believes Liberians voted Weah out because of corruption. The 5.2 million-person nation’s distrust in the Weah regime due to corruption has grown. The deaths of four national auditors in just over a week in 2020 sparked outrage, and the US-based Institute of Internal Auditors asked then-US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to help Liberia investigate the deaths. However, the US sanctioned three senior members of Weah’s government over corruption, Nathaniel McGill, minister of state; Bill Twehway, managing director of the Freeport of Monrovia; and Serenius Cephas, solicitor general, for their involvement in public sector corruption in Liberia. The continued lack of consequences for the elite ultimately hurt the man at the helm, as analysts believe he didn’t live by his word.
