MONROVIA – The opposition’s fight with the Boakai administration has moved from the campaign podium to the courtroom door. Jefferson T. Koijee, the Congress for Democratic Change (CDC) Secretary General, accuses the government of weaponizing the law. He names three cases: Jewel Howard-Taylor’s detention, the jailing of jurors who acquitted Samuel D. Tweah, and Dee-Maxwell Saah Kemayah’s conviction. All three cases remain before the courts, and each charge he levels is contested. Still, the statement matters well beyond the CDC’s own ranks. It recasts the government’s anti-drug and anti-corruption drive as persecution of its opponents. Its closing cry, “Victory 2029 or death,” also raises the political temperature three years before the polls, as THE ANALYST reports.
The Secretary General of the opposition Congress for Democratic Change (CDC) and former Lord Mayor of the City of Monrovia, Jefferson T. Koijee, has accused the Boakai administration of turning the law into a weapon of political persecution.
In a statement titled “The Mask Is Off,” Koijee declared that “law is not equal to justice,” describing justice as an idea and the law as “a tool to get there.”
Koijee recalled that he was privileged to attend a seminar recently and that one lesson has stayed with him: when power gets hold of that tool, it can turn the tool into a weapon.
“Today in Liberia, that is exactly what is happening,” he asserted.
Invoking St. Augustine’s warning that an unjust law is no law at all, and Otto Kirchheimer’s concept of “political justice,” which he described as the use of courtrooms for political ends, the CDC scribe charged that this is the playbook of what he called “this cocaine regime and gang of state sanctioned criminals pretending to be a Rescue Mission, presided over by Mr. Boakai.”
He alleged that the administration is “rampantly engaged in political persecution against those they believe and perceive to be opposition leaders and their supporters.”
Three Cases Cited
Koijee told Liberians to “look at the record,” pointing to three cases. He claimed that former Vice President Jewel Howard-Taylor “has been maliciously framed and thrown into Monrovia Central Prison,” adding that even the Alternative National Congress (ANC) asks why questions about Unity Party insiders “remain unanswered.”
On former Finance and Development Planning Minister Samuel D. Tweah, Koijee stated that Tweah was acquitted by a jury, but that “when they didn’t like the verdict, they overturned it and jailed all 15 jurors.” He described the action as “conspicuous jury tampering in broad daylight.”
Koijee further noted that in open court, Madam Mary Broh testified that former Foreign Affairs Minister Dee-Maxwell Saah Kemayah acted to “rescue the rice” and called the case “character assassination.” “Yet a compromised guilty verdict was still brought against him,” he contended.
‘Law Without Justice’
“When jurors are jailed for their verdicts, no Liberian is safe in any courtroom. Law without justice is just power wearing a robe,” Koijee declared. He maintained that the Constitution guarantees due process and a fair, impartial trial, insisting: “These are not favors from a regime. They are our birthright.”
The CDC Secretary General concluded that the government “can capture the courts, but they cannot capture the conscience of a nation.” He declared that the Liberian people “are indeed resolute to take their own redemption into their hands,” ending his statement with the slogan, “Victory 2029 or death!”