There are moments in a nation’s life when reflection becomes an obligation, not a choice. This week, as I sit quietly with the weight of all that has gone wrong in our country over the last eight years, my mind drifts unexpectedly to one person. A leader whose era many of us criticized, debated, and judged. Yet today, in the face of the chaos, decline, and institutional collapse unfolding before our eyes, her memory returns with a force I never imagined.
I remember Ellen Johnson Sirleaf not because she was perfect. No leader is. Hers was a government that began in difficulty and lived through difficulty. She governed a bruised nation. A people who had survived years of terror. A country that had fallen from grace, abandoned by its friends and feared by its neighbors. She had to rebuild both the state and the spirit of the people, and she did so through a disciplined governance approach that, looking back now, stands in painful contrast to what Liberia has become.
Under EJS, government officials could not behave with the boldness, impunity, or disregard for public decency that we witness today. Respect for the National Legislature, even with its imperfections, remained intact. There was a seriousness about running the state. A discipline. A boundary that no official dared to cross without consequence. Not because the government was flawless, but because the tone of leadership set clear expectations about behavior, accountability, and respect for institutions.
Under EJS, the Senate would not wait for a court to explain that an MDA is a financial bill and must originate from the House of Representatives. The Legislature would not openly break its own rules and walk away laughing. The Executive would not dismantle its own credibility and still expect the world to take it seriously. The very fabric of governance, fragile as it was, held together because leadership insisted that it must.
I am forced to admit, and it pains me to do so, that Liberia has taken several steps backward. So many that the twelve years of EJS now look like the golden years of our recent democratic history. That reality is not only surprising. It is heartbreaking.
This was the same government that began on a rough note. A post war nation filled with hurt and anger. A country that still carried the fingerprints of the warlords. A people who needed peace, justice, stability, and reassurance all at the same time. EJS had to juggle everything: the law, the peace, the international image of Liberia, the expectations of a traumatized population, and the monumental burden of restoring confidence in a shattered state.
When she left office and I spoke with her, she said something that has remained in my mind: that her greatest achievement was setting Liberia on an irreversible course to progress and prosperity.
But eight years later, almost everything she built has been undone. The systems. The discipline. The respect for governance. The international confidence. The foundation for reform. All dismantled. Not gradually. Not by accident. But deliberately and consistently, in plain view of the nation and the world.
What a country. What a land.
After twelve years of EJS fighting to restore the rule of law, fighting to establish tenure for officials, fighting to strengthen the independence of each branch of government, fighting to rebuild a country that had collapsed under the weight of its own violence, we now find ourselves at the lowest point. A point I can only describe as the calm before the boiling point. A moment where everything feels fragile and uncertain.
Why have we sunk to this level? Why have we allowed the foundation she laid to be broken in her presence? Why have we watched a democracy she worked so hard to shape descend into disrespect, indiscipline, and institutional recklessness?
I remember EJS today not because of nostalgia, but because her memory reminds me of how far we have fallen. It reminds me of the pain she must feel watching a country she helped stabilize return to the brink. It reminds me of the disappointment of a people who once had hope that we were on a path that could not be reversed.
I can see her pain. I can feel her frustration. And above all, I can feel the fear of what lies ahead for Liberia if we continue on this path.
May we find the courage to confront the truth. May we find the discipline to correct our course.
May we remember the Liberia we inherited after 2006. And may we reclaim the future we are now at risk of losing.
Have a pleasant week.