EJS Analyzes 2025 National Day Oration -Urges Liberians to Read, Appreciate Knowledge It Bears

MONROVIA – This year’s Independence Day orator and the content of the speech he delivered have been making news all over the country, suggesting that he touched the hearts and souls of many Liberians—upping the critical things that matter—and he is being lavishly hailed. Former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf also did. As an acknowledged public speaker herself, she apparently did not just gross over it. And she’s also not letting the message, as delivered, pass by without her expert and matriarchal analysis. At the end of it all, the first female democratically elected president of the country, and of Africa, is urging citizens to read the July 26, 2025 oration for themselves to see and appreciate the information, knowledge and proposals that Rev. Emmett Layfetta Dunn proffered. The Analyst reports.

Serving as the country’s 178^th Independence Day Orator, Rev. Dr. Emmett L. Dunn provided an overview of Liberia’s turbulent political past, and how a once pariah nation made notable strides toward recovery.  He also reefed through mountain challenges that require strategic reforms to spur national development. Liberians have been reacting to the statement—some hailing it as crusading while others said it was like water wasted on turtle’s back, meaning there have been many past fiery speeches but Liberians, mainly the leaders, don’t take heed.

In an exclusive interview with The Analyst Managing Editor, Stanley Seakor over the weekend, former President Sirleaf, a statesperson who pulled herself through life by her bootstraps, and is not easily tempted to proffer undeserved plaudits, has uncharacteristically thrown her weight behind Dr. Dunn in full affirmation of the oration.

She has so far been calling on all Liberians to not only digest the speech for the depth of knowledge, proposals and information that it carries, but to decipher how individual actions and responsibilities can meet the requirements that Dr. Dunn’s speech has laid out to achieve the reform that Liberia is necessary to have to be able to meet the development agenda.

Harmonious alignment of three branches

Analyzing Dr. Dunn’s oration, Madam Sirleaf said she is in full concurrence with his assertion about the rights of the three branches of government to coexist in harmony.

When the three branches of government are in discord, when they are not in full alignment, there is a problem,” he said, adding that in respect of the constitution, each one has specific responsibility called for by the constitution, and each one is expected to carry out those functions, but it has to be done in a harmonious way, toward the same agenda of the government.

“Once you start the kind of discord, then you diminish the constitutional rights of one branch of the government or the other. Again, that’s something that has be addressed,” former President Sirleaf said.

Questioned on the issue of the government’s ongoing actions to suspend errant officials and replace them without due process, a situation which the July 26 national orator spoke about, Madam Sirleaf said it is the president’s constitutional right to hire and fire but there are moral and legal issues involved when it comes to suspending officials and replacing them according them due process.

She further added: “It depends on the severity of the offense. If the offense is severe enough, yes you should fire. Again, it is constitutional that everyone has the right of defense. However, the executive, the President, has a right to fire people. There’s nothing in the constitution that stops that. But the president does that if the offense takes away from the achievement of the agenda. But otherwise, the person always has the right of defense. If a person is fired and they feel the firing is unjust, they have a right to sue the government.” 

However, you cannot suspend somebody and replace them, Madam Sirleaf opined. If it’s suspension, she said, then the person has the right of defense. If in the investigation the person fails, then that’s it.

“But under suspension of somebody and you appoint somebody, it’s just doesn’t seem the right thing to do. I don’t think there’s any law on that,” Madam Sirleaf said.

On Public Perception and Falsehoods

One of the salient points that orator Dunn spoke of is the need to see the opposition community as critics who have a stake in national development, rather than as enemies to the governing party.

Agreeing with the July 26 orator, Madam Sirleaf cautioned national leaders and the public to see the opposition as a critical chain of continuity in governance and the development agenda of the country. However, she also advised that criticisms must be laced with truth-telling, not fancy or falsehoods.

She noted: “I agree with that. There is something about the importance of continuity in government, continuity in development agenda. Too often, when there is a change in administration, everything changes. People who have long years of experience, yes, politics is not just Liberia business. Politics is global business, so some of the things that happen here happens all over the world. But we just have to be a bit more concerned because of the state of our nation. Today, Liberia is said to be one of the poorest countries on earth. It shames me, and I hope it shames every Liberian. And that’s not something that just the president can solve. It has to be solved by leaders of all three branches, leaders of the people themselves.”

But she said there is a need to recognize the problems of having the commitment to effect the reforms that are necessary, and that’s exactly the message that came from the orator.

It’s not enough to talk, it’s not enough to write, it’s not enough to speak, the nicknamed ‘Iron Lady of Liberia’ stressed, indicating that “one must do the right thing through the power that we have”.

She continued: “I think he said that people too have a responsibility. He said that, and you can’t leave that out. People cannot just spend their time on Facebook and Instagram, just making sensational statements, making falsehoods because when they do that they too distract from all the support that the country needs to be developed. It takes away from it because people read all this stuff. We know that people do a lot of foolish stuff, a lot of loose talks without evidence, without facts, and they’re hurting the country too when they do that.

“Opposition must be critical, that’s part of their role. The Diaspora, people out there, people all over have their right, but they must do so with facts, with knowledge, not with the view of just getting attention, or you want to pay somebody back, you want to undermine somebody.”

The role of the Diaspora in fostering national development

Again, agreeing with Dr. Dunn whose speech at a certain point delved into how the Liberian Diaspora community can become an integral part of the development agenda of the country, former President Sirleaf said, she also believes there are positive things Diaspora Liberia Liberians are doing to uplift the lives of their fellow citizens, yet, there is a lot that needs to be done, especially with regards to attracting Diaspora Liberians’ repatriation to the country.

“Yes, Dr. Dunn talked about the Diaspora. He pointed out the role that the Diaspora can play. Yes, they do a lot of positive things through remittances and all that they send. But that’s not enough. Latest reports show most of Liberia’s professional people are not in this country,” Madam Sirleaf continued. “If the Diaspora wants to be very meaningful in supporting the development of this country, they too got to have a program in which among themselves they can see how repatriation can be done.”

 But, according to her, “we also know that if you want an effective repatriation of people coming back, our whole financial system here has to be reshaped. You cannot have a system the way it is now, when too large percentage of the resources go to recurrent expenditure. I am not saying that this is just now, I am saying this has been a problem long time ago. But sometimes it’s not corrected properly.

“You know, we believe in the system of family business and what not, so everybody depends on not talking too much about demanding a proper level of pay so it can be livelihood level of pay because they can always go to somebody. Then, there’s a dependency syndrome. We are forcing people to be dependent, and it’s now become cultural. It’s a cultural impediment to development, because if you give people a living wage, they will not beg. I know working opportunities are limited here, but we can do can do structural changes, reshaping the whole financial system. I think we can look forward to the Minister of Finance to be able to do something. We hope so.”

Role of the church

In full concurrence with Dr. Dunn’s assertion that the church as a traditional institution has been in vanguard in providing educational and religious solace to the nation through their various outreach programs, Madam Sirleaf however frowned on the mushrooming of small individual churches whose main purpose is to make money out of the poor unsuspecting congregation.

The former Liberian leader posited: “Dr. Dunn talked about, and we don’t like to admit this, but I am glad that Tipoteh mentioned it in passing, about the role of the churches. Liberia has too many churches whose main purpose is money. Whether we like to hear it or not, but it’s true. That’s a way of impoverishing the public and the people. Nobody is against churches, nobody is against prayers, but you have to have a system because churches get a lot of free things in the country.”

Some churches get duty-free privilege because they are churches, she said, asking: “What do they do with those duty-free privileges? Do they use it for church matters? We don’t want to get to the stage where we do the Kagame approach. Kagame closed all of them. We don’t want to go that far. So, the churches themselves, the main churches that have been here, the Council of Churches need to address this problem. Because if they do not address it, it may not be today, but it will be addressed. And somebody will come and be very extreme in the policy decision they take. So the churches should purge themselves through the council of churches.”

In closing with this exclusive interview, President Sirlef urged all Liberians to read Dr. Dunn’s speech, and try to see the depth of knowledge and proposals and information that it carries.

 “Read it so that we can ingrain some of those things that he said,” she said, calling on the three branches to know that it’s not just the president who is the number one person in the country, but every one of who call themselves leader must also look at that speech and see what they can do to respond to some of the things that Dr. Dunn has said.

“How can our own actions, our own responsibility meet the requirements that he has laid out to achieve the reform that Liberia is necessary to have to be able to meet the development agenda,” she said, noting that the speech also touched on the structural aspects of the country, in a manner that no orator has touched on.

“Things like land reform, things like respect for constitution and laws, by having independent institutions and agencies that cannot be changed or influenced by executive power; Dr. Dunn’s oration was completely fulfilling,” she said.