(LINA) – Former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (EJS) has affirmed she enjoys a cordial relationship with President George Manneh Weah, noting that such connection between the two is good for the growth and development of the country.
“I think it is important that we do; I wish all of us who are politicians had a cordial relationship with all other politicians; we are not enemies, we have to stop fighting each other in this country; you got to start learning how to tolerate differences,” Sirleaf noted.
The former Liberian leader, in a radio conversation in Monrovia on recently, called on Liberians to exercise patience, tolerance and employ collaborative efforts to move the country forward in the interest of the citizenry.
Sirleaf also urged Liberians to desist from the practice of “always finding fault,” as such behavior paints a negative image of the country internationally.
She said: “Even the way we denigrate our country is bad, it takes away the level of global support we need to be able to progress, every time you talk bad about your country it is picked up all over the world and people believe it.”
Sirleaf noted that the issue of berating the country did not start today, and cited that it affected her administration as well.
“The talking did not start right now; it has been going on a long time ago, it mainly affected my administration in the second term where we were going under a lot of strains from the Ebola outbreak; we could have recovered much, but the many talks in the country caused recovery to be slow.”
Since her retirement from service, the former Liberian Chief Executive said she has engaged in series of travels based on invitations from women and educational organizations to attend conferences where she interacts with different audiences.
According to her, she held talks with students and professors at Howard University where they discussed the subject of fragility in countries; and discussed reasons why countries like Liberia and Sierra Leone cannot move forward but are still vulnerable,
She noted that the study highlighted the root cause of the problem of fragility and the possibility of addressing the problems associated with fragile countries.
Sirleaf used the occasion to recommend to the President of the University of Liberia to set up programs that will use the expertise of past and current officials of government, business practitioners and other dignitaries in the country to discuss problems the country is faced with.
“I wish our University can do that; to bring people together to talk about professional issues, but they should talk about it in a more professional way,” she said.
“I am not talking about looking for ways to be accusatory or looking for ways to criticize; that is not what I am talking about. I am talking about a professional discourse because that does a lot for our young students,” Sirleaf added.
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