Letter from Saclepea – Title: A Country without a Map – Written from America

By Musa Hassan Bility

This week, I write to you not from the red clay roads of Saclepea, but from across the ocean, in the heart of America. And yet, as I walk the clean, ordered streets of this foreign land, my thoughts remain at home, with Liberia.

I see how nations like this one, built on centuries of struggle and imperfection, rise, fall, and rise again because they possess one thing we do not, a shared map, a national agenda, a dream larger than any one person, party, or president.

Liberia has many political parties, many leaders, and many voices. But what we lack is one vision that binds us all together. We do not have a national agenda that says, “This is where we want to be in ten, twenty, or thirty years.” And that is dangerous.

We build roads in one administration only for them to be abandoned in the next. We start programs that die with their founders.

We make promises in one term and forget them in the next. There is no continuity, no long-term vision, no binding national ambition that says, this is who we are, and this is what we want to become.

So, I ask,

• What is our goal as a nation?

• Where do we want to be by 2040?

• What kind of economy are we building?

• What kind of schools, hospitals, and justice system are we working toward?

Every nation that has risen from poverty to prosperity did so by crafting a unifying national agenda. Rwanda did it, Singapore did it, Ghana is doing it. They said, “We may belong to different parties, tribes, or regions, but we will agree on this one vision for our country.”

Liberia has never done that.

Instead, our leaders come and go, each with their own blueprints, their own slogans, their own people. And the country remains stuck, spinning in circles while the rest of the world moves forward.

It is time we changed that.

It is time we stopped pretending that governance is about individual brilliance or tribal dominance. It is about building a national compass, one that outlives any government and gives every Liberian, from West Point to Ganta, a sense of direction.

Let us build an agenda that says,

• By 2035, every child should complete basic education.

• By 2040, Liberia should feed itself through modern agriculture.

• By 2050, our power grid should light every home.

• By 2060, Liberia should be among the most transparent and accountable governments in Africa.

That’s how nations rise.

Not by noise,

Not by revenge politics,

But by planning, committing, and staying the course, no matter who sits in power.

I know we can do it.

I have seen our brilliance.

I have lived among our resilient people.

But if we do not act now, if we do not build a national agenda soon, we will remain a nation full of potential, but with no direction. A people full of hope, but going nowhere.

And that, my friends, is the greatest threat to our future.

Let us map the future. Together.

Written from America, but forever rooted in Saclepea.