MONROVIA – No doubt, every death naturally attracts and extracts tears. The experience plunges particularly the immediate relatives into deep grogginess of sorrow. Sometimes good, brave friends and associates muster the courage and attempt to lighten the impact of the immediate bereaved family’s hurts and woes for some time, by cheering them up, making them smile, not to lose hope, at least up for a while, while burial is pending. But when the day of actual exit of the dead loved one is dawn, when interment is just a few minutes away, when the funeral rites are already held and the coffin is set and hung on the thin edge of the grave, even the most insensitive or grief-proof-braved gives in. What about Ma Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, in her ripe age, who in the three years once again arrived at those dolent grounds, this burial place of the Sirleafs, watching the sarcophagus of yet another dearest son being gingerly tilted at the portal of his final resting place! The Analyst was there at Jovahn, around the Todee Junction area, where Charles Eugene Sirleaf was buried.
The former Liberian leader, fondly called the Iron lady, betrayed the courage and valor that gave her that epithet. This Maradona of Liberian politics, Africa’s first democratically elected woman president, endured countless trials. She walked through flaming fires. She braved them almost all, and prevailed. But this time, on this 18th Day of June 2024, she shed the courage she’s known long for.
During the last week or two of the death of her son Charles, she was enveloped, caressed and petted by beloved friends who swarmed her Fish Market town, throwing jokes here and here, funny talks that would make her feel cool, cautiously and largely glad; smiling for that moment. Even at the First United Methodist Church where a colorful funeral service was held, and as the world watched, she tried to be calm, to put up a brave face as to show her ingrained Ellenic gallantry, those masculine powers in her blood that made her confront all sorts of tyrants and unpleasant circumstances of life.
At Jovahn Burial Site
But there at Jovahn, as the van bearing the mortal remains of dearest son edged unto the eternal resting place of dear Charles, it seemed no amount of distraction mattered. Not even the bewitching renditions of the police marching band on the ground escorting the burial process would replenish lost strength.
The Iron Lady would at one point release her tear-soaked gaze into the vacant sky. In another moment, she would take a hard, lips-biting look at the well-decorated coffin that was lying inches before her, and then she would quickly take her teary eyes away back into space, then at the raw earth her quivering feet laid on, then at the coffin again. In the mourning regalia she fabulously wore, Liberia’s Iron Lady was totally paralyzed, beaten and exhausted–drowned in grief.
Why wouldn’t Ma Ellen be, some ladies who were a yard away pondered, as they reverently looked at the crowd of people around the former Liberian leader at Jovahn.
In Africa, and perhaps everywhere else, children are seeds planted to be harvested by their planters, the parents. And as one older lady amongst the throngs of mourners at Jovahn remarked, “The beauty of death and funeral, particularly the burial of a parent, is when the children, at times great grandchildren, of the dead are seen by the those who are living—the neighbors, friends and even enemies of the dead—delightfully scramble to give their father or mother a befitting funeral and burial rites.
Was the Iron Lady thinking that way, cogitating on those possibilities? Perhaps yes. But her tragedy, which many Liberians have been wondering about since Charles’ death was announced June 3, and particularly drawing such compassion and tears, is that those who were supposed to delightfully scramble to celebrate her eternal rest when God calls her may not be there for her. Those, who were to show the world in her death, God forbade, that the Sirleaf Clan is a composite of kings and queens in their own right, and that she’s the High Emperess—those children and grandchildren whom she reared and have become renowned public servants—are rather departing for the great beyond ahead of her.
Barely two years ago, she was her at this very Jovahn again, this iconic burial place of the family, burying James Sirleaf, another dearest of a son, a noted public servant. At that time, Charles and Robert were out by her side to tell to her, “Ma, don’t worry; we are men enough to stand for you in case of any eventuality. James is gone, but we—Charles, Fomba and I, and our children, are still here, still alive.”
Others are saying, as an international civil servant, a global icon and highly renowned and humble human being of indiscriminate charity, Ma Ellen can in no way be abandoned by the world, by the countless lives she has touched even if—God forbade — she didn’t have children.
But the point many are making is, no amount to a neighbor’s shelter offered for relief can supply the satisfying warmth that one’s blood relatives, mainly children can offer. And God did not mean her with children.
And Ma Ellen, sitting at Jovahn on Tuesday, in the state of confusion, bewilderedness and emptiness, like any single-parent, must have been torn apart my memories of stressful circumstances of life at which time she gave birth to and reared her three boys and a horde of adopted ones.
She has had a history of struggles, of turmoil, and of insecurity. As a human rights advocate of prodigious repute, often consumed by political activities, she was always on the run for dear life, not only of herself but for her children and close family persons.
Charles, who lied before her about to part eternally ways with her, was one of them. And as she looked about feeling disordered and frozen, she appeared not merely bothered about how she would be buried herself, and how Charles may not read her life sketch, or give a sonly tribute; she must have also been cogitating on the difficulties, challenges and frustrations that came her way as she nurtured him and James and others in those days.
In that instance, like any one of ripe earthly sojourn, Ma Ellen would wish that James, Charles, and the others like Robert and Fomba and others, would give her last honor. With two gone, this isn’t the case.
At the Funeral Service
The formal funeral rites began at the church, with a flood of mourners and sympathizers. President Joseph Nyumah Boakai and officials of his government, international dignitaries and ordinary Liberians, assembled at the First United Methodist Church on Ashmun Street. Also seated at the occasion Vice President Jeremiah Kpan Koung, Senate Pro-temp Nyonblee Kangar Lawrence, House Speaker Jonathan Fonati Koffa, Chief Justice Sie-A-Nyenneh Yuoh.
The Government of the Republic of Liberia delivered the official gazette, delving, amongst other things, into the diseased’s work history and contribution to public service and humanity.
“Hon. Charles E. Sirleaf was born unto the late James Sirleaf and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. He was reared as a Christian child through his parents who were members of the First United Methodist Church,” the gazette read.
The gazette further noted that Charles was an active church member in the Sunday school activities of the church, and that he attended the College of West Africa and subsequently the University of Maryland in the United States of America where he obtained a Bachelor of Arts in the early 1980s
The deceased, according to the gazette, also earned a Master of Business Administration in Finance from Mercer University in Atlanta Georgia, USA. He spent his early professional career in Atlanta and held several managerial positions at itizens and Southern Bank (C&S) and Citicorp Credit Corporation between 1987-1992.
A dedicated public servant, Charles Sirleaf transitioned into public service and became the vice president of what was referred to as the National Housing and Savings Bank from 1993-1995 and later left the post and departed the country for a two-year period of time as Special Assistant to the Resident Representative at the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Namibia (1996-1998).
The late statesman returned and took on the presidency of the National Housing and Savings Bank, the position he held until 2003 in addition to serving briefly as Special Assistant to the Minister of Finance during the early 2000s, the official gazette disclosed.
The late Charles Sirleaf joined the Central Bank of Liberia (CBL) in 2004, where he spent the rest of his professional life.
At the CBL, the gazette indicated, the fallen patriot served as Manager for Banking and Debt Management until he became Director of Finance in 2006 with explicit roles played in financial intelligence in the sector as per his expertise.
During the second term of his mother, former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Mr. Eugenia Johnson Sirleaf was appointed as Deputy Governor for Operations during the administration of the former CBL Executive Governor J. Mills Jones.
Charles also served Jones’ successor, Milton A. Weeks and Nathaniel R. Patray, III, and was designated to act as Executive Governor when was made to exit the CBL in 2018 by the then president George Manneh Weah.
Indeed, the gazette indicated further, Charles Eugene Sirleaf dedicated much of his career services to Liberia, as he was also appointed in 2012 to mold the minds of young professionals at the University of Liberia, which showed how nationalistic he was in providing services to the motherland.
Following the well-attended funeral ceremony, the convoy bearing the mortal remains of the late Charles Eugene Sirleaf headed for Todee Junction, where the his body was interred amid thunderous sobbing of the Sirleaf family, other relatives, friends and sympathizers.
It can be recalled that the oldest son of Madam Sirleaf, the Mr. James Sirleaf, passed out at his Congo Town residence on Wednesday morning, December 22, 2021, while another report revealed that he fell off from pressure on Wednesday morning and was rushed to the John F. Kennedy Hospital where he was pronounced dead by doctors.
The Analyst Newspaper family express their deepest condolences to the Sirleaf family, especially to former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.