MONROVIA – Long before and, more so during her presidency, Madam Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf proved to be a world citizen, attracting affections near and far for her audacious crusade for the defense of civil liberties and freedom at home, and particularly her advocacy for women and girls around the world. In the prime of her public service days, she dined with kings and queens of the globe, her personality and charisma bringing pride to the motherland and dwarfing the bad news about Liberia. Gradually advancing in age, Ma Ellen’s global admiration is not petering out at all, still sweeping prestigious awards, the most recent one being the 2025 O’Connor Justice Prize Honoree award. At the award ceremony, she bumped into a few world-class pals with whom she shared fond memories. The Analyst reports.
Former Liberian president, Madam Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, once again stormed the world stage reconnecting with old friends and sweeping awards.
The first democratically elected female president of Liberia and Africa, though out of the Executive Mansion nearly eight years now, is still establishing or rebuilding relationships with institutions and personalities for the sake of humanity, specifically for women, girls and children.
This pursuit of that cause makes her to be ceaselessly showered with recognitions and awards across the global community. She recently yet again in the United States of America picked up the 2025 O’Connor Justice Prize Honoree award from the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at the Arizona State University.
Based on pieces of information from the recent trip, the former Liberian leader met with former United States President George Bush and wife Laura Bush, Condoleezza Rice and others, heartedly nursing the nostalgia of her days as president and as a human rights activist with the veteran US public servants.
The Sandra Day O’Connor Institute for American Democracy recognizes extraordinary contributions to justice and human rights. The former Liberian president is the 10th recipient of the O’Connor Justice Prize.
Sandra Day O’Connor was the first woman justice on the United States Supreme Court.
Award Reading
The epithet stamped on the prestigious ward reads: “An advisory board, led by Ambassador Barbara Barret and the Honorable Ruth McGregor, selects the annual recipient. Known as ‘Africa’s Iron Lady,’ Ellen Johnson Sirleaf gained international acclaim for her leadership during Liberia’s Ebola Crisis and post-civil war recovery. She won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011 and received the U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Mo Ibrahim Prize. Her political career began in the 1960s and 1970s, culminating in her appointment as Minister of Finance in 1979. After fleeing amid a coup, she founded a Liberian NGO in exile. Returning to Liberia, she became president in 2025 and served two terms, aiding national rebuilding and facilitating a peaceful transfer of power in 2018. ‘Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s leadership and dedication to justice embody the spirit of the O’Connor Justice Prize,” Stacy Leeds, Dean of the College of Law, said, reading the words of the award.
According to a dispatch from the trip, the award was given based on a similar story of struggles the former Liberian leader shares with Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, something that inspired the institution to bestow the 2025 O’Connor Justice Prize on the former Liberian president.
“They gave me the award because they pared my story with that of Justice O’Connor, going through the same kinds of things I went through,” Madam Sirleaf said in a brief interview after the event.
The German Trip
Explaining more about her trip, the former Liberian leader said after receiving the award, she departed the US for Berlin in Germany to Co-Chair with the former President of Germany, Dr. Horst Kohler, on issues regarding the 1884-85 Conference when the Germans wanted to talk about what responsibility the West had to Africa, the partition of Africa among amongst all the major powers.
According to her she spoke how two major powers had two countries that they were supporting – the U.S was supporting Liberia, the UK was supporting Sierra Leone – which is while the Conference did not factor them into their equation of Africa’s partition, even though she made it clear that both the US and UK did not stand with Liberia and Sirleaf, leaving them at the mercy of France which annexed some of their lands.
“That’s why today, you see Liberia and Sierra Leone amongst the smallest countries, in the region,” he said. “The AU Summit is coming up; I think the next theme for year is going to be Recovery of Africa.”