Quick Glimpse at 177th Independence Day Orator -Pailey, One of Liberia’s Unassuming, Unsung Heroines
MONROVIA: The tradition of picking a keynote speaker for Liberia’s Independence Day – the unarguably most important public ceremony of the country – has come a long way. The choice, often decided by the President of the Republic, is often greeted with mixed reactions, and the perspectives depend on the arguer’s lens used to behold the speaker. In some cases, the speaker is a nationally widely known person. At times, they are an unknown, a complete surprise. But more often than not, the true character of the orator is not known well until they have unveiled the national day message. It is at this time that public tells if the orator is partisan, opposition or independent. Certainly, many Liberians are asking who their nation’s 177th Independence Day Orator is. In all fairness, she is not one who may be widely known across the country. What is true however is that youthful Robtel Neajai Pailey is not so unknown; for she is one of Liberia’s female academics, one who is a noted social, economic and political activist, as The Analyst finds out.
President Joseph Nyuma Boakai’s pick for national orator at the 177th Independence Anniversary ceremony slated for tomorrow, Friday, is Liberian award-winning Liberian academic, activist and author with more than 20 years of combined personal and professional experiences in Africa, Europe and North America.
According to a brief profile posted on her official website, the Liberian writer has worked across a broad range of fields supporting universities, governments, media institutions, multilateral, regional, non-governmental and community-based organizations, with a practitioner-based proficiencies in qualitative research, capacity development, policy design and analysis, programme management, report and grant writing, journalism and strategic communications.
Robtel has held positions in a number of different capacities, which include: speechwriting for the first elected female president of Liberia (and Africa), as well as diaspora policy formulation and bilateral scholarships streamlining at the Liberian Ministry of State for Presidential Affairs in Monrovia, Liberia; covering “new” news out of Africa as assistant editor of The Washington Informer Newspaper in Washington, DC, USA; research, teaching and curriculum development at the University of Oxford in Oxford, UK, the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), in London, UK, the University of Liberia and Stella Maris Polytechnic in Monrovia, Liberia.
Other places include the Robben Island Museum in Cape Town, South Africa, and the Buduburam Refugee Camp School in Accra, Ghana; marketing and communications development for the American University in Cairo, Egypt; podcast interviewing/editorial writing for Fahamu Trust/Pambazuka News in Oxford, UK; and providing editorial guidance for the Sea Breeze Journal of Contemporary Liberian Writings as a board member and non-fiction editor.
She has also consulted for ActionAid; the African Development Bank Group (AfDB); the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAid)/Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade; the Ford Foundation; Search for Common Ground; the Social Science Research Council (SSRC); the Sustainable Development Institute (SDI); and the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), amongst others.
Accordingly, Robtel has been recognized as a 2020 Grassroots Alternative Movement Outstanding Public Service Award winner; a 2019 Mary Chirwa Award for Courageous Leadership finalist; a 2016 Women4Africa International African Woman of the Year finalist; as one of ‘25 Africans to Watch’ by the Financial Times in 2015; a 2014 Bellagio/PopTech Fellow of the Rockefeller Foundation; a 2013 ‘99 under 33’ influential foreign policy leader by Diplomatic Courier.
She is also a 2010 Archbishop Tutu Leadership Fellow by the African Leadership Institute; and a 2004 USA Today All-USA College Academic Second Team finalist.
She completed BA degrees in African Studies and English Literature at Howard University, an MSc in African Studies at the University of Oxford, and a doctorate in Development Studies at SOAS, University of London, as a Mo Ibrahim Foundation PhD Scholar.
Previously she was an Ibrahim Leadership Fellow at the African Development Bank Group (AfDB) and Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Oxford’s Department of International Development (ODID), Robtel currently serves as Assistant Professor in International Social and Public Policy at The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).
An academic
As a scholar, she is working at the intersection of Critical Development Studies, Critical African Studies and Critical Race Studies, centering her research on how structural transformation that is conceived and contested by local, national and transnational actors from ‘crisis’-affected regions of the so-called ‘Global South’.
She has conducted multi-sited fieldwork across four continents, including in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Denmark, Ghana, India, Lebanon, Liberia, Niger, Sierra Leone, Somaliland, the United Kingdom and United States.
Her core areas of expertise include the political economy of development, migration, race, citizenship, conflict, post-war recovery, and the politics of governance, all with respect to Africa. Robtel’s current book project, Africa’s ‘Negro’ Republics, examines how slavery, colonialism and neoliberalism in the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, respectively, have shaped the adoption and maintenance of legal clauses barring non-blacks from obtaining citizenship in Liberia and Sierra Leone.
Regarding her storytelling vocation and proficiency, Robtel is author of Gbagba, an anti-corruption children’s book illustrated by Chase Walker and published by One Moore Book to critical acclaim in 2013.
Gbagba was subsequently placed on the list of supplemental readers for 3rd to 5th grades in Liberia and for Primary 3 in Ghana.
In 2014, Robtel applied for and secured a grant from the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) to pilot Gbagba in 10 schools across Montserrado County, Liberia, as well as commissioned a song and video adaptation of the book entitled ‘Gbagba Is Corruption’.
With its broad appeal as a Pan-African and universal children’s narrative about ethics, integrity and accountability, Gbagba is currently under review by ministries of education/education boards in Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Cameroon, The Gambia, Mauritius, Niger, Rwanda and South Africa. A dual language sequel, Jaadeh!, was translated into Bassa by Amos W. Gbaa, Sr., published in January 2019, and endorsed in June 2019 by Liberia’s ministry of education as a supplemental reader for 3rd to 5th grades. The book has already been adapted into a song and music video entitled ‘Jaadeh Is Integrity’.
Social Justice Activists
In the area of social justice, Robtel’s unwavering commitment to justice, peace and equality can be found in the searing pieces she has written for Al Jazeera English, Warscapes, The Nation, The International New York Times, Newsweek-Daily Beast, The Guardian (UK), The Washington Post, the Daily Observer (Liberia), New African Magazine, and the Mail & Guardian (South Africa), amongst other outlets.
An increasingly sought-after thought leader and public scholar, she has also challenged mainstream thinking in expert commentary for the Financial Times, the Associated Press, the BBC, Bloomberg News, USA Today, Deutsche Welle (DW), Voice of America, Reuters, Agence France-Presse, Christian Science Monitor, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (Australia), UN Radio, Pacifica Radio, National Public Radio (US), ENCA Television (South Africa), Channels Television (Nigeria), Press TV and Mongabay.
Given Robtel’s firm belief that a better world is imperative, she was recognised as a 2017 Africa Youth Awards 100 Most Influential Young Africans finalist; a 2013 Liberian Awards finalist; a 2012 St. Gallen Symposium Leader of Tomorrow; a 2011 Ward Fund Outstanding Public Service Award recipient; a 2003 Amnesty International/Patrick Stewart Human Rights Scholar; a 2002 Patricia Roberts Harris Public Affairs Fellow; and a 2001 Civil Rights Summer Fellow of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights/Harvard University Law School.
Political Leaning/Liberia
As The Analyst could not trace Robtel’s demographic domain that relates her age, regional and ethnic identifies, it is somewhat difficult what influences her political thoughts on Liberia.
What is clear though is that she worked with the Unity Party government under President Sirleaf, according to information gathered, at the Ministry of State for Presidential Affairs, as a presidential aid, including speech writer.
Secondly, she proved highly venomous against the Weah administration throughout the regime’s six year term while opinion pieces in foreign outlets seemingly flirted with Joseph Boakai.
Her commentaries in the renowned Aljazeera and other prominent international wires seared the Weah administration over what she considered to be corruption.
However, she is yet to say a word about corruption since the Boakai administration despite reports on officials of the current regime taking responsibility for misdirecting millions and asking for legislative pardon, as was in the case with the Ministry of Public Works.
There has also been outcries about bypass and floating to concession laws, including procurement policies, against which the national orator and critical voice is yet to raise a voice.