‘The Mask Is Off’ -Koijee Brands Rescue Mission ‘Risky Cocaine Mission’

MONROVIA – The opposition’s sharpest pen has turned a German philosopher against the Unity Party government. Congress for Democratic Change Secretary General Jefferson Tamba Koijee argues that grievance, rather than any program, powered the Rescue Mission. He claims resentment of George Weah drove the 2023 campaign that removed the CDC from power. Nearly three years on, he says, promises on salaries, the three missing boys and the dead auditors remain unkept. His rebranding of the administration as a “Risky Cocaine Mission” drags the drug scandal into party warfare. The attack is rhetorically forceful, though it rests on argument more than new evidence. It signals the CDC will fight on the government’s record. THE ANALYST reports.

Jefferson Tamba Koijee, Secretary General of the opposition Congress for Democratic Change (CDC), has launched a scathing attack on the ruling Unity Party (UP) administration, accusing President Joseph Nyuma Boakai’s government of governing through political bitterness rather than statecraft.

The former Mayor of Monrovia made the charge in a lengthy public statement titled “The Mask Is Off: The ‘Rescue Mission’ Is a Politics of Ressentiment!”

In the statement, which he signed with his initials, JTK, Koijee argued that the political brand which swept the current administration into power under the banner of the “Rescue Mission” has degenerated into what he termed a “RISKY COCAINE MISSION.”

He accused the government of presiding over national decline, growing lawlessness, economic hardship and a dangerous erosion of public confidence.

“It was never a Rescue Mission,” Koijee wrote, insisting that the government’s true character had now been revealed. He described the administration’s name and style as deceptive marketing sold to the Liberian people.

The Philosophy Of Ressentiment

Central to Koijee’s attack is the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche’s concept of ressentiment, which he traced to 1887.

Koijee described it as a condition in which unresolved humiliation, envy and resentment cease to be passing emotions and harden into an entire identity.

“When people cannot peacefully process another person’s success, they construct a worldview around destroying that person,” Koijee wrote. “Their envy begins to feel like morality, their bitterness appears righteous and their revenge disguises itself as justice.”

According to the CDC Secretary General, this condition is the foundation upon which President Boakai’s Rescue Mission was built.

He argued that the traditional political establishment could not reconcile itself with the rise of former President George Manneh Weah.

Koijee said Weah rose from humble beginnings to extraordinary success outside what he called Liberia’s traditional political cabal.

He noted that the former President became an international icon, humanitarian and President of the Republic without belonging to the privileged class that had historically treated political leadership as its private inheritance.

A Movement Of The Grassroots

For that establishment, Koijee argued, Weah’s success was unbearable, because he represented everything they believed an ordinary Liberian could never become.

He said the CDC, which he called the Mighty Congress for Democratic Change, represented the political awakening of market women, struggling youths, motorcyclists, slum dwellers and ordinary citizens long excluded from the corridors of power.

Because the establishment could not defeat that awakening with superior ideas, Koijee claimed, it launched a relentless campaign of hatred, malicious propaganda and political deception.

The CDC SG alleged that President Weah and his administration were portrayed at home and abroad as murderous, incompetent and corrupt, with allegations repeated as established facts and every national difficulty weaponized against the CDC.

Four Promises, He Says, Unkept

Koijee singled out four of what he described as countless falsehoods sold to the Liberian people during the 2023 campaign.

First, he recalled that the then-opposition declared the CDC government’s salary harmonization policy evil and promised to abolish it immediately upon taking power, while significantly increasing civil servants’ salaries.

Second, he accused the UP of politicizing the tragic deaths of the three missing boys. He said the grieving families were promised that justice would be delivered immediately and that everyone responsible would be prosecuted.

Third, Koijee pointed to what he called the dangerous allegation that government auditors had been murdered under the Weah administration.

He said opposition figures claimed to possess impeccable facts and promised to identify and prosecute the alleged perpetrators immediately after taking power.

Fourth, he said the UP promised integrity, accountability and respect for the rule of law. Today, he argued, the country is instead witnessing troubling allegations of corruption, selective justice, police brutality, political intimidation and the continued deterioration of democratic institutions.

“Yesterday, they spoke as though they possessed an encyclopedia of impeccable facts,” Koijee declared. “Today, nearly three years later, they have done absolutely nothing meaningful concerning those bold-faced claims they presented to the Liberian people as unquestionable truth.”

Accusations Of Industrial-Scale Looting

In the harshest passage of the statement, Koijee alleged that the Rescue Mission was never about change but was designed to give what he called state-sanctioned criminals the chance to engage in industrial-scale looting.

He did not name any official or provide specific evidence for the allegation.

He conceded that the strategy he attributed to the UP succeeded in 2023, when the CDC was removed from power. Capturing power, however, had exposed what he described as the enormous gap between campaigning through resentment and governing with competence.

Economy, Cocaine And Rule Of Law

Koijee said the promised rescue increasingly resembles a national emergency. He argued that the economy remains under severe pressure, public confidence is declining and disturbing allegations involving cocaine trafficking continue to damage Liberia’s reputation.

He further claimed that the rule of law is being weakened, while reports of police brutality, political intimidation and selective justice are becoming dangerously normalized.

“Evidence was never the foundation of this movement. Grievance was. Resentment was. Hatred for George Weah and the CDC was,” he wrote.

According to Koijee, removing what he called the people’s movement from power was the real mission, while governing Liberia successfully was apparently never the priority.

He argued that the UP did more than offer an alternative program, instead giving an aggrieved establishment permission to turn its resentment of Weah, the CDC and Liberia’s grassroots majority into a political identity.

“But resentment may capture power; it cannot govern a nation. Propaganda may win an election; it cannot stabilize an economy. Lies may temporarily damage a leader; they cannot permanently extinguish a people’s movement,” Koijee declared.

He closed by predicting that history would distinguish those who genuinely served Liberia from those who, in his words, weaponized national frustration, manufactured falsehoods and exploited the people’s trust to reclaim power.

Government’s Stated Position

Koijee’s statement stands among the most intellectually charged opposition critiques since the 2023 elections. The Boakai administration has, however, consistently maintained that its governance reforms and anti-corruption measures, including asset recovery initiatives, are aimed at restoring fiscal discipline after what it describes as years of financial mismanagement under the previous CDC government.

The ruling UP has repeatedly rejected opposition characterizations of its anti-graft drive as a witch-hunt, insisting that accountability applies equally across political divides. As of press time, neither the Executive Mansion nor the UP had publicly responded to Koijee’s latest statement.

As Liberia navigates complex political and economic pressures, Koijee’s intervention marks a sharp escalation in the CDC’s positioning. It sets the stage for more intense political contestation ahead of future electoral cycles.