Please do not misconstrue us. Our position here is not a public relations campaign for former Vice President and presidential-hopeful Joseph N. Boakai of the former ruling Unity Party.
Neither do we pray for his presidency, but an honest observation and scrutiny of the verbal attacks, insinuations and predictions from mainly his political opponents, particularly the ruling Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC).
Rather than telling the Liberian people or the electorates about their plans of how they will change the current very bad trajectory of underdevelopment, poverty, massive unemployment, insecurity and rampant corruption, the ruling CDC and others are focused on Boakai’s health and even wishing him death before the October 10, 2023 Legislative and Presidential Elections.
That makes us to think that the Unity Party’s standard bearer and presidential hopeful seems to be a potential threat to his political opponents, particularly President George Weah’s CDC.
It beats our imagination that the only wish of officials, members and admirers of the CDC and others is for Boakai to die or be bedridden as a result of illness. If they are not talking about his old age, they are talking about how he is surviving on a pacemaker.
Besides, as far as the CDC and others are concerned, whatever trip Boakai makes abroad, even if the aim of that trip is to visit family members or is in response to an official invitation, he has gone to see a doctor, making us to conclude that the Unity Party’s standard bearer is formidable and seems to be the main threat to the CDC retaining their power and to other contestants ascending to the helm of power.
From our point of view, the CDC and others are doing more good than harm to Boakai and his Unity Party, because the more they make him the subject of their discourses daily, rather than their vision for the Country if they take the presidency, the more they win public sympathy for him as we go to the polls on October 10.
Isn’t it foolhardy for one or a group to think that because he is too old he shouldn’t become the next president of Liberia? Is that what the Liberian Constitution says? What’s about the age of Joe Biden, President of the world’s richest and most powerful nation on earth, the United States of America?
He is 80 compare to Boakai’s 79 years, but yet Americans elected him president few years ago. Quite amazingly, Biden is likely to seek a second term in spite of his age. So why all this noise about Boakai’s age?
In our view, Boakai’s age shouldn’t be the worry of his political opponents, but instead, their worries and worries of the electorates should rather be whether he has the wisdom, experience, competence and the willpower to take this oldest African Republic to higher heights.
From where we stand, we have no specific interests in any of the presidential candidates, including Boakai, but have specific interest in a better Liberia in which the interest of the people will be foremost.
This is why we think the discourses should be issues-based rather than attacks on personalities.
