MONROVIA–FOR 177 YEARS, LIBERIA, Liberia has experimented with power in different shapes and forms. Some of it wore a crown of democracy, while some of it wore the mask of reform. And much of it, plain and tacit, was dictatorship in different suits.The result is what we see today; a nation still bleeding, still searching, still yearning for direction. In Liberian politics, “lionhearted” has become code which means strongman politics, a leader who rules by will, not by law, who centralizes decisions, who treats dissent as disloyalty, and who equates criticism with treason. It sounds bold and plays well at rallies, but history shows what it costs us. When a leader believes the nation is his to command, institutions become ornaments, the Legislature nods, the Judiciary delays, and the security sector picks sides. In the end, the people, who should be citizens, are reduced to subjects waiting for handouts.in reality, that is not leadership, but occupation.
SINCE 1847, LIBERIA’S POLITICAL posture has swung between two extremes of exclusion dressed as order, and chaos dressed as freedom.The early republic centralized power in the hands of a few, dissent was managed, not debated. Indeed, that was the first tacit dictatorship, rule without the tanks, but with the same result of a population governed, not represented.The coup of 1980 promised to break that. Instead it introduced the plain version of decrees, detentions, and the barrel of the gun. Then came 14 years of civil war where warlords and presidents alike used the state as a personal militia. Children were drugged to fight. Diamonds, timber, and later drugs became the currency of power. The country bled not just people, but its future. After 2003, we told ourselves the war was over. Eventually were elections returned, donors came in and laws were signed. But we never fully treated the wound. We passed a 2014 drug law that jailed users instead of treating them. We built reforms on paper while networks penetrated ports, airports, and ministries. We celebrated “lionhearted” decisions, firing people, shutting down critics, making examples, instead of building systems that outlast one man. So the bleeding continued but differently.
SURELY, IT BLEEDS IN ghettos where 38% of a generation grew up on war drugs with no rehab. It bleeds in courtrooms where justice is delayed and the poor pay the price. It bleeds at the Freeport and RIA where multi-million dollar shipments move while small dealers fill the cells. It bleeds in counties like Bong, where politics is now about who can shout loudest, not who can deliver. A “lionhearted” leader wants quick results, he wants loyalty, he wants to be feared and loved at the same time. But nations are not built on fear, rather on on rules. We are aware that when leaders govern by personality, institutions rot because everything depends on one office, not on process, and accountability dies because to question the leader is to question the nation. The next generation inherits trauma, not tools, ex-combatants, not schools, got seizures, and not prevention. That is why we are still yearning because we keep replacing faces, not systems.
WE ARE ALSO AWARE that real courage is not in crushing opponents. It is in building what will survive you. A lionhearted leader in 2026 Liberia would choose public health over prison for addiction, because 3,303 estimated users need treatment, not just handcuffs. He would choose institutions over impunity, even when your allies are implicated.Choose devolution over control, so Bong, Nimba, and Grand Gedeh decide their future, not just Monrovia, and choose truth over myth, and tell Liberians that recovery takes 20 years, not 20 press conferences. That kind of courage is quieter. It does not trend, but stops the bleeding. As we head toward 2029, the temptation will be to look for another “lionhearted” savior. Someone who promises to fix everything with a speech and a dismissal. Liberia cannot afford another cycle of that because it has had plain dictatorship, has had tacit dictatorship. We have had warlordism and technocracy and populism. What we have not had, long enough, is constitutional leadership. Leadership that respects limits, that funds rehab instead of raids, that fires corrupt officials and funds the agency to replace them, that lets the law, not loyalty, decide cases like the ones before our courts today, and that says no to selective justice.
OF COURSE, A NATION bleeds when its leaders are more interested in being remembered than in building what will be remembered. Liberia’s wound is old, but it is not fatal. It will close only when we stop confusing strength with ruthlessness, and vision with vanity. The next chapter cannot be about who is lionhearted. It must be about who is Liberian-hearted, committed to law, to healing, and to a country bigger than any one person. Until then, we will keep bleeding. And we will keep yearning.
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