Boakai’s abrupt travel raises health concerns

By Othello B. Garblah

Unity Party Standard Bearer and former Vice President Joseph N. Boakai announced impromptu travel in the ECOWAS region on Monday, 28 August has raised serious concerns about his poor health and fitness to run as President.

The opposition UP in a statement reacting to social media posts that its standard bearer had been rushed to Ghana on ASKY for health reasons said, Amb. Boakai had made an impromptu trip in the ECOWAS sub-region for three days.

The party also announced in the same statement that it was suspending a planned campaign tour of Montserrado County due to the impromptu travel by its Standard Bearer.

“The Standard Bearer of the Unity Party, Amb. Joseph Nyuma Boakai, Sr., has made an impromptu trip in the ECOWAS sub-region for three days.

In view of the above, the Montserrado District tour involving the Standard Bearer is hereby suspended for the same period of days.

The Montserrado Campaign Team in collaboration with the UP Montserrado Leadership will reschedule the tour for the remaining districts.

Meanwhile, the campaign will continue with the same vigor throughout the country.” UP forward to this writer via WhatsApp read.

Amb. Boakai, 79, has been rumored to be facing some health complications ahead of the 2023 October polls in which he stands as one of the major challengers to incumbent President George Weah.

The former vice president has over 40 years of experience serving in government under his belt including as an agriculture minister from 1983 to 1985 before becoming Liberia’s 29th vice president from 2006 to 2018.

Rumors about his poor health spread early this year after he was rushed at the ELWA Hospital on Sunday, January 8, 2023, when he was reported to have suffered a mild stroke, a claim his party denied at the time saying, he reportedly checked in at the hospital for precautionary observation after he felt minor fever.

The party’s statement did not dispel the cloud which was hovering the former vice president’s health.

And to add insult to injury, 2011 Nobel Laureate Ms. Leymah Gbowee in an open letter urged Amb. Boakai to retire from politics to focus on his health and grandchildren, saying Unity Party should do the right thing.

“The writings are on the wall; my Uncle Joe is in no position to contest! Uncle Joe, please be well—I pray god’s blessings upon you.” Ms. Gbowee wrote.

The peace advocate in her write-up at the time further called on UP to reconsider partnering with other political parties to form a merger that will provide a viable political option for the Liberian people.

She concluded by saying “Dear Unity Party, Liberia’s political future, and interest lie and rest squarely in your hands! It is high time we put egos aside and put Liberia and her interests first!  Do the right thing!!!!”

Just days after Ms. Gbowee wrote suggesting that Boakai should retire from politics to focus on his health and grandkids, partisans of the Unity Party paraded with the former vice president to demonstrate his fitness.

UP partisans flooded social media with images of the former vice president sitting and taking a brief stroll with folder in his hands to demonstrate his fitness and readiness for work.

Pictures showed the former vice president also using his hand appeared to have been unmovable when he was being discharged from the ELWA hospital.