Ellen makes 2017 suggestion

President Ellen Johnson – Sirleaf says “the type of transition” that the people of Lofa County want to see rests in the hands of their leaders, whether they will uphold the principles of unity and collaborate, having had days of Lofans’ request for her support towards Vice President Joseph Nyumah Boakai’s presidential bid.

“It’s in the hands of your leaders, whether they will unite, whether they will uphold the principles of unity, whether they will collaborate, whether they will stand by those that they believe in. The record is there, it will stand on your record, every one of you what you have done…”, she said Thursday, 4 May outside the Gleh Public School in Ganglota, Salayea District.

Mrs. Sirleaf was climaxing the last town hall meeting in the Salayea District of Lofa on her fifth nation -wide “thank your tour” where she was honored and presented flowers by Lofa County Legislative Caucus in recognition of her work with the caucus, support and development to the county and the country.

Ahead of the honoring event, Mrs. Sirleaf visited other towns and villages on Wednesday and Thursday where she dedicated the Quardu Gboni Administrative Building and Chiefs Compound in Sarmodu District and the Vezala Women Resource Center and a police station in Foya District. She also assessed ongoing work at the water treatment plant in Voinjama, visited a rice processing plant and held town hall meetings at the Konia Women Resource Center in Zorzor, among others.

In her response to Lofans’ request for a peaceful transition here, Mrs. Sirleaf says Liberians can stand up and make a successful transition of power, admonishing citizens that this is what people all over the world pray for and look forward to. She says Liberia is about to enter that stage and to cross that bridge, while thanking the people of Lofa on grounds that all the districts and towns that she and her delegates visited have been so friendly and so unified.

She argues that partisans of ruling Unity Party or UP that is headed by Vice President Boakai have worked so hard for this, paid the prize for this and have kept the faith, “and so we know that we will now move forward in continuity and built upon that…” She appreciated the turnout of Lofa officials and Lofa [UP] partisans to thank her, while voicing her observation on how Lofans were thanking her, though the purpose of the tour was to thank them, instead.

“… It’s to say because of you, because of the contribution that each and every one of you has made, today we can say we have peace in our country, we can say that we have security …”, she says. Though Mrs. Sirleaf admits that there’s more to be done, she, however, says the process of development and the foundation of development have already been established here and nobody can take them from Liberians.

She says all citizens need to do now is to build upon the foundation to make it bigger, wider and stronger, while reminding them that democracy can also not be turned back because when Liberia faces the next elections and the next inauguration, Liberia will graduate in terms of political maturity. Before departing Lofa County on Thursday, 4 May, Mrs. Sirleaf announced in Salayea that she would make presidential contributions toward smaller development activities in all the counties she has been visiting through a small package of US$10,000 to each county and US$15,000 to Lofa.

Flanked by her colleagues during the presentation of the flowers to President Sirleaf, Lofa Legislative Caucus Co-chair Rep. Mayamu Fofana said the entire county of Lofa wished it would not be telling Madam Sirleaf goodbye.She says the legacy and relationship that Mrs. Sirleaf built with Lofa from the beginning of her tenure to the end would forever be remembered.

But she repeated the request for President Sirleaf’s support to Mr. Boakai, suggesting that she must support him as her successor. Similar direct call for President Sirleaf’s support for Mr. Boakai’s presidential bid was made earlier in Foya, Kolahun and other places visited.

By Winston W. Parley –Edited by Othello B. Garblah