I took blows for cause

President Ellen Johnson – Sirleaf has described recent criticisms directed at her during the 2017 elections as political bullets which she took to safeguard the country’s democratic process.

“We’re glad today that we can be proud that through it all when the political bullets were firing, we remained calm because there was a bigger picture, there was a greater cause, a national cause to which we were fully committed,” Mrs. Sirleaf said Tuesday, 16 January while dedicating the partially renovated main building to state broadcaster ELBC in Paynesville.

She adds that it meant that sometimes “we had to take the hurt; we had to take the blows to ensure that the day today that we all are proud of in making a transition for the first time in 74 years, we can say, we persevered and today we’re going to have that in just a few days.”

President Sirleaf is due to turn over power in a smooth transition for the first time in 74 years to Liberia’s former international soccer legend Mr. George Manneh Weah on 22 January, having ruled the country for 12 years as Africa’s first elected female president.

She told a gathering at the ELBC compound in Paynesville of how her government protected and safeguarded the human rights of Liberians.

President Sirleaf recounted on the call she made to journalists, re-emphasizing her commitment to remove one the repressive Acts from the PRC regime, Degree 88 A.

But she said media practitioners here rather than focusing getting an act before the legislature to repeal the repressive Act they were much more concern about whether she would have sign it or not.
Regarding the ELBC building, President Sirleaf says the structure is a clear evidence of determination, commitment and strength, noting that so many times when people are told about getting things done, they say no money.

But she observes that there are those who will keep pressing until they find that little money to put to work.
She therefore thanked the ELBC Board and the management and staffs for doing just that.

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