ECOWAS Head of Election Mission Liberia, Attahiru Jega, Liberia’s Run-Off Election,
Abubakar Hashim/Monrovia
Prof Attahiru Jega, head of ECOWAS Election Observation Mission (EOM) in the just concluded run-off elections, has given thumbs up, saying it was peaceful, credible, free and fair.
This is the first election to be fully funded and supervised by the Liberian government, without UN or any other external body.
All the past three elections, since the end of the bloody 14 -year old war in 2003, were bankrolled and supervised by the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) and a basket of funds by international organisations.
Jega, who once headed Nigeria’s electoral body, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), praised Liberians for their orderliness and decorum in casting votes. He also commended Liberian politicians for the same orderliness by abiding to electoral etiquettes.
Collation and counting of votes commenced yesterday, with final results to be out in the next few hours.
Incumbent Weah, 57, admited that a lot more needed to be done and pleaded for another 6 years to complete the good works he had started, particularly on roads, healthcare, relative stability in electricity and education.
His arch rival, former VP to Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Joseph Boakai, 79, is basking on the current economic hardship and inappropriate work ethics among the working and middle class.
The economic hardship, though globally emanated due to so many international factors, is now mainly the selling point of most opposition leaders in African, Asian, even European and American politicians.
Though Liberia has a registered voting population of 2.4 million, one lesson to be emulated by other African countries, including Nigeria, is the peaceful and orderly conduct of yesterday’s run-off election. The same peaceful atmosphere also prevailed during the first round on 10 October.
Liberia has a total population of 5.4 million people. It has fought 2 bitter wars that ended with the tremendous help of Nigeria- led ECOMOG and later UNMIL, particularly in areas of reconstruction, rehabilitation and reconciliation.
Though the main opposition leader Boakai, 79, has got the support of the 3 other leading opposition figures in the just concluded run- off elections, their total numerical strength, about 3%, is not enough to counter Weah, whose popularity is heavily domiciled on the youths and the poorest of the poor, who still see him as a mirror, due to his poor background, born and bred in the slum in Monrovia