By Lewis S. Teh
Grand Gedeh, June 30, 2025: Liberia’s President Joseph Nyumah Boakai is urging residents throughout the nation’s fifteen counties to let go of the previous and embrace peace for the nation’s development.
“Allow us to reject bitterness, allow us to reject division, allow us to stroll ahead with hope, guided by love for our nation and religion in our shared future. Allow us to shield the peace we now have with vigilance and cherish it with patriotism.”
President Boakai spoke on the State Funeral Service and Reburial of Former President Samuel Kanyon Doe, Sr., and Burial of former First Girl Nancy Bohn Doe on the Zwedru Metropolis Corridor in Grand Gedeh County on Friday, June 27, 2025.
Boakai narrates that the peaceable homegoing of the late Samuel Ok. Doe and his spouse Nancy Doe was not only a burial; as a substitute, it was a second of nationwide reflection, a time to reconcile with our historical past, to heal from our wounds, and to recollect with respect and goal.
He revealed that the late Samuel Doe led Liberia by means of a decade of immense challenges, from 1980 to 1990, throughout which he rose to energy as a younger man with a daring imaginative and prescient to empower odd Liberians and uplift the voices of those that had been lengthy marginalized.
In accordance with President Boakai, the previous President Samuel Ok. Doe’s administration laid the foundations for infrastructure, training, and trade, including that a lot of these efforts stay seen and related right now. His dream was to rework Liberia right into a nation the place each citizen might thrive.
The Liberian chief additionally recalled the precious relationship he had with the late Samuel Ok. Doe, saying, ‘I converse not solely as President, but in addition as somebody who served underneath President Doe.’ I served first as Managing Director of the Liberia Produce and Advertising and marketing Company, and later as Minister of Agriculture.
By our work collectively, I had the chance to get to know him personally. He was decided. He was typically misunderstood. However he was at all times dedicated to bettering the lives of the Liberian individuals. Our collaboration was constructed on mutual respect and a shared imaginative and prescient of nationwide service, he stated.
This reburial carries weight far past Grand Gedeh or the Doe household. It symbolizes a broader effort to reconcile with our previous and to heal our nation. The civil battle that adopted his tragic loss of life inflicted deep scars. However by means of God’s grace, we’ve got loved peace for over twenty years, says Boakai.
“Let right now be greater than a symbolic gesture. Let it’s a chapter turned, a mark of our readiness to maneuver ahead, to make peace with the previous, and to uphold justice, unity, and reality.”
The dignified reburial, in keeping with President Boakai, displays the nation’s nationwide maturity and its collective will to heal and transfer ahead. It underscores my Authorities’s coverage to take away the lingering shadows of battle and to foster reconciliation for all Liberians.
He additional disclosed, stating, as I discussed in my Annual Message earlier this 12 months, that reconciliation and therapeutic are central to our improvement agenda. “We can not construct a affluent Liberia on damaged foundations. Our future is dependent upon unity, on confronting the previous by means of reality, forgiveness, and a shared dedication to progress.”
On the similar time, the Liberian chief used the event to warning younger individuals throughout the nation, saying to our youth, a lot of whom weren’t but born throughout these troublesome years, I say this: be taught from the teachings of our historical past, perceive the price of division. Let unity, peace, and repair to nation be your guiding stars, he provides.
He additional urged the bereaved households to stay collectively on this difficult interval, saying to the Doe household, ‘I urge you to stay united and proceed to guide by instance.’ Let your legacy be one in every of power, dignity, and nationwide therapeutic.
To the individuals of Grand Gedeh, and all Liberians throughout our fifteen counties, that is our time to come back collectively, Allow us to reconcile, Allow us to heal, Allow us to construct a Liberia the place no area is forgotten, no citizen is missed, and no previous injustice is allowed to outline our future he concludes.
The funeral service introduced collectively a cross-section of presidency officers from line ministries, businesses, and commissions, in addition to households and family of the late Samuel Ok. Doe, his spouse, Nancy Doe, improvement companions, residents of Grand Gedeh, youths, ladies’s teams, and others. -Edited by Othello B. Garblah.
