People prayed for Pres. George Weah’s defeat and God answered!

“I have food home but I emptied myself and fasted for Boakai to win” …Weedor Kollie

Banner photograph: Ex-Liberian footballer George Weah sings with popular Cameroonian twins at Weah’s own nightclub in Monrovia, Liberia, a year after Charles Taylor became president. For more than three decades, Journalist James Fasuekoi documented through films and writings, his country’s entertainment and cultural lifestyles as well as its political and war histories like no other journalist.

By James Kokulo Fasuekoi|Editor-Publisher|editor@globalekklesia.com

Liberia’s Pres. George Weah in November lost the presidency to UP’s ex-vice president, Amb. Joseph Boakai in a heated election. But what some may not know is how thousands of people worldwide had been praying for Weah’s defeat, all due to his reckless six-year rule.

From single family, prayer-bands to church groups-from especially the U.S to Liberia’s coastal and grasslands, as well as its hilly-countryside all joined in one accord and prayed for his immediate ousting. This happened through the weeks leading to the nation’s first and second presidential election.  

Based on our probe, countless people both in Liberia and abroad fasted (no meal, no water) for an unspecified period for that matter. Majority of Liberians involved with the fasting are people whose lives had been either directly, or indirectly affected by the regime’s misrule.

Paramount reasons given for Weah’s removal included the widespread corruption by him and his officials, the never-ending seemingly state’s “sponsored violence” against known government critics. They described him as being “unfit” to rule, in addition to secret and ritualistic killings of people, including children that had persisted with impunity since he took power. 

For many of the people, prayer-bands and church groups that prayed from North America, the prayer-points seemed unanimous: They rejected another of Weah’s “six more years of suffering”; they asked for the avoidance of any possible “bloodbath” amid the looming tension; that God should create a pathway in order to let whoever lost the elections to concede defeat right away to avoid war or an upheaval. 

Though the election itself was marred by violence days to both elections, in places such as Nimba, when one “Anthony Quiwonkpa”, (claiming to be a “friend of Weah”) reportedly fired gunshots into a crowd of opposition at a rally, and the sudden kidnapping of a UP-hired Ghanaian election-technician by Weah’s national securities, all still went well.  

Establishing cause

God has always granted the wishes of His faithful and obedient servants, according to His Word in Luke 11:10 and Matt. 7:8; effectively so, especially when there’s an established “cause” (“fault”) or ground, which is all that is apparently needed for the LORD to act, although Job’s own story found in Job 1:1-22, may be a totally different case.

Equally, in the spirit-realms, before the devil Satan takes down a man or woman, the person must have had to create a “cause” or ground before the devil will attack and succeed, in the absence of God’s exceeding grace and mercy! Simply put, Satan, the accuser, would use any “open door” in the person’s life or “faults” before striking.

Now, in Mr. George Weah’s case, the accusations seemed staggering, and his “faults” too, endless indeed: from abject poverty caused by the regime’s financial depravity of the citizens (though the nation possesses great minerals), to the unprecedented and unjustifiable ritualistic killings of kids that engulfed the entire country.

Also, utter lawlessness became the Weah administration’s hallmark, with much of it believed to be instigated or perpetrated by himself indirectly, plus his partisans and appointed officials such as a man named Jeff Koigee, who stood as mayor for the capital throughout Weah’s regime. 

Violent crimes as a whole became all-time-high, more than both Charles Taylor and Ellen Sirleaf-Johnson regimes combined. Foreigners posing as so-called “business merchants” cleverly ran criminal-rings of all kinds in the country, taking advantage of vulnerable Liberians and when arrested, they bribed their “way” out of the country via higher-ups, the police and customs officials.

As a result, most victimized parties in the country were left hopeless and never received a fair justice for themselves or deceased loved ones and thousands of those cases will now be left to the incoming Joseph N. Boakai administration and hopefully a new police chief to review and adjudicate. 

Classic case of two women 

One Southeastern Liberia woman who now resides in the U.S. is part of a prayer band of some 50 or more, mainly women. Mostly widows, her praying team also wanted and hoped for a regime change in Liberia, the reason simply being because she hadn’t received fair justice in the case that involves her brother’s kidnapping and suspected murdered a year ago in Bassa. 

The story goes that her brother was lured into the forest by some men with whom he had some business engagement while he was on a business trip to the area, under the pretext they had found “good business”, a large number of logs or so the man wanted. 

The missing young man has since not been found despite she’s paid a handsome amount in U.S. dollars in the process of getting the alleged “culprits” of the alleged kidnapping arrested and charged but they were later released for no clear reason. As a result, she faults the police, the putrid court system and the regime itself. 

Another lady living upcountry in Lofa county who stated she’s a former George Weah supporter, Weedor Kollie, claimed her ex-female boss took advantage of her vulnerability and fired her but after she filed a complaint, she received no redress. Thus, she vowed she would vote for Weah’s main opponent, Boakai.  

 “I have food home but I [purposely] emptied myself and fasted for Boakai to win,” Weedor, a former Voinjama City women’s group leader and a mother of several school-going children told a “citizen journalist” in Lofa moments after she voted last Nov. 14.   

She said she had lost her husband to marauding rebel gangs during the bloody civil war of the 90s, and that left her with several young children to care for without help from any source. 

Accordingly, she successfully campaigned for Weah in 2017 and when the party won the elections finally she managed to secure employment with the city council in Voinjama City which seemed a timely relief to a single mother.   

Accordingly, her “trouble,” she narrated, began after her envious female boss, fearful that she would take up her job per Weedor’s own job experiences, started to show a strange attitude toward her, and ended up firing her.  She filed a complaint with the city but got no redress, she said.  

Jubilation

Upon announcing that Weah had been defeated and that Joe Boakai had won, homes of many Liberians, and later worship centers, exploded in jubilation and thanked God for answering their prayers.

On the Sunday after Joseph Boakai’s victory announcement, Dr. Judy Fornara, founder of Spiritual Life Church and Bible College of Minnesota and whose church maintains bible colleges in Liberia expressed relief for the victory and called one immigrant Liberia who had been part of the group praying for Weah’s exit to give a testimony. 

“President Weah needed to go, because there were too many killings going on all over the country and he sat there and watched but he didn’t take any action”, the lady said amid wild applause. 

Dr. Judy, a world evangelist, had long faulted the regime for failing to address grievous matters such as the unprecedented “ritual killings” of children, and detention of poor-birthing women, whose newborn-babies have been often seized by JFK Hospital authorities (Liberia’s largest medical center), all because the women failed to clear their medical bills. 

In Dr. Judy’s biblical view, God could punish a whole nation for such barbaric acts just as He did during ancient times.

Related article: Liberia’s uncertain future: Baptist preacher-last of 3 murdered victims laid to rest|Liberia’s uncertain future: Baptist preacher-last of 3 murdered victims laid to rest – (globalekklesia.com) 

James Kokulo Fasuekoi is an award-winning journalist, author, documentary writer and news photographer. He previously covered civil wars in West Africa for several news media including The Associated Press. Listed on his college’s Dean’s List for academic excellence, he became a Bush Foundation Scholar twice in 2017. His work as a civil war journalist has also brought him face-to-face with the law in his native Liberia, and in the US, where the Fed had him subpoenaed twice to stand as states witness in two major Liberian ‘war crimes trials’ of 2017 & 2018 in Philadelphia. Once an African national ballet dancer, he now writes, photographs and dances for Christ. Read profile @ https://globalekklesia.com/profile/