By Solomon Wea Smith
When Joseph Nyuma Boakai was inaugurated as Liberia’s 26th President in January 2024, he inherited a nation saddled with deep socioeconomic wounds, weakened institutions, and public expectations pitched high by a hard-fought campaign. His narrow yet historic runoff victory over George Weah was itself an achievement for the Republic — another peaceful transfer of power in a country once torn by war and wrecked by years of constitutional disorder.
Boakai brought to the office decades of public service experience, including twelve years as Vice President under Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, and that long span of public bureaucracy has potentially shaped the temper of his presidency. As the administration approaches the constitutional midpoint of its first term in January 2027, it is possible to weigh not only its promises, but its governing style, its institutional record, and the challenges still ahead.
Restoring the Dignity of the Presidency:
One of Boakai’s most significant achievements so far may also be his least tangible: the restoration of public respect for the presidency itself. His pledge to return integrity and dignity to public service took institutional form in the ARREST Agenda for Inclusive Development — adopted as Liberia’s national development framework in December 2024 — which anchors the government’s ambitions in agriculture, infrastructure, governance, education, and human-capital development.
In office, the President has projected a calmer, more restrained style, one that prizes discipline, administrative order, and respect for institutional boundaries. Liberia remains fiercely competitive, and criticism has not slackened; but that disagreement has stayed within democratic bounds, and the presidency has not needed to silence its critics to prove its authority. In a country whose leaders have too often confused power with noise, the quiet is itself a statement.
A President Who Understands the Limits of Power:
The administration has largely kept workable relations with the Legislature and the Judiciary while operating within the constitutional separation of powers. That restraint reflects a mature idea of leadership: the strength of a president in a democracy is measured not by how much power he accumulates, but by how well he exercises the power he has while honoring its limits.
Liberians continue to criticize, organize, and debate in the open, and there is no credible basis for calling the administration systematically repressive or associated with political imprisonment. Respect for democratic space is a discipline rather than a trophy — it must be renewed daily, and the government will be watched closely on how it handles dissent in harder days — but for a nation with such a draconian history, an administration that has so far governed without reaching for repression has earned the Boakai administration genuine credit.
The Economy: Stability Amid Global Uncertainty:
Liberia remains economically challenging, burdened by unemployment, high living costs, and deep infrastructure deficits. Yet the administration can point to real progress in mobilizing its own resources. The Liberia Revenue Authority reports that collections rose from about US699millionin2024toUS848 million in 2025, reaching US904.7millionbyAugust2026—withinsightof,thoughnotyetacross,thesymbolicUS1 billion line.
The deeper achievement is the growing capacity to raise domestic revenue, which reduces dependence on donors and frees resources for roads, schools, healthcare, and security. But revenue is a means, not an end. The true test is whether fuller coffers reach the ordinary household — whether families can afford food, whether the young find work, whether small businesses can grow. Money gathered in Monrovia means little until it is felt in the kitchens of the counties. The government says its main focus over the next three years is to ensure that lives are directly touched.
Infrastructure, Roads, and National Connectivity:
Infrastructure has become one of the administration’s most visible priorities. Roads are being built and rehabilitated across the counties, cutting travel times and easing trade and movement. This is more than concrete: a good road ties a village to its market, a patient to a clinic, a citizen to his government. Roads are instruments of national integration as much as of commerce.
The government has also delivered on its pledge of roughly 135 pieces of yellow machinery, distributed across all fifteen counties to maintain the roads and hold the gains against the rains, with the hope that within two to three years the network will be markedly improved. The harder task is to sustain momentum, guard construction quality, and make maintenance — not merely ribbon-cutting — a permanent national habit.
Accountability and the Emerging Culture of Audit:
Institutions charged with transparency have enjoyed wider room to operate under Boakai. The General Auditing Commission, the Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission, the Internal Audit Agency, and other oversight bodies have pressed on with audits and investigations across government — which is exactly how democratic accountability should work, on the understanding that public officials are custodians, not owners, of public resources.
At his 28th Cabinet meeting, the President again emphasized procurement transparency and “value for money.” The administration has also largely spared the country the recurring Executive Mansion scandals that stained parts of earlier governments. Not every official has performed cleanly, and vigilance remains essential, but the presidency has projected a firmer administrative discipline than Liberians have grown used to.
The Drug War:
A Defining Test of Political Will
No test has pressed the government’s resolve harder than the fight against international narcotics trafficking. In July 2026, authorities announced one of the largest cocaine seizures in the nation’s history — roughly 4,000 kilograms, valued at about US$317 million. The investigation later widened, and in August 2026 former Vice President Jewel Howard-Taylor was arrested and charged in connection with an alleged transnational network. She remains entitled to due process, and the allegations must be proven in court.
The political stakes could hardly be higher, and the principle the President has stated — that political connections will shield no one — is the correct one. But a principle is only as strong as its even application: to hold public trust, the campaign must remain grounded in evidence, due process, and judicial independence, and it must reach every hand the evidence touches. Success will be measured not by arrests alone, but by credible convictions, dismantled networks, seized illicit proceeds, and an end to Liberia’s use as a transit point.
Liberia’s Return to the International Stage:
The Boakai presidency has also delivered real diplomatic gains. In January 2026, Liberia began a two-year term as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council — won by an overwhelming 181 of 187 General Assembly votes in June 2025, its first Council term since 1961. The seat gives Liberia a direct voice in global debates on peace and security, and a platform to press African perspectives.
The administration has meanwhile kept strong relations with the United States, maintained its One-China policy while preserving ties with Beijing, and pursued a foreign policy aimed not at choosing between friends, but at advancing Liberia’s interests among them.
Liberia’s Maritime Diplomacy:
Liberia also retained its seat on the Council of the International Maritime Organization in Category A for the 2026–2027 biennium, ranking it among the ten states with the largest interests in international shipping. For a country whose maritime registry is among its most valuable assets, this standing is no formality: it allows Liberia to defend its commercial interests and help shape global rules on maritime safety and regulation. Together with the Security Council seat, it marks a genuine diplomatic re-emergence.
But Stability Is Not Transformation:
Here lies the central question of the midpoint: has stability become transformation? Not yet. The government can fairly claim steadier administration, stronger revenue, cleaner conduct at the top, and revived diplomacy. But the citizen does not eat stability. Liberians still want jobs, affordable food, reliable electricity, passable roads, functioning hospitals and schools, and a future for their children — and it is against those wants, not the government’s own press releases, that the next phase will be judged.
The ARREST Agenda must therefore become more than a printed framework; it must be felt in daily life. The President’s challenge now is not merely to govern better than his predecessor, but to deliver more visibly — to turn quiet competence into results an ordinary Liberian can measure.
The Case for a Government Recalibration:
Delivery will require a hard, honest look at the team. Officials who perform should be strengthened; those who repeatedly fail should be replaced without sentiment; ministries lacking expertise should be reinforced. The aim should be performance, not punishment — and not the mere reshuffling of familiar faces.
For the President’s greatest asset is his own reputation for integrity, and his greatest vulnerability may be the conduct of officials acting in his name. He cannot effectively implement the ARREST Agenda alone. He needs a team capable of turning vision into measurable results, and the discipline to part with those who cannot.
Jobs Must Become the Central Political Currency
Of all the tests ahead, employment will shape public opinion more than any other. A young Liberian without work does not experience GDP growth as a statistic; a mother struggling to feed her children measures the government by what is on the table. That is the arithmetic that decides elections, and it is unforgiving.
Attracting productive foreign direct investment must therefore rise to the top of the agenda — investors who build enterprises, employ Liberians, widen the tax base, and anchor long-term growth. To draw them, the government must keep improving infrastructure, regulation, transparency, energy supply, and land administration, make the business climate predictable, and protect the national interest — and it must communicate its investment strategy far more effectively than it has.
The Information War the Government Must Take Charge Of:
Public communication remains a real challenge. Too often the government appears reactive when it should be proactive — explaining what it is doing, why it matters, what it costs, who benefits, and when results should appear. The Ministry of Information, the Liberia Broadcasting System, the Liberia News Agency, and the government’s other voices should be strengthened and coordinated into one credible message rather than a scatter of statements. To remedy this malady, the government must prioritize communication by funding it effectively and intentionally. Communication is critically important in enterprise, politics, and governance. However, under the constraints of very low budgets, the government communication team is making some strides, with room to do more and a need for support.
The government’s relationship with the independent press must improve as well. Criticism is not hostility, and a free press is not an enemy of the state but one of the instruments by which a democracy holds itself to account. Officials would do well to treat journalists as fellow citizens and professionals rather than adversaries, remembering that those who report on power share the same nation, and the same fate, as those who wield it. In the end, better coverage cannot be demanded; it must be earned — through better governance and honest engagement.
The Final Three Years:
The years ahead will be decisive. Liberians will judge President Boakai not by the depth of the hole he inherited, but by how far he lifts the country out of it between January 2024 and the end of his term. Many of these burdens were decades in the making; still, the President must show that the nation’s direction has genuinely changed under his hand.
That means tethering every major decision to one clarifying question: does this make life better for Liberians? By that measure, the work is plain — to create jobs, attract investment, improve services, strengthen accountability, protect oversight institutions and democratic freedoms, fight organized crime without fear or favor, and communicate all of it effectively and efficiently.
The Presidency, the Unity Party, and the Question of Legacy:
The performance of these next years will echo beyond them, shaping Liberia’s next election. The surest strategy for the Unity Party is not slogans but successful governance: real gains in jobs, roads, investment, revenue, services, and institutional integrity would build a record no opponent could easily dismiss. Should the government instead appear complacent, disconnected, or defensive, it will hand that ground to its rivals.
History offers President Boakai a choice between two legacies. He may be remembered as the elder statesman who restored calm and dignity to a battered presidency — no small thing — or as the leader who converted that dignity into lasting transformation in ordinary lives. So far he has governed with a steady hand, with patience, restraint, and respect for institutions. But temperament is not the final measure of a presidency. Results are.
The first phase of the Boakai presidency has restored confidence in the office. The next must restore confidence in Liberia’s future. Whether the promise of rescue becomes the reality of transformation will determine how history remembers Joseph Nyuma Boakai.
