Fallah says NIMBO will back Boakai in 2029 only as full partner

Published: September 7, 2026

GBARNGA, Bong County — NIMBO will stay behind President Joseph Nyuma Boakai’s 2029 re-election bid only if the Unity Party treats the movement as a full partner in the governing coalition, Deputy House Speaker Thomas P. Fallah told the ruling alliance Saturday, and he reminded the room that NIMBO can register as a political party on its own whenever it decides to.

Fallah, who heads the National Independent Movement for Boakai, brought a bloc of lawmakers elected on Congress for Democratic Change tickets into the camp of the man they campaigned against in 2023. He said that bloc is an asset the Unity Party is in danger of wasting the same way the CDC wasted its own alliances before it lost power.

“NIMBO has the capacity to register at any given time to be a political institution of our country,” Fallah said, adding that the movement’s strength would show itself before long.

“If you have a reason, talking to the Unity Party, to see NIMBO otherwise, I would ask you colleagues to rethink,” he said. “We want you to see us as an integral part of whatever the ruling party is doing.”

Fallah said NIMBO came on its own terms. “NIMBO is here with a clear objective, clear intent. We were not coerced, we were not forced. We decided to come to be a help,” he said.

He spoke at the Unity Party Alliance Legislative Caucus Strategic Retreat in Gbarnga, which drew Vice President Jeremiah Kpan Koung, Senate President Pro Tempore Nyonblee Karnga-Lawrence, House Speaker Richard Nagbe Koon and scores of lawmakers and allied political figures as the alliance began planning for 2029.

Fallah, who spent six years inside the CDC-led government after 12 years in opposition, said the Unity Party should learn from what went wrong there.

“I have been in the opposition for 12 years; I was with the former ruling party and now the major opposition party,” he said. “We don’t want to see similar mistakes.”

He said the alliance must give equal respect to the parties, movements and individuals working with it instead of letting those relationships sour, and said disagreements were bound to come but could be handled. “We will have our disagreements, but our disagreements are always controlled and managed,” he said.

Fallah said he has already seen missteps inside the new arrangement. He did not name them in public and said he would raise them when the alliance’s leaders sit for higher-level talks.

On his own crossing, Fallah said the former CDC lawmakers in the room were proof of what the alliance stands to gain. “I came from the CDC. I won on the CDC ticket to have been a member of the House of Representatives. It is a plus for you to get a CDC in this room,” he said.

Among those he pointed to were Representatives Johnson Williams, Alex Paul, Siafa Kpoto, Jerry Yorgbor and Ellen Attoh-Wreh, all elected on the CDC ticket in 2023 and now associated with NIMBO and the Unity Party Alliance. He also referenced Rep. Michael Thomas, who won as an independent.

Koon said the retreat was about strengthening collaboration and positioning Boakai and Koung for re-election in 2029. He said the size and political mix of the gathering showed a growing willingness to work under the Unity Party Alliance, and that each figure in the room carries thousands of supporters whose weight will matter at the polls.