By Socrates Smythe Saywon
Cllr. Cyrenius Cephas, Liberia’s former Solicitor General and once a fierce defender of the George Weah administration, has taken an unexpected turn in political commentary. In a revealing statement dated July 30, 2025, Cephas outlined eleven damning reasons why he finds himself “unwilling and unable to criticize” President Joseph Boakai’s Unity Party-led government. But this is no endorsement of Boakai. Instead, it is a scathing reflection on the failures of the previous regime, particularly under former President Weah, which Cephas himself helped uphold. His confessional-style remarks are laced with bitterness, regret, and a strange kind of absolution that seeks to justify silence in the present by shining an unflinching light on the past.
Cephas’ eleven-point commentary is more than a personal reckoning; it is a political grenade tossed into Liberia’s already fragile landscape of post-election accountability. The most glaring takeaway is not necessarily his critique of the Weah administration, which many Liberians would consider long overdue, but rather his rationalization for giving the Boakai government a free pass. This is deeply problematic. In essence, Cephas appears to argue that Boakai’s administration should be shielded from criticism because Weah’s was worse. That logic is dangerous. It perpetuates the very culture of impunity Liberia desperately needs to dismantle.
To his credit, Cephas offers a brutally honest indictment of the government he once served. He describes a presidency that was inaccessible, nepotistic, and deeply tribalized. He accuses it of favoring recycled elites, indulging in vanity retreats, undermining competent allies, and selling out Liberia’s foreign policy for political convenience. He even likens the era to George Orwell’s Animal Farm, where children born into poverty somehow rose to live like royalty, an unmistakable jab at the unexplained enrichment of political insiders.
Perhaps the most chilling of Cephas’ claims is the ethnic consolidation of power: the presidency, pro tempore, and deputy speaker, all held by individuals from the same minority Kru tribe. This raises longstanding concerns about ethnic dominance and structural exclusion that Liberia has long struggled to address. Yet, Cephas presents this as a post-factum observation, not as an issue he challenged while in office. One must ask, why now? What does Cephas hope to gain or redeem by stating this after the fact?
Even more intriguing is his jab at former President Weah, whom he mocks for dancing on social media while Liberia grapples with the legacy of his presidency. “What else is shameful and childish than this?” Cephas asks. But the real shame, arguably, lies not in Weah’s post-presidency dance moves, but in the silence of officials like Cephas during Weah’s tenure, when they had both power and platform to effect change but chose not to.
Still, Cephas’ confession forces Liberians to confront a brutal question: If Boakai’s administration is to be judged in comparison to Weah’s, does that set the bar too low? Cephas makes no attempt to claim Boakai’s government is flawless, but he clearly implies it is less corrupt, less tribalized, and more thoughtful. Yet that should not be enough. The very purpose of democratic accountability is not to select the lesser evil but to demand good governance, transparency, and equitable leadership from whoever is in power.
In truth, Cephas’ statement reads more like a deferred guilt trip. It reflects the moral fatigue of a man who was once on the frontline of a crumbling regime and is now seeking redemption by shifting blame backward while deflecting forward criticism. However, Liberia’s wounds cannot be healed by silence. If anything, they demand louder and more consistent scrutiny of all administrations, past and present.
The bigger question that emerges is not just why Cephas won’t criticize Boakai, but whether his revelations should spark broader investigations into the systemic failures of the Weah era, and what lessons the current administration is choosing to ignore. In a country still haunted by economic disparity, political mistrust, and institutional fragility, Cephas’ backward-looking commentary does little to reassure a public hungry for truth and reform.
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