The Government of Liberia is taking all necessary precautionary measures, including deployment of armed security personnel at the burial site of the late Senator Prince Yormie Johnson amid rumors of a plan by unidentified persons to remove the senator’s corpse from his grave.
By Thomas Domah, Nimba County
Nimba, Liberia, January 17, 2025 – A report from Ganta, Nimba County, says the Government of Liberia is considering a plan to deploy armed security officers at the grave of the late Senator Prince Yormie Johnson, after his burial this Saturday, 18 January.
The government’s decision followed allegation that there are plans by some individuals to remove the late Senator’s remains from his grave after interment.
The NEW DAWN gathered that those unidentified persons planning to carry out such alleged act are arguing that slain President Samuel K. Doe, who the late Sen. PYJ captured at the Freeport of Monrovia and subsequently tortured to death during the Liberian Civil War, doesn’t have a grave, so they will not allow the leader of the disbanded INPFL to have a grave or a memorial site.
The late PYJ led his INPFL rebels from his then base in Caldwell to the Free Zone Authority adjacent to the Freeport of Monrovia, where the first batch of regional peacekeeping force, ECOMOG, had stationed after its arrival in Liberia in 1990, and attacked the late President who had gone to welcome the peacekeepers.
Doe lost his bodyguards in the attack, and he was captured and tortured to death, after which his body was put on public display at Island Clinic on Bushrod Island, a scene well documented with video footage.
However, Charles Taylor’s NPFL rebels later overran PYJ’s Caldwell base, and the late Field marshal ran to ECOMOG for rescue and was taken into exile in Nigeria, where he turned from after the civil war and entered politics.
His body arrived in Ganta on Thursday afternoon after lying in state at the Capitol Building, where officials of government, including fellow senators, paid tribute led by Vice President Jeremiah Kpan Koung.
President Boakai and former president George Weah signed the Book of Condolence for the fallen senator on Wednesday.
A native of Nimba County remains of the late PYJ were received Thursday by thousands of kinsmen, who had gathered to pay last respect to a man they consider their hero for standing up against Doe, who hunted many Nimbaians to death on suspicion that they were against his regime.
Local officials are expected to take the body on a tour of several parts of the county, including Sanniquellie, Karnplay, Bahn, and Saclepea, respectively, before interment at his residence in LPRC Community, Ganta, on Saturday.
However, public health workers in Nimba have raised concerns against burying a dead person at home for public health and other reasons. Still, the government seems resolved in meeting the family’s wish to have the fallen senator buried at his residence in Ganta. It also has his PYJ Polytechnic University and a mineral water facility.
This paper observes that since the body arrived in the county, there has been huge presence of state security, including the Armed Forces of Liberia. Editing by Jonathan Browne
