Liberia: Rescue Mission Slips the Wagon (2025)

Former Vice President Jewel Howard-Taylor, shares her reflections here on the Unity Party's governance since ascending to power in 2024, stating that the UP came to power with a promise to rescuing Liberia and improving lives of citizens.

However, 18 months later, she believes the government has veered off track.

During an appearance on Spoon Talk on Monday, April 6, 2025, Ms Taylor, wife of jailed former Liberian President Charles Ghankay Taylor, expressed concern that the current government has fallen short of expectations set during the election campaign.

"I realize that when we want to get elected, we say a lot of things. It is not as easy to fix it or bring to pass all of those promises," she notes, adding that she hopes her comments would not anger people, but she felt it was necessary to speak out, having been part of government for so long.

However, Madam Taylor acknowledges challenges President Joseph Nyuma Boakai faces in office, emphasizing that Liberia still grapples with basic issues like food, clothing, and shelter.

"We are still dealing with the basics for our people. I can imagine the difficulty he has and the work that must go into it," she says, reflecting on her own experience as a former Vice President from the Weah regime, where challenging issues also came across her desk.

Regarding the 2024 election, she reveals that the former ruling Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC) lost by just 17,000 votes, which signals that the country was deeply divided.

"If the majority of people were disappointed, we lost, but the number was minimal," she argues. She explains that 51% of Liberians believed that the Unity Party would bring new dynamics to the country, while 49% thought that granting former President Weah a second term would be better for the nation.

She admits that, as part of the CDC government, they had failed to effectively communicate the work being done by the administration. "We did not do well in transmitting what was happening in our government for the people to see."

Madam Taylor, also a former First Lady of Liberia, laments her own struggles with benefits as a former Vice President. She reveals that she has not received proper benefits entitled to her, including half of her salary, vehicles, and security detail.

"I have written everybody, including the Speaker of the 55th Legislature, the Pro-Tempore, the Minister of State, the Minister of Finance, and most recently, I wrote the Minister of Justice," she discloses, but says despite these efforts, she still had not received her entitled benefits.

She recounts an incident from the day of her departure from the presidential inauguration, where she was left without transportation.

"I left the inauguration, and I was stuck on the floor. When I walked out of the inauguration, there was no vehicle left to take me home," lamenting that she waited nearly 45 minutes under a tree in front of the Executive Mansion before a private vehicle picked her up.

"By the time I got to the inauguration, the entire convoy had shifted to the current Vice President, and there wasn't a single vehicle to take me home," she adds, revealing that she had been forced to ride in her personal vehicle.

Through her comments, Taylor hopes to offer advice to the current government, and urges them to improve situation for the Liberian people, as she continues to voice her concerns about the country's political landscape.