Liberia: Commentary on Justice Minister, Solicitor General Replacements

Liberian politics has a peculiar relationship with competent people. We celebrate them when they enter government, become impatient when they insist on doing things properly, and sometimes discover their value only after they are gone. First came Wilmot Paye. Now comes Cllr. N. Oswald Tweh. President Joseph Nyuma Boakai has replaced Tweh as Minister of Justice and Attorney General, appointing Cllr. Betty Lamin-Blamo. The Executive Mansion says Tweh, along with outgoing Solicitor General Augustine Fayiah, "are to be reassigned to other levels of government." Keep up with the latest headlines on WhatsApp | LinkedIn The President has every right to change his team. We are not suggesting that Tweh was removed because he openly disagreed with President Boakai. We have no evidence of that. Neither are we suggesting that he made some misstep in the ongoing drug-trafficking investigations. But the timing, the man involved and another recent departure from this administration raise a larger question that should concern the Unity Party and President Boakai himself: Does Liberian politics have enough room for independent professionals? Tweh is not principally known as a politician. He is a lawyer and one of Liberia's accomplished legal professionals. If anything, one criticism of his approach has been that he can be painstakingly meticulous--sometimes enough to appear slow. But when did careful become a liability at the Ministry of Justice? Liberia is in the middle of major drug-trafficking investigations involving powerful personalities and allegations with enormous consequences. This is precisely when the country needs a Justice Ministry interested less in speed and spectacle and more in evidence that can survive a courtroom. Success cannot simply be measured by how many prominent people are arrested, detained or embarrassed. It must be measured by whether investigators reach the financiers, facilitators and beneficiaries of the drug trade, and whether prosecutors can prove their cases according to law. Otherwise, a serious national investigation risks becoming vulnerable to the perception that justice is being used to settle political scores. So what do we want: to win the war against drugs, or merely to quickly identify people upon whom society can pin the crime? President Boakai is also not the only center of power or influence in government. Liberia has separate branches with powerful actors of their own. Within the Executive are senior officials, advisers, allies and competing interests. Outside government are commercial and political interests with access to powerful people. There is nothing unusual about competing interests around government. The danger comes when those interests outweigh professional judgment or the national interest. That is why government needs people capable of standing amid those pressures and still saying: This is what the law requires. This is what the evidence says. This is what Liberia's interest demands. Which brings us to Wilmot Paye. Paye left the Ministry of Mines and Energy amid one of the most consequential periods in Liberia's mining and infrastructure history. His tenure coincided with the fierce debate over the Yekepa-Buchanan railway, multi-user access, ArcelorMittal Liberia's proposed Third Amendment and the Ivanhoe Atlantic Concession and Access Agreement. Paye was outspoken about protecting Liberia's control over its infrastructure and insisting upon multi-user rail. He was ultimately relieved of duty, but that policy direction survived. The Legislature subsequently ratified the Ivanhoe agreement, while Liberia moved further toward an independently operated, multi-user railway. Now Tweh leaves Justice at another consequential moment. Two different men. Two different ministries. Two very different circumstances. We should resist manufacturing a conspiracy connecting their departures. But we should not be afraid to ask the question they leave behind: What happens in Liberian government to pro