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Liberian president calls on citizens in America to come back home

Page last updated at Saturday, April 11, 2009 12:12 PM // 1 Comment
Liberian President, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf

Liberian President, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf

Liberia’s president got an enthusiastic reception Friday from an audience filled with her countrymen and women at the University of Minnesota.

She had a message in return: “We want you home.”

The West African nation is making great strides after 14 years of civil war, said Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a Harvard-educated banker who overcame imprisonment and threats to her life on her way to becoming Africa’s first elected female head of state in 2006. “The future is ours to reclaim.”

Minnesota is home to 10,000 to 15,000 Liberians, more than any state except Pennsylvania, according to the state demographer’s office.

Komassa Reed, 21, and her sister Kebbeh, 16, came to Brooklyn Center from Liberia two years ago to get an education.

They say Sirleaf is doing a good job, and both say they intend to return to their native land after earning degrees. “I think her whole speech was really inspiring,” Komassa Reed said.

Sirleaf is a longtime friend of J. Brian Atwood, dean of the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, and shespoke and took questions at Northrop Auditorium as part of the institute’s Distinguished Carlson Lecture Series. She was awarded an honorary doctor of laws degree for public service.

She used much of her address to tick off improvements in infrastructure, the economy and governmental institutions, often prompting shouts of “Iron Lady!” — her nickname — from the crowd.

Mariah Seton came from Chicago to attend the speech with her uncle, who lives in Brooklyn Center. She left Liberia shortly before the outbreak of civil war in the 1990s, but she was back for a conference two years ago and saw signs that things are turning around.

“I was really impressed with the manner in which people were picking themselves up from that destructive war,” she said.

But despite the progress, Sirleaf said the nation of 3.5 million people — where unemployment is estimated at 85 percent — isn’t ready for an immediate mass repatriation.

“We know that it takes time and that we will have to plan it,” she said.

She said she encouraged President Barack Obama’s recent decision to allow Liberians living in the United States under “deferred enforced departure” status to stay another year, and she hopes a permanent solution can be arranged for them. An estimated 1,000 Liberians are in Minnesota under that status.

Comfort Lartey-Ofori, of Champlin, said she wished she had brought her 9-year-old daughter to the speech, “to see how far she can go in life.”

“I was filled with emotion” when Sirleaf took the stage, said Lartey-Ofori, who is from Ghana. “This is something that is attainable through hard work.”

Emmanuel Monluo, a 2008 U grad and a native Liberian, said he’s impressed by how much Sirleaf has accomplished in three years, but he was intending to press her at a gathering Friday night to crack down more on governmental corruption.

“We hope she continues the good work,” he said.

Source: Twin Cities



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1 Comment

  1. TS. spoon says:
    July 4, 2009 at 6:11 am

    I sincerely thank the Government and people of Liberia for the good works they are doing. Because it is not just easy to rebuild after a war lasting as long as ours. Thanks agin to the Government of Liberia.

    What I could like know why government can not put the Roberts International Aiport and the James Spriggs Airport for bid to interested airline or company in order to rebuild the airports i use it for sometime and give it back to the country. wthy should government wait to find money to rebuild the airports at the time. Let government sign contract with interested company and airline to take over some of these development, eg. water, light, JFK Hospital and All Airporrts in the country. People managing these corporations will not advance these idears because they are not looking at the country first, they are only thinking about their pocket for toady. At the end of the day when those arears are developed government will receive if not all a good amount of her taxes from those arears. Ministry of Transport, The Deputy Minister of Aviation/or Transport and the Director of Civil Aviation sould know better than just sitting here collecting landing handling and rental fees from the airport and not making and progress at the airport.
    At the Ministry of Transport, the Division of Civil Aviation register aircraft under Liberia Flag and received a registration fees of 25,000.00 Us dollars per aircraft and inspection fees of 5,000.00 US dollars per aircraft yearly. I have seen in Europe number of Liberian Registered Aircraft and other part of the world. Like us put these fees into developing the aviation industry in Liberia and not the pocktet of officals. Madam Presidnet please ask Delt Air Airline to take over the Roberts International Airport, develop at use it for number of year and turn it over to the Liberian people. If you do not do this the arport will never get develope. Because those are the same people again.

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