“Truth Cannot Be Crushed” – Liberia news The New Dawn Liberia, premier resource for latest news

In January 2023, reports circulated in the media and were subsequently confirmed by state security actors that a shipment of arms and ammunition had been arrested at the Freeport of Monrovia. Accusing fingers were pointed at the 39-year-old City Mayor of Monrovia, Jefferson Tamba Koijee, an influential member of former President George Weah’s inner circle. Mr. Koijee is now the Secretary General of Liberia’s former ruling party, the Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC), after his party’s shocking defeat to Unity Party’s Joseph Nyumah Boakai.

Initial investigation by the CDC-led Government pointed to a man identified as Boye Baker and his accomplices as masterminds behind the illegal importation of the arms. Immediately afterward, insinuations inundated several quarters that the Police were arm-twisted to manipulate the “actual outcome of the investigation that would have exposed Mr. Koijee of being the owner of the container full of arms.”

On July 23, 2024, the new leadership of the Liberia National Police (LNP) reopened the investigation files and concluded that the previous investigation’s outcome was authentic and free of political influence.

The Inspector General of Police, Col. Gregory O. W. Coleman, told a press conference on July 23, 2024, that the January 6, 2023, arms arrest investigation was reopened and concluded that Mr. Boyd Benjamin Baker was the suspect.

 The alleged importers of the arms, according to the Liberia National Police Chief, have been charged with multiple crimes in absentia since he is residing in the United States. They were charged with criminal conspiracy, facilitation, and smuggling.

Col. Coleman added that all the arms consignments have been retrieved and are in the police’s possession. In effect, the Police have vindicated former Mayor Koijee of any connection with the illegal importation of arms, as insinuated at the time of the arrest. IG Coleman said the indictment has been sent to the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) to arrest the suspects in the event they are seen anywhere in the world.

In response to the news that a second investigation has been concluded, restating the previous conclusion, the CDC Chief scribe said, “Truth crushed to the ground will rise again no matter how long it takes. Those who fear us when we were given the chance to serve our country peddled lies against me that I brought arms into the country.” 

Koijee sighed that those “shameless and irresponsible traditional liars have been rewarded with jobs in the Joseph Boakai-led administration.”

He pointed out that Mr. Eugene Lamine Fahngon, who survives only in an environment where lies are cherished, should be courageous enough to apologize to the Liberian people for deceiving them just to get a job as the Director Generator of the Liberia Broadcasting System.

SG Koijee indicated that the police should also investigate circumstances that led to the death of citizens in Lofa during the election, including mobbed Solomon Joshua, Augustine Pennoh, Patrick Jarso, Caypae Doe, Josiah Saah Rayloe, and Tamba Momoh supporters of the Unity Party killed to demonstrate the Police sincerity to be impartial.

Koijee frowned on the purported “normalization taking away the lives of ordinary Liberians, particularly the accident involving the motorcade of the President that caused the death of two tricycle riders in the ELWA community on July 24, 2024.