[dropcap]S[/dropcap]OCIAL media in Liberia has been buzzing with lewd details of the first lady’s sex habits, which were revealed in a controversial new biography of the president, with women’s groups up in arms over what they deem as indecent and demeaning revelations.
In Chapter 13 of the biography, George Weah: The Dream, The Legend, The Rise to Power, authors Emmanuel Clarke and Isaac Vah Tukpah Jr. state why Weah chose Clar, who is Jamaican, instead of a Liberian woman. ‘She played a kind of hard-to-get modesty with him as he pursued her. This attitude made George Weah want Clar the more.’ They went on to narrate how Weah described to a friend in salacious detail Clar’s sexual prowess.
The first lady has so far maintained a dignified silence but many Liberians want the president to clarify the veracity of the book’s claims.
Tukpah, who has American citizenship, was forced to quit his job – as an opposition figure’s aide – and apologised for including the interview about the first lady. However, amid the uproar by women’s groups and fearing possible reprisal by the authorities, Tukpah attempted to flee the country but was apprehended by immigration officials who claimed he was trying to cross a border that was closed and without any documentation.
This led to claims by opposition parties that he was arrested because of the publication. But the government quickly refuted those claims. In a statement, the information ministry said he was stopped from leaving the country on Tuesday night for his safety and because the border was already closed.
But was he really arrested for his safety? There have been a number attacks on media personnel and outlets whose reporting has been critical of the government. The Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), the Accra-based international non-governmental organisation that campaigns against violations and attacks on freedom of the press in West Africa, cites numerous reports of President Weah’s administration stifling the freedom of expression from several journalists and media houses, including the 2019 incident when unknown assailants attacked Joy FM, a radio station based in Monrovia. According to the MFWA, the assailants disrupted the station’s transmission by cutting the cables connecting the antenna to the transmitter.
In another incident cited by the MFWA, in 2019, a journalist working with a local radio station in the country was killed while he was going to work. ‘The killing came at a particularly difficult moment for the media in Liberia, which was in the beginning stages of coming under siege after the offices of FrontPageAfrica (FPA), Liberia’s leading online newspaper, were shut down and its staff bundled away by sheriffs,’ the MFWA said. The action was in connection with an advertiser’s announcement published in the newspaper, which resulted in a $1.8 million suit, it claimed.
Henry Costa, a popular radio host and a harsh critic of the president and his administration, was the first to post the salacious details of the first couple’s copulation detailed in the book. In October 2019, his radio station, Roots FM, on which his hugely popular show The Costa Morning Show was broadcast, was raided by armed police and closed down.
Costa’s listeners saw the station’s closure as another example of the government’s intolerance for dissenting opinion, with some human rights lawyers saying it violated people’s rights to free speech.
In 2018, alarmed by hostile anti-press sentiment, the Press Union of Liberia that sent an open letter to the United Nations warning of the ‘pace at which official intolerance for independent journalism and dissent is escalating in Liberia.’
It is against this background that some believe Tukpah tried to flee the country by crossing a closed land border without any documentation.
But President Weah in the statement said Tukpah was ‘not being sought after’ and that he was ‘free to live in or travel out of Liberia.’ Tukpah has since left for the US.
Meanwhile women’s groups, angry about the publication, are said to be planning demonstrations to condemn the book.
