ON TUESDAY, JUNE 24, 2025, President Joseph Nyuma Boakai led an array of Government of Liberia officials to the official signing of a Book of Condolences for former slain President Samuel Kanyon Doe.
PRESIDENT BOAKAI, REFLECTING on the historical significance of the gesture, said the act of remembrance was part of a broader national initiative to promote healing and unity.
PRESIDENT JOSEPH BOAKAI on Tuesday signed the Book of Condolence in honor of Liberia’s 21st President, the late Samuel Kanyon Doe, at the Centennial Memorial Pavilion in Monrovia.
THE CEREMONY, ATTENDED by senior government officials and members of the Doe Family, marked a solemn moment in the country’s ongoing effort to reconcile with its past and honor former leaders who died under tragic circumstances.
“TODAY, WE HONOR the memory of President Samuel Kanyon Doe not only as a former Head of State but as a son of Liberia whose life and leadership, though considered controversial by some, played a significant role in shaping our history,” the President said after signing the Condolence Book. “May this gesture serve as a step toward reconciliation, peace, and national cohesion.”
PRESIDENT DOE, WHO led the country from 1980 to 1990 following a military coup that overthrew President William R. Tolbert, became Liberia’s first indigenous leader to ascend to the presidency. He was killed in September 1990 at the height of Liberia’s first civil war, a period marked by widespread violence and national fragmentation.
THE BOOK OF Condolence signing is part of an effort by the Boakai Administration to reinter former leaders and provide proper national recognition, especially for those who died in extraordinary or violent circumstances.
AT LONG LAST, former slain Liberian President Samuel Kanyon Doe, has been given a befitting funeral rite that should have been given him had he died a normal death, but his life was cut short at the hands of marauding rebel forces led by the late Prince Y. Johnson, of the defunct rebel group, Independent National Patriot Front of Liberia (INPFL), during the heat of the 14-year Liberian civil upheaval.
THE INITIATIVE BY the Joseph Nyuma Boakai Administration to give the former head of state and President of Liberia, a befitting funeral rite should be the beginning of genuine peace and reconciliation after the war that devastated the entire fabric of Liberia.
EVEN THOUGH THERE are mixed reaction regarding the government’s initiative along with the Doe Family to rebury the former President and his wife, former First Lady Nancy Bohn Doe, but for reconciliation’s sake, it is the right thing to do. A former President should always be accorded that due recognition in life and death.
IN THE EYES of those who saw former President Samuel Doe, as an oppressor, a dictator, and human rights violator, he does not deserve a state burial. But on the other hand, Doe being a former President of the Republic of Liberia, it takes nothing from no one to honor his legacy as a President, but not a brutal dictator, who his political enemies and opponents branded as despotic who would go at nothing short to get rid of his political opponents.
IF FORMER FIRST Lady Nancy Bohn Doe and her children could go to Nigeria to reconcile with the late Prince Johnson who had murdered their father and husband, on national television, then who is there to oppose if the current Liberian Administration of President Joseph Nyuma Boakai has initiated a peace and reconciliation drive that will indeed bring Liberians together.
PRESIDENT BOAKAI ONCE served in the Samuel Doe’s government as Minister of Agriculture and Managing Director of the erstwhile Liberia Marketing & Produce Company (LPMC) in the 1980s, so most of the President’s detractors may want to think that he is reburying and paying homage to his former boss, Samuel Doe, to win public accolades.
BUT TRUTH BEING told, giving a reburial or former funeral rite to former and slain President Samuel Doe by the Boakai Administration is worth commending. Doe, may have offended thousands of Liberians with his military rule and later his despotic regime as a civilian president, but he also did some good things that Liberians and Liberia still enjoy today.
DOE WAS A patriot when it came to development. The concrete and asphalt pavement of several highways in Liberia, including the Ibrahim Babangida Highway leading to Sierra Leone, breaking grounds for the Ghana-Harper Highway project, the Gbarnga-Mendikorma Road, the completion of the Samuel Kanyon Doe Sports Complex, various ministries not to mention the Ministry of Health, the Central Bank of Liberia, the National Housing & Saving Bank on Ashmun Street, among many others.
WHATSOEVER THAT MAY have led to the civil war that brought the Samuel Kanyon Doe’s regime to an end, is now history. But remembering and giving the former slain President a befitting state funeral and burial, along with his wife, former First Lady Nancy Doe, is highly welcoming by The Liberian Post.
MAY THIS STATE exercise reawaken peace and reconciliation between and amongst Liberians as they strive to reconcile and lead a decent and peaceful life befitting of a civilized country. Let this gesture also be extended to former President William R. Tolbert and his 13 former government officials who were executed at the Barclay Training Center in 1980 by the Samuel Doe military junta.
IF TOTAL PEACE and reconciliation is to be realized there must be a holistic program to bring Liberians together and foster peace amongst them. Giving the slain and former President Samuel Kanyon Doe and his late wife, former First Lady Doe, is highly lauded and must be the catalyst upon which genuine peace and reconciliation will thrive in the Republic of Liberia, a country that saw a terrible war that lasted for 14 years of mayhem, destruction, human rights violation, estimation of over 250 people, among others.
MAY THIS NEW beginning signal a beacon of hope for genuine peace and reconciliation in Liberia. The Liberian Post applauds President Joseph Nyuma Boakai’s Administration for taking the lead and may Liberians embrace this initiative with peace and love and forgiveness in their respective hearts.
