Liberia’s Justice Minister Christiana Tah has broken up with her longtime ally, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, for blocking her investigation into fraud allegations against the Liberian National Security Agency (NSA), which is headed by the president's step-son, Fumba Sirleaf.
This marked the second time a top, influential female lieutenant has decided to split paths with the Sirleaf-Administration. The October 6, ’14 resignation of Minister Tah reminded me of the October 2012 Nobel smackdown when peace activist Leymah Gbowee sharply criticized President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, her fellow Nobel laureate, and resigned from a government post. Gbowee blamed the President for not doing enough to combat government corruption, citing nepotism symbolized perfectly by the high positions occupied by three of the President’s sons. By then, Robert Sirleaf headed the country’s oil company, while serving as senior economic advisor to the President. Fumba Sirleaf heads the National Security Agency and Charles Sirleaf is deputy governor of the Central Bank of Liberia (although he had been serving in that capacity long before his mother became President). "I've been through a process of really thinking and reflecting and saying to myself 'you're as bad as being an accomplice for things that are happening in the country if you don't speak up,'" she told the BBC in an interview. "And when tomorrow history is judging us all let it be known that we spoke up and we didn't just sit down.”