Monrovia: LIBERIA’s new President, George Weah has urged unity among fellow countrymen to enable the troubled nation to move forward following a peaceful transfer of power - a first for the country in three generations.
Weah was sworn in on Monday, taking over from Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa’s first elected female president who steps down after 12 years in power.
It is the first time since 1944 that Liberia is having a peaceful democratic transfer of power.
“United, we are certain to succeed as a nation, divided we are certain to fall,” Weah declared during his swearing-in ceremony on Monday.
Weah won the presidency after a presidential run off poll last December with 61.5% of votes.
“We have arrived here on the blood, sweat and tears and suffering of so many of our citizens, too many of whom died long before real equality,” he noted, referring to the quarter of a million people killed in Liberia’s 1989-2003 civil war.
Weah played for a string of top-flight European teams in the 1990s and was crowned the world’s best player by FIFA and won the coveted Ballon d’Or prize, the only African to have achieved this.
