A Guest Editorial: “Liberia Will Decide”-The Silent Cry Behind a Yearbook Caption

By: Momolu Dorley |Foreign Policy Professional &Historian, Contributing Writer

When a young man named Bohlen James A. wrote in his high school yearbook, “Liberia Will Decide,” while his peers wrote “Doctor,” “Engineer,” or “Lab Technician,” social media erupted — not with ridicule, but with recognition. Across Facebook and TikTok, people are praising him as “the only one who truly understands Liberia.” What was meant as a simple senior-year statement has become a viral moment of national introspection.

Because beneath that phrase lies something hauntingly profound. It is not comedy; it is confession. It is a line that carries the weight of generations who have watched effort go unrewarded, merit displaced by manipulation, and institutions crumble under the weight of corruption. His words are the sound and signs of resignation — a young Liberian who no longer believes his destiny lies in his own hands, but in the unpredictable mercy of a state that rarely rewards honesty or hard work.

He is not to be pitied. In truth, he is to be admired — for saying aloud what most whisper in frustration: that in Liberia, your future depends not on what you know, but on who you know. That the pathway from classroom to opportunity; is littered with the debris of favoritism, broken systems, and political patronage.

What we witnessed in that simple caption is not laziness, but a national fatigue — the exhaustion of faith in the very institutions that are supposed to inspire hope. From broken schools to underfunded hospitals, from a job market warped by nepotism to public offices that drain instead of develop, Liberia’s youth are watching, learning, and losing belief.

And when belief dies, so does responsibility. A generation that feels abandoned by its country will not hesitate to abandon the country in return — through apathy, through silence, or through the very corruption they once despised.

So rather than laugh, Liberia should listen.

That phrase — “Liberia Will Decide” — is a tragic poetry of a nation at moral crossroads. It warns that if nothing changes, the next generation will not dream of building Liberia, but surviving it.

The question, then, is not what Bohlen James failed to write — but what Liberia has failed to provide: a reason to believe.