By: Sherman C. SEEQUEH | Journalist, Writer & Public Intellectual
The border is trembling. In the quiet hills of Foya District, where Liberia leans against Guinea and the Makona River carries the memory of old wars, a new tension is unfolding. Young Liberians—farmers’ sons, motorbike riders, students, market girls—have become the unlikely sentinels of the nation’s sovereignty.
They stand where diplomats have not yet arrived.
They raise the Liberian flag where soldiers hesitate.
They chant the anthem where the border itself appears uncertain.
If I were Boakai, I would feel the weight of this moment more than most presidents ever could.
Because this crisis is not unfolding in some distant corner of the republic. It is unfolding near the soil that raised him.
Near the villages that know his childhood name.
Near the same hills that watched a boy from Lofa walk toward the presidency.
If I were Boakai, my heart would not allow distance. Because when Guinean soldiers reportedly crossed into Liberian territory near the Makona River—halting road construction, removing the Liberian flag, and raising their own—it was not merely a diplomatic disturbance. It was a wound to sovereignty. And sovereignty, once bruised, echoes loudly across a nation that has already suffered too many humiliations in its history.
If I were Boakai, I would remember the ghosts of Lofa.
The wars that turned its forests into battlefields.
The families that fled across the same borders now trembling again. The thousands who vanished into refugee camps when conflict once flowed freely across Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia.
Today, yet again, history whispers loudly in Lofa. If I were Boakai, I would hear it.
Today, a new generation stands at that same frontier.
They are not soldiers.
They carry no formal command.
Yet images circulating across Liberia show them raising the Liberian flag, organizing patrols, and confronting Guinean troops with little more than courage and anger.
If I were Boakai, I would admire their patriotism.
But I would fear for their lives.
Because bravery without protection can become tragedy.
Because unarmed youths standing before trained soldiers is not a strategy—it is a risk.
If I were Boakai, I would speak to them tonight.
I would tell them: Your patriotism honors Liberia, but the defense of this nation is the duty of the state.
I would remind them that their courage must not become their sacrifice.
Because Liberia has buried too many young men already.
But there is another reason urgency cannot wait.
If I were Boakai, I would know that the fire now flickering along the Makona frontier is drawing dangerously close to something else—something that has already stirred national controversy:
The reported US$10 million presidential villa in Foya. A residence whose cost sparked debate across Liberia about priorities, symbolism, and the meaning of leadership in a country still wrestling with poverty.
If I were Boakai, I would understand the symbolism immediately.
Because when tension rises near that very place, the message writes itself.
If instability can reach the doorstep of a presidential residence, then the nation must recognize that the frontier is not far away—it is already knocking at the door.
If I were Boakai, that reality would demand extreme urgency.
Diplomacy must move faster.
Security coordination must tighten.
Facts must be established with clarity.
And the sovereignty of Liberia must be asserted firmly—but wisely.
Because borders are not defended by emotion alone.
They are defended by strategy.
If I were Boakai, I would also understand something deeper.
The youths of Foya are not only defending land.
They are defending dignity.
For too long, border communities have felt like the forgotten edges of the republic—remembered only when trouble arrives.
Roads unfinished. Security thin. Government distant.
If I were Boakai, I would recognize that when citizens feel abandoned, they begin defending the nation themselves.
That is patriotism. But it is also a warning.
If I were Boakai, I would ensure that Lofa never again feels like a lonely frontier guarding a sleeping capital. Because a state that appears absent invites uncertainty. And uncertainty along borders is the spark that ignites conflicts nations’ later regret.
Tonight the Makona River carries silence. But silence along a tense border can be deceptive.
If I were Boakai, I would act before silence becomes gunfire.
Before patriotism becomes confrontation.
Before the ghosts of war find their way back to Lofa.
Because leadership is not tested only in the capital.
Sometimes it is tested in the quiet places where a nation begins.
And if I were Boakai, I would remember that history has a habit of returning to the places closest to home to ask its hardest questions.
