Africa-Press – Liberia. CDC Youth League Chairman Emmanuel Johnson Presenting Endorsement Statement to STAND Chairman Mulbah Morlu
The Revolutionary National Youth League of the opposition Congress for Democratic Change (CDC) on Thursday formally endorsed the July 17, 2025, peaceful protest organized by the civil society group Solidarity Trust for a New Day (STAND).
STAND, a grassroots civil society movement, has committed to advocating for justice, including the establishment of a war and economic crimes court in Liberia. The group has scheduled the “We the People” protest for July 17, which it says will highlight governance failures, social injustices, and widespread corruption.
While no political party has officially endorsed the protest, the CDC Youth League staged a symbolic march on Thursday. Supporters paraded from the old Ducor Palace Hotel through central Monrovia to West Point, Liberia’s largest slum community.
Speaking to supporters in West Point, CDC Youth League Chairman Emmanuel Johnson said the young people of Liberia will not stand idly by while the nation crumbles.
“The Revolutionary National Youth League of the mighty Congress for Democratic Change fully endorses the July 17 ‘We the People’ protest. We stand with the people in resistance to corruption, oppression, and neglect,” Johnson declared.
He continued: “We are standing for the hungry who sleep without food, for daughters who suffer in silence, for graduates who roam without jobs, and for families whose cries echo unanswered. We call on every patriotic Liberian—youth, student, woman, worker, mother, and father—to rise in unity and with purpose. July 17 is a national declaration that the people will no longer be silenced.”
Johnson added that Liberian youth will no longer whisper dissent in fear or kneel before oppressive power, but will rise with courage and purpose to confront what he described as the “misrule” of the Unity Party-led government.
He sharply criticized the current administration under President Joseph Boakai, saying Liberia has descended into what he termed “an abysmal state” in less than two years.
“We are witnessing rampant corruption, an alarming increase in sexual and gender-based violence, a breakdown in the rule of law, heightened police brutality and insecurity, deepening economic inequality and hardship, record-high youth unemployment and poverty, a fractured justice system, and a brutal crackdown on freedom of speech and assembly,” Johnson asserted.
He lamented that despite Liberia’s vast natural resources, millions of citizens continue to suffer without access to clean water, electricity, food, and other basic necessities.
“Those who can afford these basics often do so by leeching off state resources, with utter disregard for the suffering of ordinary citizens. Since the Unity Party government took office, corruption has been visible from the onset—from the questionable funding of the President’s inauguration to the illegal procurement of vehicles at NASSCORP by Sylvester Grigsby—due process has consistently been ignored,” he said.
Johnson concluded by accusing the Boakai administration of turning a blind eye to corruption, noting that implicated officials are often merely suspended, with no prosecutions or efforts at restitution.
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