Africa-Press – Liberia. An image went viral on social media over the weekend, containing a statement attributed to the United States Embassy Monrovia, titled, “Emergency Supplies & Household Preparedness.”
Apparently meant for Embassy staff and American citizens in Liberia, the statement had many Liberians presuming that it foreshadowed a potential state of emergency.
Given the tension in the air and spates of elections-related violence ahead of the upcoming presidential and legislative elections in Liberia, many Liberians are concerned for the safety of themselves and their families. And with investors and business people holding tightly onto their resources until the final outcome of the election is announced, the economy remains in limbo.
“Everybody’s in wait-and-see mode until the election passes and we know who’s in power,” says a businesswoman who asked not to be named. “That’s just the way it is [in Liberia] every election cycle. Now, with the statement from the U.S. Embassy, I don’t know if it means anything or not, but if they are telling their citizens to prepare for an emergency, then maybe I should, too.”
Needless to say, Liberians and foreigners in Liberia are on high alert during this political season. Many in the political opposition are concerned that the ruling Coalition for Democratic Change, led by President George Weah, may try to rig the elections. However, Weah has downplayed such claims.
So, if Liberians are taking America’s “emergency preparedness” circular a bit too seriously — albeit utterly beside the point — there’s an old saying: “When America sneezes, the world catches a cold.”
In a statement over the weekend, the U.S. Embassy near Monrovia acknowledged “a photo circulating of a memo with the subject line ‘Emergency Supplies & Household Preparedness.’
“These are routine management notices that embassies around the world issue to help U.S. mission personnel prepare in advance for emergencies,” the Embassy said. “September is U.S. National Preparedness Month. It is an excellent list for anyone to use in order to prepare themselves and their families for any sort of emergency.”
Since the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, the U.S. Government has taken steps to encourage all citizens to make their own survival preparations. September was chosen as National Preparedness Month, as the tragedies of September 11, 2001 highlighted to the nation the importance of being prepared.
September was first declared as National Preparedness Month in 2004. In February 2011, President Barack Obama issued Presidential Policy Directive 8, which established a National Preparedness Goal, System, and Report to provide the nation with a framework for organizing preparedness activities. According to the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the National Preparedness Goal describes five mission areas — prevention, protection, mitigation, response and recovery — and 32 activities, called core capabilities, that address the greatest risks to the nation.
In August 2023, Liberia reached the 20th anniversary of the Accra Peace Agreement, which began the transition from hostilities of the 14-year civil war to democratic governance. Since the country’s first post-war elections in 2005, there has been relative peace, not without its share disasters, including the Ebola epidemic and the COVID-19 pandemic, both of which saw the country go into brief periods of lockdown.
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