President Joseph N. Boakai’s decision to dismiss the leadership of the Liberia Drug Enforcement Agency (LDEA) is rightly being praised as one of his boldest moves yet in the war against narcotics. But if this is where the action ends, Liberia will simply repeat the same cycle of corruption, dismissal, and decay. The axe has swung — but the cut must go deeper.
The task before the LDEA is not simply to reshuffle offices or recycle faces. Two urgent steps are non-negotiable. First, the dismissed officials must be thoroughly investigated for their role in cultivating the culture of impunity that has crippled the agency. Second, the drug lords and their accomplices who continue to operate openly across Liberia must be pursued and prosecuted with the full weight of the law.
History provides a stark warning. When traffickers caught with US$100 million worth of cocaine walked free under the last administration, it was a national disgrace that signaled to the entire subregion that Liberia was a soft target. That failure has fueled today’s crisis, and dismissals without prosecutions will only entrench the same weakness.
The rot inside the LDEA reflects a wider infection across the nation’s security agencies. This is President Boakai’s fourth leadership shake-up at the agency in less than two years, yet each time, new leadership has struggled against the same entrenched corruption. Unless dismissal is followed by accountability, reform remains an illusion.
The case of Abraham Payne illustrates this problem. Payne allegedly ordered the release of his daughter after she was arrested in a ghetto, even threatening the officer who enforced the law. His suspension by the now-dismissed Director General Anthony Souh was a slap on the wrist, and in failing to act decisively, Souh himself appeared complicit. If true, Payne’s actions were not only a breach of professional duty but also a profound moral failure. Shielding one’s child from the consequences of crime is not protection; it is enabling destruction.
But Payne’s misconduct is also symptomatic of a wider reality: law enforcement officers abusing their authority with impunity, rarely prosecuted, often only transferred or dismissed. Liberia’s Professional Standards Division exists in name, yet functions as a watchdog on a leash — restrained by the very administration it is supposed to oversee. Some have suggested an independent professional standards regulator across all law enforcement agencies. But Liberians are rightly skeptical: why multiply institutions when the existing ones remain toothless?
Ultimately, responsibility lies with the Presidency. If President Boakai is serious about restoring public trust, dismissals must be followed by real investigations, real prosecutions, and real convictions. Anything less will embolden traffickers, corrupt officers, and skeptics who already mistake his conciliatory style for weakness against corruption.
The President now has an opportunity to prove that reconciliation does not mean leniency and that compromise with lawbreakers has no place in his administration. The nation is watching closely, not for more rhetoric or symbolic firings, but for decisive action in the courts. The axe has been raised, Mr. President. Let it not tremble. Let it strike with justice.
