PHOTOL: The Author
By Kokpar B. Wohwoh
Advocate and Public Affairs Commentator
A Liberian, Phildephilia, USA
On July 26, 2026, our beloved Liberia clocks 179 years as Africa’s first republic. It is a proud history that must be celebrated. But it is also a painful moment for deep reflection.
We celebrate while we mourn. We hoist the Lone Star while our ghettos are flooded with kush, cocaine, and other deadly substances. We hear of one drug bust after another, yet the cartels seem to grow bolder and more entrenched. Our nation is bleeding.
And today, that bleeding is even more painful to watch.
We have chosen Grand Bassa – our historical county, a land known for peace, hospitality, and the very cradle of our nationhood – to host the official Independence Day festivities. Grand Bassa, a place of peace, is now burning with top government officials dining and wining in celebration, while the entire nation bleeds with total uncertainty about our security today, and the days to come.
How can we feast in Bassa when there is fear in every county?
How can we toast when our borders are under pressure from the ongoing conflict with our neighbor Guinea? How can we dance when our own state security apparatus is being critically linked to the very drug busts that are destroying our children?
How safe is Liberia?
This is the question every Liberian is asking tonight.
We live in fear.
Fear of drugs destroying our children.
Fear of unsafe communities and porous borders.
Fear of a future being stolen.
Fear that the protectors have become the perpetrators.
For too long, the celebration of July 26th has belonged to a few – the wealthy, the connected, the government and their non-governmental partners. For them, it is about gala dinners and big speeches.
But what about the mother in Buchanan, West Point, Logan Town, and Clara Town who is watching her son waste away to drugs? What about the thousands of Liberians living in fear in their own homeland?
How do they celebrate?
Patriotism demands more than wearing red, white, and blue and dining in Buchanan. Patriotism demands that we use this Independence Day to reclaim our sovereignty.
How tangible is this government in addressing the many crises confronting us? The people need to FEEL the government, not just HEAR from it.
The best way the President could have sympathized with the nation in historic Grand Bassa would not have been with a lavish dinner, but by standing with the people and declaring a STATE OF EMERGENCY on drugs, on border insecurity, and on state complicity.
Let this 179th Anniversary in Grand Bassa be the day we declare total war on drugs and total commitment to our borders. Let us secure our borders. Let us secure our integrity as a people. Let us save this nation for the next generation.
If Liberia is not safe for all Liberians, then Liberia is not truly independent.
Happy 179th Independence Day from Grand Bassa. May God save our Republic.
Kokpar B. Wohwoh
Advocate and Public Affairs Commentator
Liberian
Phildephilia, USA