PHOTO: Amos Saywer Interim President of Liberia 22 November 1990 to 7 March 1994
SOURCE: Liberia Public Radio
Dr. Amos Claudius Saywer, former President of the Interim Government of National Unity has died.
He was 76.
According family sources he died at the John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland in the United States of America at about 2:25 pm EST (10: 25 AM local time).
Dr. Sawyer had recently undergone two brain surgeries in recent years and recuperated and returned home at his Caldwell residence last June.
Amos Claudius Sawyer served as president of Liberia from 22 November 1990 to 7 March 1994. He was voted in by 35 leaders representing seven political parties and eleven interest groups.
Dr. Sawyer retried from politics in October last year.
He pointed out that these health challenges limit the range of activities in which he can no longer be fully and productively engaged.
“I announce today my retirement from partisan politics in Liberia. I have been a member of the Liberian People’s Party since its founding by Movement for Justice in Africa (MOJA) in 1980 at MOJA’s Second Congress”.
Dr. Sawyer pointed out that despite his decision taken; he intended to continue his engagement as a senior scholar and citizen, working along with others to sustain peace and reconciliation in the Liberian society.
He emphasized that he would also remain engaged working with others to help strengthen Liberia’s democracy and enhance development in the nation and the region in general.
“A special thanks to all who have worked with me over the decades of my involvement in national political affairs as a partisan. Needless to say, my commitment to Liberia and the people of Africa remains unshakable,” he stated.
Amos Claudius Sawyer was born in 1945 to Abel and Sarah Sawyer; his siblings include Joe Sawyer.
Sawyer was educated in local schools and was a 1966 graduate of Liberia College (now the University of Liberia) He traveled to the United States for graduate work, earning M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in political science from Northwestern University in metropolitan Chicago, Illinois.
After his return, Dr. Sawyer worked as an academic, but also became an activist and politician. He ran for the position of Mayor of Monrovia, the capital, as an independent rather than within the True Whig Party. The latter had dominated the country for more than 100 years.
1980 coup d’état
After the 1980 coup d’état, Sawyer returned to academia for a time, taking a position as a professor of political science at the University of Liberia. In December 1980, he was appointed Dean of the College of Social Sciences and acting director of the University.
In 1994, Sawyer was forced to step down as a part of the peace process, and subsequently the role of official leader of Liberia was held not by the president, but by the Chairmen of the Council of State. Fighting sparked again in 1996, and continued during Charles Taylor’s presidency from 1997 to 2003.
Sawyer returned to the US for a period, invited to serve as Associate Director and Research Scholar, Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis in the Department of Political Science at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana.
Sawyer was Chairman of the Governance Reform Commission in Liberia, which has recently become the Governance Commission. His book, Beyond Plunder: Toward Democratic Governance in Liberia (2005), explored the development of multi-party democracy in the country.
He supported Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in the October 2005 and 2011 elections.