President Boakai Calls for a United ECOWAS Against Terror
In a powerful address at the High-Level Consultative Conference on Regional Cooperation and Security in Accra, Ghana, Liberian President Joseph Nyuma Boakai called for immediate and unified action by West African leaders against terrorism and transnational crime.
Speaking on January 30, 2026, President Boakai framed regional security as an indivisible challenge. “None of us can be peaceful and stable if any of us is insecure and terrorized,” he declared. “Liberia is not safe if an inch of Ghana is in terror. We must act together, otherwise we perish together.”
The President argued that the instability in Niger is not an isolated crisis but a symptom of interconnected threats plaguing the region, from terrorism and violent extremism to youth unemployment, drug epidemics, and cybercrime. He stressed that individual nations, overwhelmed by multifaceted crises and limited resources, cannot face these challenges alone.
“Our way out is to pull together expertise and resources,” Boakai stated, urging leaders to activate existing regional mechanisms. He highlighted the need for coordinated efforts to spur economic growth, create jobs for youth, and share expertise in education, training, and healthcare to tackle the socio-economic roots of crime and radicalization.
President Boakai unequivocally committed Liberia’s support to regional initiatives aimed at stabilizing Niger. Drawing from Liberia’s own painful history of conflict, he warned, “Wars and violent conflicts, once started, have no end, no boundaries, and leave nations wrecked and development stalled.”
He further connected regional instability to global disruptions, noting economic decline and polarization. As a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, Liberia advocates for a regional approach to peacebuilding, ensuring that responses to crises involve neighboring states to dismantle supporting networks.
The conference, chaired by Sierra Leone’s President Julius Maada Bio, aligns with Liberia’s national security strategy, which emphasizes regional cooperation as the only viable path to mobilizing resources and mounting a collective defense against common threats.
