THE EVICTION NOTICES arrived without warning, slipped beneath doors and nailed to fence posts, informing dozens of single mothers in Nimba County that the homes they had spent years building must be vacated immediately. The government, they were told, needs the land back. As the record shows, these are not women who encroached on public land or settled where they did not belong.
THEY ARE LIBERIAN citizens who followed every requirement the state placed before them. They purchased their parcels through what they believed were proper channels. They paid for government surveys. They hold deeds attesting to their ownership. They built homes, raised children, and in some cases spent nearly two decades improving property they had every reason to believe was theirs.
NOW, THE MINISTRY of National Defense has ordered them to leave, claiming the land belongs to the Armed Forces of Liberia’s Camp Grant Military Barracks. The military has announced ambitious plans for the property: a new high school estimated at US$70,000, a chapel requiring US$50,000, and a recreational center with a similar price tag. While these facilities would serve both soldiers and surrounding communities according to Camp Grant Commander 1st Lieutenant T. Nathaniel Kollie, the women of New Barracks see their homes and livelihoods being sacrificed for development from which they will likely be excluded.
THE HUMAN TOLL of this dispute is already visible and deeply troubling. Lovelyn B. Yenglee, a single mother of six, spoke for many when she asked, “If the government we voted for can bring tears to our eyes today, where do we go?” Koo Meantuo, a mother of seven who depends on her land for farming and her GB selling business, has fallen sick from the stress of potentially losing property she invested in for over eighteen years. Mamie Gaye’s health is deteriorating before her eyes, her post-surgical wound reopened from the constant worry about where her family will go.
THESE ARE NOT abstract claimants in a legal battle but real women whose bodies are breaking under the weight of uncertainty. The women reject any suggestion that they occupy the land illegally, and their insistence demands serious consideration. Alice Sehnwai, a single mother of four who sells groundnuts to support her children, paid $3,500 for a government survey twenty years ago and received a demarcation confirming her property boundaries with the army.
SHE POINTS TO the impossibility of the situation: it is simply not credible that a government surveyor would have demarcated her land two decades ago without knowing whether it belonged to the military. Victoria Tokpah, a mother of several children, described the situation as a “total contradiction” after paying for a government survey that specifically confirmed her land was not army property. Even former Minister of National Defence Brownie Jeffery Samukai Jr. previously assured Sehnwai that her property was not on army land.
THE HISTORICAL DIMENSIONS of this dispute stretch back decades, adding further complexity to any straightforward claim of government ownership. During the 1960s and 1970s, the Old Barracks served as Sanniquellie’s sole military installation. In the 1990s, former President William R. Tolbert acquired a smaller portion from the Joseph Seibey family, creating what is now known as New Barracks. Former President Samuel K. Doe later seized the property, citing government ownership on the grounds that Tolbert had used public funds for the acquisition. Today, local authorities and the Armed Forces of Liberia claim thirty-two acres of this historically contested land for infrastructure development.
THE WOMEN ARE not refusing to leave entirely. Alice Sehnwai expressed willingness to relocate but insisted on compensation for the home she struggled as a single mother to build. Victoria Tokpah appealed directly to President Boakai, stating her willingness to leave but demanding fair compensation, adding that it would not be right for them to walk away empty-handed. Mamie Gaye emphasized that the community has no fight with the government, only a plea for fair treatment and resettlement.
WHAT THESE WOMEN seek is neither unreasonable nor impossible. They ask that the government prove unquestionable ownership of the land it now claims, or alternatively, that it compensate them fairly for properties they acquired through official processes and developed over many years. They ask that the burden of historical ambiguity and administrative contradiction not fall solely on the shoulders of single mothers who played by the rules the state itself established.
PRESIDENT BOAKAI, YOUR administration faces an early test of its commitment to ordinary Liberians, particularly the women who form the backbone of communities across this nation. The mothers of New Barracks voted for change and placed their hope in your leadership. They now wait to see whether that hope was well placed or whether their tears will become the legacy of your tenure. We urge you to intervene personally, to halt these evictions pending a transparent review of all claims, and to ensure that any military development proceeds without destroying the lives of families who have called this land home for generations.
