By Cllr. Sayma Syrenius Cephus
We must call it what it is.
There is a disturbing pattern emerging in our justice system: the criminalization of being a First Lady. What began as whispers has now become a chorus, and if we do not speak, history will judge us for watching our mothers being dragged into the dock under the fashionable cover of fighting corruption.
Earlier this year, former First Lady Clar Marie Weah was hounded by investigators demanding records for missing funds. The target was not a ministry. It was the Clar Hope Foundation – a charitable initiative. Every Liberian knows the First Lady of Liberia has no constitutional budget line, no statutory authority to allot public money, and no signatory power over the national treasury. Yet the state chose to put Clar Weah at the epicenter of a financial probe.
I intervened quietly to de-escalate that storm, and I thank President Joseph Nyuma Boakai for listening to reason. My position was simple: if you want records of a Foundation, write the Executive Director of that Foundation. You do not humiliate a former First Lady to make headlines. We must keep our wives out of political crossfire.
But Clar Weah is not alone. Consider the roll call: Interim First Lady Thelma Comfort Sawyer, whose family has served this Republic with dignity, was dragged into public controversy. Former First Lady Clar Weah. Now, former Vice President and former First Lady Jewel Howard Taylor. And most shockingly, Madam Finda Bundoo – the first Kissi woman to break that glass ceiling – is standing in the dock.
Let us ask ourselves an uncomfortable question: The Americo-Liberian elite ruled this country for 133 years. Not one First Lady was ever indicted, arrested, or paraded. Not one. Today, under a democracy that claims to be more civilized, we have made a sport of prosecuting our women.
Is this anti-corruption or is this feministic prosecution?
I draw a clear line between these cases.
In the case of former Vice President Jewel Howard Taylor, I differ. The state has told the whole world it has “overwhelming evidence.” It has humiliated her, denied her bail under a new law, and proclaimed her guilt in the press. If that evidence exists, then for God’s sake, indict her now. Let Liberians see it. Let Jewel have her day in court. That is fair. That is constitutional. You cannot hold a former Vice President hostage with press statements. Indict or release the narrative.
But the pursuit of the other former First Ladies is a wild goose chase. It wastes government resources, it wastes court time, and it wastes our moral capital. You cannot audit a charity as if it were the Ministry of Finance. You cannot turn humanitarian work into a felony to satisfy the politics of the moment.
I had vowed not to return to criminal defense where friends of yesteryears sit on the other side as prosecutors. But conscience has pulled me back. When the dignity of our former First Ladies is at stake, silence is complicity.
This is not about impunity. No one is above the law – man or woman. It is about selectivity. If billions disappeared, go where the billions were: to the spending entities, to the ministries, to the agencies with checkbooks, to the concessionaires. Do not go to the Flower Pot that held the roses.
What we are doing has a cultural cost. In Liberia, we protect our women. We do not parade them. When we turn prosecution into persecution, and persecution becomes feministic – targeting only the women who once stood beside power – we send a terrible message to every young Liberian girl: That in this country, you can rise, but we will find a way to bring you to the dock.
Fight corruption. But do not feminize it.
Leave our First Ladies alone.
