Liberia: former football star, George Weah sworn in as President

Former international footballer George Weah has been sworn in as Liberia’s new president on Monday, marking Liberia’s first peaceful democratic transition since 1944.

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo and the President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki,  arrived Monrovia on Monday morning for the swearing in of Liberia’s President-elect, George Weah. Obasanjo’s plane touched down at the Roberts International Airport (RIA) at 8:01 a.m. (9 a.m. Nigerian time)  while Saraki arrived at 9:02 a.m.

The airport has been witnessed by an influx of special guests from Africa and around the world, including current and former heads of states since the early hours of Monday

Weah took his oath of office at exactly noon inside the 35,000 capacity Samuel Kanyon Doe Sports Complex in Monrovia.

Weah, the leader of the Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC) party, replaced Africa’s first-ever female president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who completed 12 years in office in two six-year terms as leader of Liberia’s Unity Part

The inauguration was attended by colleagues and former friends as well as heads of state from Ghana, Mali, Nigeria and Togo.

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In Weah’s first attempt at the presidency in 2005, he lost to Sirleaf and subsequently spent the last 13 years fighting for political credibility, including becoming a senator in 2014.

The months preceding Monday’s historic moment were marred with difficulties including a run-off that was postponed after being challenged in court on the grounds that October’s elections – which saw Weah pull 38.4 percent of the vote to Vice President Joseph Boakai’s 28.8 percent – were marred by fraud.