Lomé, Togo — October 11, 2025. At the Second Edition of the Lomé Peace and Security Forum, Liberian President Joseph Nyuma Boakai Sr. delivered an address that transcended ceremony and struck at the moral core of Africa’s peace and security dilemma.
Speaking as an “octogenarian witness to history,” President Boakai reflected on Liberia’s long path from civil war to democratic stability, framing his nation’s story as a blueprint for reconciliation across the continent.
“There can be no lasting peace without justice and reconciliation,” Boakai declared to an audience of heads of state, diplomats, and peacebuilding experts. His words carried the weight of lived experience — from Liberia’s 1980 coup to two devastating civil wars that claimed more than 250,000 lives.
A Nation That Faced Its Past
President Boakai emphasized that Liberia’s post-war transformation has been built not on amnesia, but on accountability and truth-telling. The cornerstone of his administration’s peace agenda, he said, is confronting the legacy of violence through judicial and community-based reconciliation mechanisms.
He reaffirmed his commitment to implement key recommendations from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and to strengthen national justice institutions. “Healing must come with accountability,” he told the audience. “Only when the guilty are held responsible can the innocent truly be free.”
This renewed focus on transitional justice marks a turning point in Liberia’s governance — signaling that peace cannot be sustained by silence, but by moral courage and civic inclusion.
Lomé’s Symbolism in African Peace
Delivering this message in Lomé carried special symbolism. The Togolese capital has a historic legacy as a diplomatic crossroads for West African peace agreements, having hosted the talks that ended the wars in both Liberia and Sierra Leone two decades ago.
Boakai acknowledged Lomé’s role in West African history, calling it “a city of peace that reminds us how far we have come — and how much farther we must go.”
The Liberia peace justice reconciliation 2025 theme resonated deeply among delegates from ECOWAS, the African Union (AU), and international partners seeking to stabilize the Sahel, Sudan, and Great Lakes regions — areas still scarred by cycles of conflict and fragile governance.
The New Architecture of African Peacebuilding
President Boakai’s message comes as Africa rethinks its peace and security architecture. With coups, insurgencies, and communal violence on the rise, traditional military-led interventions have proven insufficient.
Boakai argued for a new model built on inclusive governance, restorative justice, and youth empowerment. He underscored that reconciliation must go hand in hand with socio-economic reforms that address inequality — the silent fuel of instability.
“Our continent cannot outsource its peace,” he said. “We must build systems that make peace inevitable — through justice, education, and opportunity.”
The statement aligns with regional efforts by ECOWAS and the African Union Peace and Security Council, which increasingly emphasize governance, elections, and local mediation over purely military responses.
Liberia’s Progress and Ongoing Challenges
Two decades after the end of its civil war, Liberia is often cited as one of West Africa’s most resilient democracies, with peaceful power transfers and an active civil society.
Yet Boakai acknowledged that Liberia’s recovery remains incomplete. Corruption, youth unemployment, and trauma from years of conflict still test national unity. His government’s roadmap — part of the Liberia peace justice reconciliation 2025 vision — aims to strengthen anti-corruption agencies, expand civic education, and integrate ex-combatants through community enterprise programs.
Boakai’s broader ambition is to make Liberia a laboratory for post-conflict recovery, offering African peers a tested model for rebuilding trust between the state and its citizens.
Justice as a Path to Stability
International observers note that Boakai’s insistence on justice is consistent with global evidence: countries that ignore accountability after war tend to relapse into violence.
Agencies such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the World Bank have long argued that rule of law and local ownership are essential for sustainable peace. Boakai’s leadership signals that Liberia is moving beyond stability toward transformation — where peace is not the absence of war, but the presence of justice.
He urged African governments to invest in community courts, truth commissions, and reparations programs as tools of resilience, not retribution. “Peace without justice is fragile,” he warned, “and fragile peace cannot feed a nation.”
A Continental Call for Moral Leadership
Beyond Liberia’s borders, Boakai’s address served as a call to Africa’s current and future leaders. In a region grappling with coups and democratic backsliding, he reminded the audience that legitimacy flows from moral authority, not military might.
His appeal dovetails with renewed AU and United Nations initiatives to integrate transitional justice into the African Governance Architecture (AGA), ensuring that reconciliation is not an afterthought but a foundation.
The Liberia peace justice reconciliation 2025 message reframed peace as a social contract rooted in truth — one that transcends politics and time.
From Lomé to the Continent
As the forum concluded, President Boakai’s speech was widely praised for its candor and its moral clarity. Delegates described it as a “mirror held up to the continent” — a reminder that Africa’s peace cannot be imported or imposed; it must be cultivated from within.
Liberia’s story — one of war, recovery, and hope — stands as evidence that justice is not a luxury but a necessity for nations seeking lasting peace.
In the decades ahead, as Africa builds new systems for governance and reconciliation, President Boakai’s words in Lomé may echo as a guiding principle: a peaceful Africa must first be a just one.
