President George Weah of Liberia needs to spend his retirement in Nigeria. There is so much to teach many politicians who refuse to quit when the ovation is loudest and end up creating a highly inflammable environment.

Weah will quit the Executive Mansion in January 2024 for former Vice President Joseph Boakai. This will keep Liberia off tension and a third civil war. The Liberian president, lost to the same man that he defeated to assume office in 2018.

Weah disappointed those who expected him to find a way round the system in the run – off that favoured Boakai. Of course, it is the African disease. In Nigeria, presidents rig themselves into a second term using the power of incumbency.

Dr. Goodluck Jonathan was unable to do that after abandoning an unwritten agreement that should have seen him leave office honourably without contesting the 2015 presidential elections. Many will disagree with me but I respect Weah more than I do GEJ.

If Jonathan had not come out to run again in 2015, Nigeria would not be in this horrible state. There was no way Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, a serial loser, would have succeeded in 2015. There would have been a better candidate from the North.

Buhari won in 2015 simply because Jonathan contested. If the Peoples Democratic Party had gone for a Northerner, the All Progressives Congress could have been History by now. We would have been saved the importation of bandits and mercenaries who have bloodied the nation non stop since 2016.

Peace will continue to reign in Liberia because Weah is a gentleman politician. It is a shame that while Liberians walk around freely, those who helped them restore peace are not free anymore. Nigeria is not at war but blood flows here more than it did in Monrovia during their bloody years.

This is the same Weah that was invited to Otta by President Olusegun Obasanjo after the 2005 Liberian presidential election. Weah had beaten Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in the first round but lost in the run – off. Global and Regional power brokers wanted the Harvard trained woman, with United Nations and World Bank background.

Weah was popular even when the opposition said his education was poor. They cited his degree certificate from Parkwood University, London as Oluwole and Toronto combined. The people wanted him but he listened to Obasanjo who assured him of a better tomorrow.

The Liberian upgraded himself by studying Business Management at Devy University, Miami. In 2011, Weah was back again, going a step lower to run as Vice Presidential candidate of the party he founded, Congress for Democratic Change. The ticket went to Winston Tubman. They lost to Sirleaf Johnson.

Weah was learning. He contested senatorial elections in 2014. Luck smiled on him and his opponent was Robert Sirleaf, one of the president’s sons. Losing to one Sirleaf in 2005 and defeating another Sirleaf in 2014 was useful.

When Weah won elections in 2018, President Sirleaf, supported him against her Vice President, Boakai. Another of Mrs Sirleaf’s sons, Charles, was a top Central Bank of Liberia official during Weah’s presidency. Politics should not be a matter of life and death.

Weah has shown Africa that Presidency is not for life. You can always walk away and smell sweeter. And he will soon be gracing events in his second country, Nigeria. He knows everywhere here, from Otta to Ikeja, Pitakwa to Oghara.

Only Nigeria could stop Weah from playing at the Korea/ Japan 2002 World Cup. The Super Eagles were in the same qualifying group with Lone Stars, Black Stars and Leone Stars. His cousin, Christopher Wreh, compounded Nigeria’s problem with goal scoring prowess.

Weah led Liberia to Port Harcourt. Joseph Yobo and Ifeanyi Udeze, nearly suffocated him. The ticket was lost in the Garden City when Ghana gave up. Weah thought the Black Stars were settled with Ghana Must Go bags. Nigerian fans alleged that he also packaged sacks of dollars.

The Liberian president played his last international game in 2019 and it was against Nigeria. In 2017, he was at Temitope Joshua’s Synagogue, Ikotun with Warlord, Yormie Johnson, who had lived in exile in Lagos.

Charles Taylor also lived in exile in Calabar from August 2003 to March 2006. The man whose fighters murdered Nigerian journalists, Tayo Awotunsin and Krees Imodibe, in 1991 was deceived by Obasanjo and arrested in Gamboru on March 29, 2006 as he tried to escape through the Cameroon frontier.

Liberia had two presidents who ruled and came back to serve again. Joseph Jenkins Robert was their first and seventh president. James Spriggs Payne was the fourth and returned as the eighth. They remind us of Obasanjo and Buhari who did it twice, as well.

Curiously, J.J. Robert and OBJ, were born in March. Payne was born in December just like Buhari and he has an airport named after him in Monrovia. PMB has one in his name in Abakaliki. Remarkably, the fifth president of Liberia, Edward James Roye, was an Igbo lawyer.

Weah is welcome. He enjoys dancing Kiss Daniels Buga and is married to Clar, a Jamaican. Who knows, the First Lady could be Igbo or Yoruba. There are Igbo settlements in Montego Bay. Abeokuta is a town in Jamaica and there is Calabar High School, in Kingston.