Summary:
- Some Facebook users and media outlets have claimed that Steve Zargo, former Commissioner General of the Liberia Immigration Service, attributed his removal from the LIS to his refusal to arrest Samuel Tweah Jr., former Minister of Finance & Development Planning
- We have verified this claim by analyzing his recent interview conducted in Lofa County, which was streamed live on Facebook
- We found that the attribution to Mr. Zargo is misleading.
- The former Lofa County Senator did not attribute his removal from government to his refusal to arrest Samuel Tweah Jr. He refuted the rumors and described them as false.
Some news articles and social media posts have claimed that Steve Zargo, former Commissioner General of the Liberia Immigration Service (LIS), blamed his dismissal from the LIS on his refusal to arrest Samuel D. Tweah Jr., former Minister of Finance.
Notably, amongst those making the claim is the Women Voices Newspaper. In its March 24, 2025, publication, the paper claimed that the former LIS Boss “blames his removal from government on his refusal to arrest Former Finance Minister”.
Jacob Jallah, former Assistant Minister of Information, also took to Facebook, claiming that “President Boakai fired his Immigration Boss because he refused to arrest Samuel Tweh Jr.”
Others claim that Mr. Zargo attributed his removal from government to his refusal to arrest the former Finance Minister can be found in these posts here, here, and here.
These claims surfaced following Mr. Zargo’s first radio interview after his suspension on November 13, 2024, and subsequently replaced by Mr. Elijah F. Rufus, Commissioner General of the Liberia Immigration Service.
The Claim
An excerpt of the Women Voices’ publication reads: “Mr. Zargo has attributed his removal from government to his refusal to arrest former Finance Minister Samuel Tweh, a situation that has been a focal point of speculation.”
Rating Justification
To verify this claim, we watched Mr. Zargo’s video interview, which was streamed live on Voice of Lofa on March 23, and did not hear him attribute the removal to his refusal to arrest Mr. Samuel Tweah Jr.
At the 6:00 time stamp on the 22min47sec of this video, ELBC’s Lofa County correspondent Tokpa Tarnue was heard asking the former LIS Boss about rumors indicating that he was dismissed because he had refused to arrest Samuel Tweah Jr. upon his return to the country. Mr. Zargo was also accused of misapplying funds and the deportation of a Guinean.
Former Commissioner Zargo responded, saying, “none of the information is true”.
He went on to say: “Oral testimony cannot vitiate what is written”, maintaining that his letter of suspension speaks to a decision, in the mind of the President, he [Zargo] did not make well. “If the timing of the communication that informed my suspension is anything to go by, it should border around the Ne Exeat Republica”, he concluded.
Meanwhile, we contacted The Women Voices newspaper through its publisher, Helen Nah Sammie, inquiring whether Mr. Zargo had a different interview with the paper.
Madame Sammie only forwarded Mr. Zargo’s suspension letter dated November 13, 2024, along with a short video clip extracted from the same interview conducted by Lofa County based journalists.
It is important to note that the suspension letter forwarded by Mrs. Sammie did not include the name of Samuel D. Tweah Jr. as the individual to whom the writ of Ne Exeat Republica was issued.
The Writ of Ne Exeat Republica was issued against Former Minister Tweah and four other indictees on October 2, 2024, a week after Mr. Tweah returned to Liberia and turned himself over for prosecution.
On November 13, 2024, President Boakai suspended the former LIS Boss over his alleged handling of a writ of Ne Exeat Republica involving an individual under court action. The suspension letter indicates that Mr. Zargo exercised improper judgment and failed in his duty to uphold the responsibility required of his position in the matter.
Conclusion
Based on this finding, we conclude that the media publication and social media posts suggesting that Steve Zargo, former LIS Commissioner General, attributed his dismissal to his refusal to arrest former Finance Minister Samuel Tweah Jr. are misleading.
Nowhere in the video interview did Mr. Zargo blame his removal from the LIS position on his refusal to arrest the former Finance Minister upon his arrival at the Roberts International Airport.
In the interview, he only described the rumors about his replacement as false, indicating that none of the rumors surrounding his suspension were true.
