Yekeh Kolubah, Representative of District #10, Montsearrdo County, on November 16 claimed during a Facebook livestream that Vice President Jewel Howard Taylor and all members of ECOWAS Election Observation Mission to Liberia have travelled to Ghana for a meeting to give incumbent President George Weah a second term in office.
The Claim
Representative Kolubah exact words were: “We have credible information that the Vice President and all the ECOWAS delegates that came here left on Asky 788 to Ghana to negotiate, to compromise the Liberian people interest. They have gone to see Obasanjo so Obasanjo can talk to Amb. Boakai and his team to see about giving former President Weah his second term”.
On November 15, the National Elections Commission began announcing preliminary results from the November 14 Presidential run-off elections. As of the time of Representative Kolubah’s livestream, NEC had announced 22.33% of the result from the run-off election.
Claim: “We have credible information that the Vice President and all the ECOWAS delegates that came here left on Asky 788 to Ghana to negotiate, to compromise the Liberian people interest. They have gone to see Obasanjo so Obasanjo can talk to Amb. Boakai and his team to see about giving former President Weah his second term”.
Verdict: Misleading
Rating Justification
To fact check the claim, we contacted the Press Secretary of Vice President Jewel Howard Taylor, Mr. Richmond Neufville who that “the Vice President travelled on yesterday to Ghana to attend the funeral of former First Lady Theresa Kufuor. She went to the funeral of the former First Lady of Ghana the wife of a man she considered a father and mentor John Kufuor”.
Also, we contacted ECOWAS through Madam Irene Wallace, head of Secretariat at ECOWAS Liberia office, about the claim of all ECOWAS EOM leaving Liberia.
She replied by sending us a link to live press conference that was ongoing at the time of her response, saying, “our entire team headed by our Head of Mission is live so there is just no way that we can be here and in Ghana at the same time”.
The ECOWAS team was presenting a preliminary declaration on the 2023 presidential run-off at a hotel in Mamba Point on the same day of claim was made by the lawmaker. The Press conference focused on ECOWAS pre-election engagement with stakeholders, deployment of election observers and the opening of polls on election day. The presentation was done by Prof. Attahiru Jega, Head of the ECOWAS Electoral Observation Mission.
Conclusion
Based on these facts, we therefore conclude that the claim made by Representative Kolubah that Vice President Jewel Taylor and all ECOWAS Election observers left Liberia to meet former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo in Ghana to give President George Weah a second term is misleading.
The Vice President office said she had travelled to Ghana to attend the funeral of former Ghanaian First Lady Theresa Kufuor. ECOWAS also had a press conference on November 16 where all of its Election Observers were seen.
This report was developed with the support of Internews through the USAID Media Activity project. The funder has no say in the editorial decision leading to the production of this content.