From Liberia, it was gathered that a call has been directed to the people of the country to always embrace peaceful co-existence and shun violence at all times.

This statement above was credited to the head of national reconciliation and former opposition presidential and vice-presidential candidate, George Oppong Weah, who was appointed last December following the resignation of the former head of national reconciliation, Nobel Laureate Leymah Gbowee.

Mr. Weah, a Football legend, began his national reconciliation process in June with a football match in Monrovia. This, according to him, would be followed by phase two which will be launched in October or November with a listening tour around the country to hear Liberians’ views on national reconciliation.

“The first part was successful, we can say.  We organized a peace initiative to jumpstart the process.  The most important thing is that all Liberians play their part if they want to see it go forward.  So now, we’re looking at the second phase which is the listening tour, and we do hope that the sponsors and everybody that wants to see peace in the country come on board for us to do this.  I can’t do this alone,” he said.

Furthermore, Mr. Weah said, “Our people are divided, but they need to understand that there’s a need for reconciliation, most especially those who took part in the civil war that brought this country to this division. We had our time of bitterness, but we can’t continue to stay in the past. We have to design a new strategy for our country to go, and the only way is the peaceful way, to reconcile and work together and make the country what we want it to be,” Weah said.

Weah had been criticized for accepting the peace ambassador position, thereby abandoning his commitment to the opposition Congress for Democratic Change.

Responding to the above allegation, Weah said he is only doing what he has always done, and that is to work for peace in Liberia.

“I’ve always been a peaceful person.  I advocated for this country to have peace.  I spent millions of dollars putting the national team together to restore peace, going to refugee camps to let our people know that there’s still hope.  Today, if I accept [the position] to be the peace ambassador, I don’t understand why anybody will go against that,” Weah said.

Weah responded rhetorically to some critics who have suggested that he was paid a huge sum of money by Sirleaf or promised political rewards for accepting to be a peace ambassador.

“A couple years back, during the civil war and before the war, when I stepped up for the Liberian Football Association to pay their debt for them not to be expelled, did anybody pay me?  When I paid millions to bring peace through sports to our country because there was war, did anybody pay me something?  Today, I am a political leader and I was asked to promote peace among our people.  Did Sirleaf have to give me a job or promote my political ambition?  No!  I didn’t do for anything,” Weah said.

George Weah is an idol of soccer in Africa and the world at large, as he remain the only African player to have won European best player and World best player awards during his glorious playing career with clubs like AC Milan in Italy, PSG of France, Chelsea in England etc.