EP 4 Ellen Johnson Sirleaf - Africa's Iron Lady I Women And Resistance 🌍

This conversation, hosted by Aya Fubara Eneli Esq. and Adesoji Iginla, delves into the life and legacy of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first female president of Liberia and Africa. It explores her early life, the impact of the civil war on Liberia, her journey to leadership, and the challenges she faced as a woman in politics. 

The discussion also highlights her achievements during her presidency, including her efforts to rebuild Liberia and empower women. Additionally, the conversation addresses the complexities of international finance and its role in Liberia's recovery, as well as the criticisms and controversies surrounding her leadership. 

Overall, it is a powerful narrative of resilience, empowerment, and the importance of women's leadership in shaping the future of Africa.

Takeaways

*Ellen Johnson Sirleaf's presidency marked a significant milestone for women in leadership.
*The civil war in Liberia had devastating effects on the country and its people.
*Ellen's early life and family background shaped her future leadership role.
*Understanding Liberia's complex history is crucial to grasping its current challenges.
*Ellen faced numerous personal and professional challenges while pursuing her education and career.
*Her marriage and subsequent divorce influenced her political journey.
*Ellen's activism began during her time in the United States, where she became politically aware.
*Her presidency focused on rebuilding Liberia after years of conflict and instability.
*International finance played a critical role in Liberia's recovery and development.
*Ellen's legacy includes empowering women and advocating for their rights in Liberia.


Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf
01:30 Ellen's Early Life and Prophecy
04:18 The Civil War in Liberia
06:19 Understanding Liberia's History
12:06 Ellen's Family Background and Education
18:43 Marriage and Personal Struggles
24:14 Ellen's Academic Pursuits
24:41 Colorism and Social Hierarchy in Liberia
29:18 Political Turmoil and Activism
35:45 Survival and Resilience
36:34 The Rise of Women in Liberia
43:42 Elections and the Power of Women
51:41 Leadership Challenges and Criticism
58:21 Life After Presidency and Ongoing Work
01:05:53 Reflections on Leadership and Legacy

Welcome  to Women and Resistance, a powerful podcast where we honour the courage, resilience, and revolutionary spirit of women across the globe. Hosted by Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla...

You're listening to Women and Resistance with Aya Fubara Eneli Esq and Adesoji Iginla—where we honour the voices of women who have shaped history through courage and defiance...Now, back to the conversation.

That’s it for this episode of Women and Resistance. Thank you for joining us in amplifying the voices of women who challenge injustice and change the course of history. Be sure to subscribe, share, and continue the conversation. Together We Honour the past, act in the present, and shape the future. Until next time, stay inspired and stay in resistance!

Transcript

Adesoji Iginla (00:02.562)
Yes, greetings, greetings and welcome back to Women and Resistance. I am your host, Adesarji Iginla, and with me as usual is a brilliant co-host, Aya Fubera-Enele Esquire. And tonight, we are taking a deep dive into the extraordinary life of

Adesoji Iginla (00:28.352)
Ellen Selif, Elif Johnson Selif. Who is she? We shall find out this evening. And first things first, sister, how are you?

Adesoji Iginla (00:49.848)
Can you hear me?

Aya Fubara Eneli (00:52.296)
can hear you I can't shift back

Adesoji Iginla (00:59.704)
So how are you, by the way?

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:03.718)
I want to talk about my life.

Adesoji Iginla (01:07.362)
Go on.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:08.956)
I think first I will encourage all of your listeners to read my book, Memoir of a Remarkable Life by Africa's first woman president. That would be me. And of course, the book is titled, This Child Will Be Great. Now, when that was...

You have to imagine the scenario.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:47.24)
Born in Liberia. And although a very deeply Christian area, and we can go into the history of Liberia, you probably should for the people who don't understand. But it's important to understand that history, to understand all the things that come afterwards, including my presidency.

But there were holy women and also men who, when children are born, sometimes they would come around and they would give prophecies over a child. And when this old man saw me as a newborn, he said, of course he didn't say it in the English that I'm speaking now, he said it in the way we spoke there. He said, this child will be great.

And it's something that I heard over and over again as a child. You know, I will tell you a little bit about my parents, but I think it's important to note that I was the third child and I was the second girl. So I'm not the first child that the whole family gets excited about.

I'm not the first girl.

And so now here I come. So there's nothing particularly remarkable about my birth. I'm neither the first nor am I the first male or the first female, you know? And so with that, I think that it...

Adesoji Iginla (03:30.024)
Mm, mm, mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (03:40.016)
engendered something in me from childhood

I did everything the boys did. I played soccer, I climbed trees, I ran faster than them. I had to carve out my own way. And really my whole life, you can see how I've been carving out my own way.

So, I was born on October 29th, 1938. I am still very much on top of this earth and I am kicking and I am living and I'm enjoying my life. In fact, I'm on so many different major boards. I have my grandchildren. You know, I put in my time and I'm enjoying my life.

Um, but um, what people know me best for is that I served as Liberia's 24th president from 2006 to 2018 after

Aya Fubara Eneli (04:58.138)
a brutalizing, horrifying, tragic war that decimated my country. Schools were closed, no hospitals, people were hungry, women were being gang raped. In fact, the statistics say something like 70 % of all the women have been sexually assaulted.

Adesoji Iginla (05:20.589)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (05:26.704)
At a time, bodies were piled up, mutilated. Headless bodies, heads over here in the streets of the capital of Liberia. It was a very horrifying time.

Aya Fubara Eneli (05:46.434)
one of the lucky ones because I did not have to stay in the country and witness that but we will get into that later so I'm known for that presidency because I was the first president after that civil war inherited quite frankly a nightmare

and we were over $4.7 billion in debt. We had no credit worthiness. We had no infrastructure, no running water, no electricity, no telecommunications. Do you know that when George Bush called to congratulate me on winning the presidency,

Adesoji Iginla (06:29.23)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (06:39.71)
We had these phones but you needed to load money onto the phones. have scratch cards, you know? And in the middle of the President of the United States talking to me, it cut off because I had run out of credits. I, the President-elect of the country. So we're quickly winding down the window calling the little boys that sell things on the street.

Adesoji Iginla (06:46.604)
Reddit. Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (06:56.15)
it cut off.

Adesoji Iginla (07:04.44)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (07:09.617)
yeah, bring, bring, bring, bring scratch card, bring scratch card. Wow, not very presidential.

Adesoji Iginla (07:15.726)
You

Aya Fubara Eneli (07:18.172)
And then of course the other reason that I'm well

and celebrated, though there many reasons. But it's because I also was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011. Now I shared it with two other women. But if you understand the history of Liberia, the atrocities that had been carried out from one regime to another.

for anyone from Liberia and then a female to be awarded the Peace Prize was something quite amazing. Okay, so just to know a little bit more about my background. See.

You have to understand the history of Liberia. Do you want to share some of that history? Share some of that history. Because I'm battling a little bit of a cold, so I want to take some breaks, drink water. So share the history.

Adesoji Iginla (08:17.568)
Okay.

Adesoji Iginla (08:22.828)
Okay, so Liberia, for those who don't know, was initially not on the radar of most people. In fact, although early settlers, most of them motivated by the likes of Thomas Jefferson and Monroe, and subsequent Monroe,

were being pushed out of the United States because to quote, let me even read his quote.

He said Thomas Jefferson said he wrote in 1781 in his note from the state of Virginia, it would be best that all the freed and slave go back to Africa, lest their presence was a threat to this young country. So the idea of Liberia coming into fore as an American colony was one that was used as an off ramp for the previously enslaved.

And when that happened, what would now look on as the initial taking of people to the United States is now being reversed. But with that reversal also comes something very depletive, which was they were coming back as colonizers. And so when they landed in what is now Moravia,

they immediately alienated the local population. For them, they were facing, to quote Miseleff in our book, their face, although their feet were planted in Africa, their face was towards the United States. Their alienation would lead up to what happened in 1990. Prior to that, had, what's the best way of saying it without?

Adesoji Iginla (10:30.092)
you know, offending sensibilities. Some of the most dehumanizing treatment of Africans, bi-Africans, or previous Africans who are now Americans. So that led to some sort of resentment, and that resentment boiled over centuries. And that was what led to the combustion in 1990.

Aya Fubara Eneli (10:59.122)
Yes. So I'm glad you gave that history. So you had white people in America who did not want to be bothered with black people. The American Colonization Society, supposedly friends of black, you know, freed and slave people. But really their goal was to just get

Adesoji Iginla (11:08.237)
Mm.

Adesoji Iginla (11:26.177)
Read.

Aya Fubara Eneli (11:27.292)
get rid of black people. And one of the ways was to find land in Africa and dump them off. Understand that the land was inhabited by other people.

Adesoji Iginla (11:29.272)
Yep.

Adesoji Iginla (11:43.138)
Mm-hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (11:43.694)
And so the same tactics that was used to colonize and create what is known as the United States of America was essentially the same tactic that was used there. Came with guns and other ammunition where you couldn't control and get people to sign treaties that they didn't even understand. Then you used your guns to force them into acquiescing. And that is how

Adesoji Iginla (11:52.792)
was reversed.

Aya Fubara Eneli (12:13.468)
the settlers acquired the land.

Adesoji Iginla (12:17.442)
which is what they call themselves actually.

Aya Fubara Eneli (12:19.73)
Yes. And when they came, they basically recreated.

Adesoji Iginla (12:27.0)
the United States.

Aya Fubara Eneli (12:30.674)
the sense of two classes, two unequal classes that they had labored under in the United States. They recreated that in this place now called Liberia, nevermind what the owners of the land used to call it, right? And they, the African, the freed Africans from the United States.

came to this area and now took on the status of their previous slave masters. And they ascribed to the indigenous Africans the status that they had as enslaved people.

Adesoji Iginla (13:14.134)
uncivilized savages.

Aya Fubara Eneli (13:16.28)
uncivilized savages that could be cut down, that were only good for service, that could not, when we say separate, completely separate, it not separate but equal, completely separate, and it was like that for centuries, for almost a century and a half.

Adesoji Iginla (13:27.918)
They equal. Depth-breadths, yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (13:35.597)
Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (13:39.29)
And what made it possible for me to become president ties into this original history that we're telling you now. Because my father was an indigenous Liberian, he was of the Gola ethnic group. Now my mother,

Adesoji Iginla (13:49.39)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (14:03.164)
My mother was half white, but her whiteness did not come from being raped by the white enslavers in America. Her whiteness came from her German father, who was a trader in Liberia, who took a fancy to her mother, who was cruel. So her mother also was half indigenous.

Adesoji Iginla (14:26.574)
of the, yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (14:32.879)
And then, so my mother was half indigenous, half German. Now when World War II broke out, Liberia trying to always carry the favor of the United States of America.

Adesoji Iginla (14:47.682)
the United States.

Aya Fubara Eneli (14:50.468)
also basically felt like they were at war with Germany and so they expelled all the Germans. And that is how my father, my grandfather left. He was actually married to my grandmother, but that is how he left and never returned, no communication. But my

Adesoji Iginla (14:51.701)
expelled.

Adesoji Iginla (15:06.411)
never to return.

Aya Fubara Eneli (15:13.694)
with her very fair skin and long hair was very much coveted by what we call sometimes the Congo. That was the derogatory term that the indigenous people called the Americal Liberians, right? And so I had...

Adesoji Iginla (15:33.666)
the Americans return this. Yeah. Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (15:43.6)
So my mother, given her fair skin, which is very much still treasured, yes, so much so that bleaching cream in Liberia today, you can hardly, in fact, I challenge you to go and buy a moisturizer that does not include bleaching, a bleaching component, yes.

Adesoji Iginla (15:49.592)
treasured.

Adesoji Iginla (16:05.406)
agents.

Aya Fubara Eneli (16:09.002)
So what used to happen then is there was no real education for the indigenous people at all. They lived what we would call in the Bush primitive, barbaric, all of that. But the Congo, the American librarians intermarried amongst themselves and they advanced themselves. At one time, they actually sold

some indigenous Liberians to, I believe it was Guinea, to the Spaniards of Guinea. Now, mind you, part of the reason that initially they, you know, was said, these people are barbaric is that, you know, some of the chiefs were involved with, quote unquote, the slave trade.

Adesoji Iginla (16:44.094)
Yeah

Aya Fubara Eneli (17:03.554)
So to say they're barbaric for participating in a slave trade without acknowledging that many times they were under coercion, but now you also sell them to Spaniards in Guinea. And this was in the 20th century.

Adesoji Iginla (17:22.208)
Yep. Considering the fact that you actually came from that system.

Aya Fubara Eneli (17:27.798)
Exactly. So,

Aya Fubara Eneli (17:38.35)
Okay, so my mother was taken in by a Congo family. This would be the American Liberians, right? So follow me. I'm going to just say Congo. From now on, you know what I mean, right? Yes. Yes. So they take in some

Adesoji Iginla (17:50.744)
Yeah, American, American Liberian.

Aya Fubara Eneli (17:58.437)
of the indigenous kids, if they feel they have promise, they will take them in to be servants, to help out in their homes, and then they might also get some education.

Adesoji Iginla (18:10.646)
under what is known as the word system.

Aya Fubara Eneli (18:13.438)
Yes, and that is how my mother, Martha, was educated. That is also how my father, who was Fugola, also managed to get some education. And my father became the first indigenous Liberian to be in the legislature. He was an attorney, but he was the first one.

Adesoji Iginla (18:36.494)
Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (18:40.878)
a poor man's lawyer.

Aya Fubara Eneli (18:44.604)
Yes. So this is the situation into which I was born. We were basically an upper middle class because my mother was a teacher, my father was a legislator, and he was also a lawyer, and we lived a good life. But

Things aren't always, don't always stay the way you think they should. And so my father had a stroke and he was now no longer able to practice, no longer able to serve in the legislature. And so it was a change of fortune for the family. And what I saw from my mother was my mother getting up.

Adesoji Iginla (19:25.88)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (19:31.494)
cleaning my father, getting him his food, setting him up for the day. He'll sit on the porch or something. His right side was damaged. She would work. She educated us. She made sure that we, her children, were really striving. But she no longer had the resources to be able to send us abroad. So my older sister, Jenny, had actually gone and studied abroad.

But by the time I came along, we did not have those kind of resources. And so after high school, I met a dashing young man.

His name was Doc Sirleaf. And he, was 17, he was 24, and he had just come back from the United States. And he was definitely a hot catch. And he was very interested in me. And you have to, you know, I have to describe myself. You know, sometimes when you people are talking to us when we're in advanced age, you think this is how we always looked. But,

Adesoji Iginla (20:23.16)
the states here.

Aya Fubara Eneli (20:43.39)
I encourage you to, in fact, on the cover of my book here, this is a picture of a younger me when I was, the day I got out of jail, after I'd been in jail for eight months with my hand up in the air defiant. And I was...

I was a rather attractive young woman, if I may say so myself. And I still was considerably fair skinned and I had this reddish hair. And I had a way about me. So don't look at people in their particular age where you meet them and think this is how they've always been. There is a story, there is a life that has been lived.

Adesoji Iginla (21:17.71)
Hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (21:30.886)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (21:35.902)
So I ended up marrying James in quotations Doc Serleaf at 17 We had four sons in rapid succession quick quick quick quick quick quick quick and Unfortunately that marriage

Adesoji Iginla (22:02.648)
Hit the rocks.

Aya Fubara Eneli (22:04.574)
had to end. Just a little bit about my education. I attended the College of West Africa in Monrovia and then when my husband, this was after we'd had...

No, I think this, I think we'd had all the four children at this time. But my youngest was not even almost, I think it was just around a year old. And my husband was leaving, he had applied for a scholarship to go back to the United States to advance his, his education. Well, I felt if he can do that, I can too. At that time, I was working as a lowly bookkeeper.

Things were not really good in our marriage. He would get upset. He would put his hands on me. It was not a good situation. But I wanted to get an education. But picture this. I'm a young woman.

A friend of mine who didn't have children had just come back from the United States. I could see how her life was flourishing. And here I was languishing as a wife and four children and really like a dead-end job. And it stirred something on the inside of me. And so when I found out that my husband was going to apply to get a scholarship to go and advance his studies.

Adesoji Iginla (23:27.074)
Hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (23:38.54)
study of

Aya Fubara Eneli (23:40.046)
I too, I went. I didn't tell him, but I went and I applied at the same place for a scholarship for me to go. he was going to, I think, University of Madison. I went to university right next door. So when he found out that he had gotten the scholarship, me too, I had gotten the scholarship. But we had four sons, four young children.

But you know, back then our families were, know, families really helped each other out. My parents, his parents all wanted to see us succeed. So the two older ones went with his parents, with his mother, and the two younger ones, including my youngest, who was just a year old, went with my mother. And it was very difficult.

to leave my children. But some would say that my decision to go and pursue my studies in spite of having such young children is indicative of how I lived my life. And I know that there are some women who would criticize that.

Adesoji Iginla (24:52.43)
You

Aya Fubara Eneli (24:52.71)
And there's some others who would love that, but we don't have those same criticisms of men. Nobody asked my husband, you have four children at home. Why are you going to go and advance your studies? Because who, are we not both parents? So I went and we lived together. I was earning an associate's degree in accounting from Madison Business College.

And I got a job, you know, cleaning and helping out in this restaurant. And my husband was not happy with me at all. He felt that I spent too much time studying and I was not giving him sufficient attention. And so one day, as I was at my place of employment, just sweeping up, he came to that place.

Adesoji Iginla (25:29.004)
Hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (25:33.208)
So.

Aya Fubara Eneli (25:50.446)
and in front of my boss, this white lady.

Aya Fubara Eneli (25:59.006)
Just...

Aya Fubara Eneli (26:06.054)
and I was in a daze. But I,

Aya Fubara Eneli (26:14.876)
I got permission and I left and I went home with him. And the next time I came to work, my boss told me that that cannot happen here again.

Adesoji Iginla (26:27.918)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (26:30.238)
So after my studies, I came right back, as soon as I got done, I came right back to Liberia, eager to see my children. At this time, two of my sons were going to boarding school, and then another one went to stay with his uncle, his father's brother.

Adesoji Iginla (26:56.974)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (26:57.926)
Actually, my husband was insisting that they both stay with, they all stay with him and his family. Not like he was gonna take care of the kids, he was gonna farm them away. But we were going through a divorce. And in Liberia at that time, the woman really had no rights to her children. In fact,

You could really, supposedly you could only get divorced if there was an issue of infidelity. And so up until the last day, the question was, would he show up and challenge the divorce or not? But I could not stay in that marriage anymore. And fortunately for me, he did not challenge. He did not show up on the last day that we had our hearing.

Adesoji Iginla (27:30.495)
Okay.

Aya Fubara Eneli (27:52.912)
And so they granted me the divorce, but there's no such thing as spousal support or any of that.

Adesoji Iginla (27:56.366)
.

Aya Fubara Eneli (28:00.264)
He basically had all the children, but Rob, Rob insisted, he threw a tantrum, Rob insisted that he wanted to stay with his mother. And so Rob was the child that stayed with me. And the next time I went to the US to study, Rob actually traveled with me. So I ended up also earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from the University of Colorado.

and an MPA from Harvard Kennedy School, which I earned in 1971. And even how I came to go to Harvard is a story that shows when they said, when they prophesied, this child shall be great, there were going to be doors that opened to me regardless. Let me pause there. Any particular questions that you have before I continue?

Adesoji Iginla (28:45.934)
That'd be great.

Adesoji Iginla (28:58.058)
Okay, so you mentioned, I mean, I'm talking about the upbringing now, you seem to hop on about the fair skin, flowy hair. Would you say that is a problem in Moravia, in Liberia? The issue of skin tone being

a way of gauging social hierarchy.

Aya Fubara Eneli (29:34.042)
you

Aya Fubara Eneli (29:39.804)
I will answer that question.

by asking your listeners to in their minds I pull up some of the names that I'm going to mention. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Kamala Harris. Colin Powell.

W. E. B. Du Bois. Dorothy Dandridge. Lena Horne.

Just food baker.

Eric Holder, Condoleezza Rice.

Aya Fubara Eneli (30:30.268)
Aya Fubara Eneli (30:36.128)
We could go on.

Adesoji Iginla (30:38.136)
You

Aya Fubara Eneli (30:42.936)
you draw the conclusions. think that we are, as a black people across the world, very much still battling with a notion, I didn't even mention Barack Obama, did I? We're very much still battling with a sense of...

Adesoji Iginla (31:00.342)
Nope.

Aya Fubara Eneli (31:08.754)
worthiness, a sense of what intelligence and competence looks like. so as I mentioned earlier, yes, bleaching cream is definitely a thing, not just in Liberia, but across the African continent with the hair weaves and...

Adesoji Iginla (31:09.198)
Mm.

Adesoji Iginla (31:25.646)
you

Aya Fubara Eneli (31:35.23)
and you know people desiring more quote-unquote European aesthetics. But during my tenure as president we tried to address some of those things. We banned the school children from wearing those weaves. How did Condoleezza get in there? She's not a dark-skinned woman.

Aya Fubara Eneli (32:06.27)
no, she's not. Little, little brown, little cinnamon. But that's not what I want to spend my time talking about. You know, these are some of the challenges that still face us. And certainly when you look at the history of Liberia, that is the thing that led to that bloody civil war.

You can only oppress and suppress a people for so long. And you know, when I was a student in the United States, at one time when I was at Harvard, we actually took a bus, we went down to Washington DC and we were protesting. And I could see how...

Black people were agitating for change. And I remember thinking to myself, the very treatment that my African brothers and sisters in the United States were fighting against is the treatment that the Congo met out to the indigenous librarians.

Adesoji Iginla (33:26.062)
So that.

Aya Fubara Eneli (33:28.326)
And I was conflicted about it. growing up, I had the fortune that although we lived in a cement house, we went to good schools, in the summertime, my father would take us back to his village and we would stay with his mother.

And so I got to also learn a little bit of the Gola language that will come to save me later. I came to understand more about, know, I got to see the indigenous people in a way that most Congo people never saw because there was such a big divide. So I got to see both worlds, although I never complained about my

Adesoji Iginla (34:06.892)
must way of live.

Adesoji Iginla (34:14.254)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (34:22.792)
privileges as a Congo. know, but so when I came back from the US the first time, I was invited to join Liberia's finance ministry. I served as the deputy slash assistant minister. And then I left and when I came back the second time,

This time I was, I served as finance minister. Now in between all of this, I told you about the divorce. my goodness. Again, just a horrifying time when.

My husband was upset at something. He pulled me into the car. He beats me, beats me, beats me, beats me, beats me all the way to the house. There were other times he would get so mad at me, he would bring out his gun and cock the gun to my head.

Aya Fubara Eneli (35:31.652)
And the final straw for me was one time when he was beating me and our son, I could see our son come around the corner and was watching. I said, I can't live like this. But at this point, you know, I'm now focused on my career. I also had a suitor. I was not looking to necessarily get married, but Chris Maxwell and I had a

and understanding. The young people in America today will call it a situation ship. Yes. So.

Adesoji Iginla (36:07.534)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (36:19.678)
When I got into the position as finance minister in 1979, this was under President William Tolbert. Tolbert had been in power at that point, think. No, was Tubman till from 1944 to 1971 and then 72. I mean, long periods of time, right? But again, had been very oppressive.

Adesoji Iginla (36:42.806)
Yeah. Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (36:47.868)
towards the Indigenous people.

Adesoji Iginla (36:50.168)
denied them resources in the countryside. Majority of the infrastructure was set up in Moruvia, which is the capital city of Liberia.

Aya Fubara Eneli (36:53.298)
Yes.

Aya Fubara Eneli (36:57.298)
Yes. And anything that was extracted, the money that was coming in was denied to the vast majority of people. Yes.

Adesoji Iginla (37:03.822)
Yeah, the countryside. Yeah, who lived in the countryside.

Aya Fubara Eneli (37:09.566)
So in 1980, April 1980, a matter of there was a coup. You wanna fill them in on that one?

Adesoji Iginla (37:13.348)
Mm. Yep.

Adesoji Iginla (37:19.214)
Okay, so there was a coup by lower rank soldiers led by a sergeant by the name of Samuel Doe. Samuel Doe will proceed to capture all the American Liberians who were in power, line them up beachside, and give them what can best be described as a Morovia protocol, which is dead by firing squad.

And that death by a firing squad also then created some bad blood underneath because when you take out an entire generation of leaders, the people who look up to them will have that resentment and that resentment will build up, which we'll subsequently see when you come to the early 90s.

Aya Fubara Eneli (38:17.116)
And do you know how William Talbot was killed?

Adesoji Iginla (38:21.251)
gone.

Aya Fubara Eneli (38:22.632)
They disemboweled him.

Adesoji Iginla (38:25.133)
Mm-hmm.

Same thing happened to Samuel Doe.

Aya Fubara Eneli (38:33.994)
So, that coup, I did flee. I did leave the country. initially I did attempt to serve under Samuel Doe, but I then made a speech that landed me in, as we would say, some hot water.

So at that point it made sense for me to to get out of the country and I did and I went on to hold a number of Senior positions and kept rising through the international finance and development world. This will come in handy later. I Was a senior loans officer at the World Bank. I was vice president at Citibank Africa office. I was vice president at Equator Bank

And in 1992, I became the UNDP Assistant Administrator and Director of the Regional Bureau for Africa. So I was learning a lot about the world of international finance, how the powers that be do business in Africa. And I was also savvy enough.

to make a lot of connections. I was very liked, I was very charismatic, and I was seen as a rising star. And I understand that some people may have some criticism about that, and I will.

Adesoji Iginla (40:23.021)
and

Aya Fubara Eneli (40:24.306)
Gladly take you on if you so choose to raise any issues. I believe that You should always be about excellence and that's what I was about and I did my job with excellence and I was rewarded as a result of it I Did come back to

Liberia to serve and again got into trouble with Samuel Dole's regime for criticizing electoral fraud. I actually ran for office as a senator and then decided

Adesoji Iginla (40:47.382)
I beer.

Aya Fubara Eneli (41:09.936)
my party and I, decided that those of us who had won our senatorial positions, we would refuse to take the seats because to take them would be to legitimize Samuel Doe's administration. So what was clear is that he had rigged it. He tried to placate the international

Adesoji Iginla (41:15.138)
I'm not going to take your seats. Just seats, yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (41:34.114)
community.

Aya Fubara Eneli (41:34.802)
Community by saying he only won by fifty point nine percent of fifty one point nine percent something small because usually Dictators in Africa will say they won by ninety nine percent But I wasn't going to legitimize His administration he had been absolutely atrocious in terms of his Actions and the killings and the looting the stealing from the people from the treasuries

And so when I refused to serve, I actually thought, well, two times now I've escaped death. So the first time when they took out the 13 ministers, yes, after the coup where they disemboweled Toebert, they grabbed all of the...

Adesoji Iginla (42:16.427)
Yeah.

was going immediately after the coup.

And then after the election.

Aya Fubara Eneli (42:32.06)
ministers the ministers that they didn't grab were the ones who happened to be out of the country now I was the only female minister and back then in Liberia there was almost a sense of you don't kill a woman now you can rape her to death you can gang rape her to death but you don't like just shoot and kill her in that way and so when they took the other men including my brother Carney

Adesoji Iginla (42:36.322)
That's the contrary, yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (42:48.846)
How you doing?

Aya Fubara Eneli (43:02.398)
taken but not you know with them but at one time I did see them and I have you know they were asking me for help and what help could I give but my brother I ended up saying to my captors why is my brother there and they did release my brother but the 13 other members of Tolbert's cabinet were tied to posts on a beach

Adesoji Iginla (43:32.526)
executed.

Aya Fubara Eneli (43:33.392)
and execute it.

And I was not killed at that time. And I narrowly escaped being gang raped by a group of soldiers. But that night, another young lady, about 20 years old, was gang raped. And I ended up having to hold her all night, just trying to ask she, as she was bleeding. And then the next morning they took me away.

So that was the first time that I could have been killed and I wasn't. And then the second time was under Samuel Doe, where I had the elections and since I had refused to take my seat, they did imprison me. And I was imprisoned for about eight months. In fact, they had sentenced me to 10 years in a prison that when you go there, people don't come back.

Adesoji Iginla (44:07.628)
Mm.

Adesoji Iginla (44:13.474)
the elections.

Adesoji Iginla (44:33.774)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (44:35.128)
And at that point, my sister was able to galvanize a lot of my friends in the West. And then the women in Liberia themselves too, I think had just been through so much themselves that they began to agitate and speak up. And with all the international pressure,

Of course, there initially was pressure from even the United States on me to accept the position. And I said, no, I can't do it. But eventually, I was released. And that is the picture where you see me with my fist up. And then I left the United States. So I left Liberia again, continued with my international finance career.

Adesoji Iginla (45:05.354)
and take your seats.

Aya Fubara Eneli (45:25.95)
Then I came back in 1997 to seek the presidency against Charles Taylor I'm gonna put it out here before somebody brings it up. Yes. I initially supported Charles Taylor. I met with him in Paris but Hindsight is 20-20 vision somehow Charles Taylor who had been imprisoned in the United States

Adesoji Iginla (45:48.366)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (45:53.282)
broke out of a United States jail and somehow left the country, ended up in Europe. Like I said, I met him in Paris and then somehow he gets back to Liberia, but then he goes to Sierra Leone and builds up an arm. I mean, it's really, wonder, one has to wonder how he was able to accomplish all of that.

Adesoji Iginla (45:55.436)
This jail found himself

Adesoji Iginla (46:04.174)
Hmm.

Adesoji Iginla (46:09.068)
Liberia.

Aya Fubara Eneli (46:21.566)
on his own. Did he break out of an American jail? And he tells two different stories, but that's something you have to go and research for yourself. I lost in 1997, I lost the presidency to Charles Taylor. But then of course, in 2005, I won decisively. And that is a story that Helen Cooper tells

Adesoji Iginla (46:25.453)
jail.

Aya Fubara Eneli (46:50.436)
with a great deal of detail in her book, Madam President. She really chronicles my life. Yeah, the question is, was he let out or did he break out? that is it. Critical minds can figure it out themselves.

Adesoji Iginla (47:08.11)
You

I mean, it's...

Yeah, I you go, I mean, the fact that when he broke out, all his actions within the Liberian theater focus to the betterment of the interest of the United States. You can read into that, what you mean.

Aya Fubara Eneli (47:33.406)
Yes. And they continued to provide aid, knowing quite all right, shouldn't even call it and giving loans. Yes. And this money going to buy weapons and things of that nature. But that is not the story that I'm here to tell. So I won the presidency in 2005. And the reason I won,

Adesoji Iginla (47:38.476)
Yeah. What he was doing in Sierra Leone. Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (47:47.478)
weapons.

Aya Fubara Eneli (48:01.212)
was because of the women, the market women. The market women, my goodness. Listen, they galvanized, they prayed, and this is instructive for those of you who might be in places right now where you need to seize political power.

Adesoji Iginla (48:03.822)
Hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (48:22.6)
They just didn't wait and hope that people would register to vote. They went out and knocked on doors and convinced women and helped overcome whatever obstacles they had to register to vote. you need someone to watch your baby while you go to register. I will watch your baby. You need someone to take care of your store while you go to register. I will take care of your store.

Adesoji Iginla (48:37.71)
Mm. Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (48:52.618)
So there were many other candidates running. Many of them had been involved in this civil war, had committed all kinds of atrocities. This was in 2005, but my main opponent was a football player. George Ware, who had paraded his God-given goods in a commercial, I believe in Italy, to white women in a commercial for Cologne.

Adesoji Iginla (49:07.598)
Ciao, due.

Aya Fubara Eneli (49:22.552)
And the Liberian women did not take kindly to seeing this black man bare buttocks and all in this commercial that had happened many years before. the question of, they did. And the question was, how do you elect when the country devastated in the way it is, how do you elect a football player over someone with my credentials?

Adesoji Iginla (49:36.82)
they brought that to the fore.

Aya Fubara Eneli (49:52.464)
in terms of how do we build a government and how do we restore not just order but the infrastructure.

Adesoji Iginla (50:02.574)
United States elected.

Aya Fubara Eneli (50:03.816)
But the men lined up, well, yes, United States have elected, but you know what? I don't talk about what the United States is doing because I choose not to talk about those things. You can ask me a question later. I will talk about Liberia. And so he was my main opponent and we ended up having a runoff. And in the runoff,

Adesoji Iginla (50:09.311)
V

Aya Fubara Eneli (50:33.106)
Let me tell you what the woman did. You have to be very strategic. I apologize. I have a little bit of a cold. So, this woman who had been so brutalized by men said,

You think we're gonna let these young men, many of them who had been conscripted into the Civil War as soldiers, know, boys, children soldiers, let me tell you how bad it was, the Civil War. Do you know that they would force these young boys to become soldiers? They would ply them with drugs. And then as a ritual,

Adesoji Iginla (50:58.36)
So just, yeah.

Child soldiers.

Aya Fubara Eneli (51:17.138)
these boys would have to rape their own mothers. So you're being raped and then your rapist takes off his mask and you see the face of your son.

Adesoji Iginla (51:20.043)
mothers yeah

Adesoji Iginla (51:28.425)
Thank you.

Adesoji Iginla (51:33.838)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (51:34.786)
So what the women did, they went to certain bars that they knew were very popular. These were areas where women would usually trade on some other goods. But this time, what they were offering the men was, if you want money, if you want beer, give me your voting ID card.

Adesoji Iginla (51:51.906)
Mm-hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (52:02.526)
because you had to have your voting ID card to vote. So some of the men thought, we've already voted, not understanding that for the runoff election, they would need their voting ID cards again, and they would trade in their voting ID cards for beer or for money to go and buy beer. In some cases, mothers would wait till their son slept, and then they would go and steal their son's ID cards and bury them or burn them or get rid of them.

Adesoji Iginla (52:13.097)
Was it good? Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (52:18.126)
Yeah,

Aya Fubara Eneli (52:32.83)
The bottom line is these women just didn't wait around in hope and pray for change. They took action. And as a result of that, I was elected overwhelmingly as the 24th president of Liberia and the first woman to become president of any nation.

Adesoji Iginla (52:42.158)
Mmm.

Adesoji Iginla (53:01.385)
the African content.

Aya Fubara Eneli (53:01.592)
in well of the new nations because we I recognized that we had other nation states before the Berlin conference but yes and I became somewhat of an oracle you know every woman from around the continent who aspired to lofty political positions

Adesoji Iginla (53:04.799)
African.

Aya Fubara Eneli (53:28.792)
made the pilgrimage to Liberia to meet with me. It was definitely a thing of honor, yes.

Adesoji Iginla (53:38.956)
So, yeah, so I mean, you've recounted your time in power or how you got to power and everything, but there is an underlying thread there, which is international finance and African development don't go hand in hand. And some will say that is a contradiction in itself, that you've chosen to highlight.

Aya Fubara Eneli (53:38.984)
So what else would you like to know?

Adesoji Iginla (54:05.438)
your nones in international finance. But when we look at Liberia for what it is today, that financial know-how doesn't seem to have

Adesoji Iginla (54:20.672)
been imprinted on the Liberian economy. So what would you say?

Aya Fubara Eneli (54:27.838)
What would I say about what about international finance about the importance of working in? Well, listen what the first things you have to acknowledge is that because of my connections and my understanding of international finance I was able to Get the world to forgive four point seven billion dollars worth of debt for for Liberia. You know how huge that is

Adesoji Iginla (54:31.734)
Yeah, it's on Liberia.

Adesoji Iginla (54:57.582)
Mm-hmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (54:57.67)
I mean, so you not only had the IMF, the World Bank, you had major donors like the United States, even Malaysia. But then there was another issue. Because under Samuel Doe and Charles Taylor, we hadn't even been servicing the debt. What happens when you default on your debt in that way is you can now have something called, I call them vultures.

Adesoji Iginla (55:25.656)
the ratings.

Aya Fubara Eneli (55:28.132)
What they do is they go to your creditors and they buy your debt for cents on the dollar. So let's say just to make it an easy number, let's say you owe a thousand dollars. They may buy that debt for three dollars, but your original creditor is like, better three dollars than zero dollars. And then

Adesoji Iginla (55:52.622)
than zero delos here.

Aya Fubara Eneli (55:56.632)
They bought the debt and now it's up to them to figure out whether they can get the three dollars they paid out of you but almost all the time they're going for the thousand dollars and that's the situation Liberia found herself in is these vulture ventures if you will where had their claws in us and you know it so happened that one of

these entities that refuse to forgive our debt. When we started tracing it, the company that bought it was owned by this company, that company was owned by that company, that company was owned by that company, that company was owned. And by the time we followed the trail, we now realized that the company was owned by Warren Buffett.

Warren Buffett, had pledged to donate so much of his, yes. So we were able to, you know, call some friends who put some pressure on him. With the IMF, it was Bono, the musician that actually helped us. So, you know, my connections made a difference. So I don't think that African countries can isolate themselves. We live in a global world and

Adesoji Iginla (56:52.664)
Giveaway, yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (57:19.772)
The international finance community is what it is. And we just need to learn to play at that game. And I think that I was very effective in calling in favors and figuring out how to restructure Liberia in such a way that we could get that debt forgiven, which gave us a little breathing room to now figure out how our

First of all, to make us credit worthy again, and then to now figure out how to repair our infrastructure and begin to attract foreign investors again into the country.

Adesoji Iginla (58:01.578)
Okay, so what would you then say to people who also accuse your government of a certain level of nepotism?

Aya Fubara Eneli (58:17.244)
You know, there always people who want to focus on the negative. When you come into a country that fought a brutal civil war, do know how many thousands of people were killed over the course of 14 years? When you come into that position, you are trying to as quickly as possible, as efficiently as possible.

Adesoji Iginla (58:31.724)
Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (58:45.52)
alleviate the pressures on people and of course they're expecting you to turn everything around overnight which is not possible you know and

One of my sons happened to already be working with the central bank. He already had experience. He was there before I became president. So the fact that he became the leader over the central bank, that's not about nepotism. That is about putting the most qualified person in the position and someone that you can trust. Because of course we had been riddled with corruption.

Now in terms of my other son, again, this was not about an appartism or whatever you got. This was about getting the best people into position. So do people talk about how many women I put in different positions? Not just in the soft positions like all the position for education or, or, or gender issues or whatever, but I put them over justice. put them over finance. you know, so

talk about the positive things that I did and stop nitpicking where you think I was not perfect. That's not helpful.

Adesoji Iginla (01:00:05.174)
No, I mean, the thing about leadership is leadership should be able to roll with the punches. So even though we laud your achievements, we should also point out where we see, what's the word, inconsistencies. Because in the case of your children, one would have said that obviously raises a question of conflict of interest. You being in a privileged position,

and the people close to you are, you know.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:00:39.432)
We had to work, you have to understand we were just coming out of a civil war. Many of our brightest were gone from the country. We had to work with who we had and if we had bright people who were equipped to do the job, why should we deny the country their expertise just because they happen to be related to me?

Do you understand that? But let me bring up some other things when you talk about the inconsistencies. You know, one of the hallmarks of my presidency was freedom of speech. Prior to my presidency, the press was muzzled. People had to be very careful what they said ever in opposition to any leader. During my administration,

Adesoji Iginla (01:01:03.906)
Yeah, but I understand.

Adesoji Iginla (01:01:09.846)
Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:01:33.842)
The press was free to say anything. So we were transparent and we were doing the work and achieving at high level so much so that I was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize because people absolutely saw the work I was doing and the effort and the sacrifice. In fact, when I was campaigning, my young people would say,

We can't even keep up with you. And they used to call me ma, grandma. You know, I was a grandmother when I campaigned for my presidency the second time around. and then, imagine my leadership in a crisis that I do not wish on anybody when the Ebola crisis hit Liberia.

And we had a ritual when people die, we wash their bodies and we prepare them for burial. Well, you can imagine knowing what we know about Ebola. That was just a recipe for disaster. And then you had some groups that were also Muslim that also had a certain way that they did things. And I had to come and sit down.

with leaders from all faiths, with elders, know, cultural leaders and say, we have a choice. You can follow tradition and we wipe us all out.

Adesoji Iginla (01:03:09.475)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:03:10.574)
Or we can make some changes here, which means we're going to start cremating our debt.

You choose. You know the amount of leadership it took as a woman?

to come in and have those conversations. But again, being part Gola, even though I also inherited some of the German blood, served me throughout my life. Because one time when I was gonna be gang raped by some soldiers, one of the soldiers says, wait a second, I hear you Gola.

said yes he said say some words so I've said a few sentences and he spared me

Another time when I was running for office, what the country did not want was yet another Congo that would come in and impose. Because remember, when Samuel Do came in, that was the first indigenous person to lead the country. That's why there was so much bloodshed and all of that. was centuries of pent up anger.

Adesoji Iginla (01:04:24.696)
person.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:04:35.452)
But when I came and I basically, yes, have the education and some of the privileges of Congo, but also steeped in my Gola and crew, because my mother was half crew, you know.

That made a difference in terms of people believing that I could understand what they had experienced and that I wasn't only going to look at things through the lens of a political, yes.

Adesoji Iginla (01:05:03.182)
It learns of, yeah. So one final question with regards to your time in office. How do you answer to this? You were toying with the idea of allowing the United States to have a military base in Liberia to host the African command until Big Brother

Nigeria stopped you your tracks.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:05:37.808)
and what is the problem with that?

Adesoji Iginla (01:05:41.054)
I thought you were supposed to be sovereign. Why would you allow a foreign base?

or your territory.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:05:55.026)
So you have to understand that Liberia and the United States, we've had a very close relationship, right? The very, the first constitution of Liberia was written by an American who had been asked to write it by the American Colonization Society.

Adesoji Iginla (01:06:07.789)
Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:06:22.586)
If you look at the American flag and the Liberian flag, what's the difference? That's right. With red, white, blue, and we have a star, we have the stripes, yes. So we have a very close relationship. I don't necessarily see too much wrong with maintaining that close relationship.

Adesoji Iginla (01:06:27.586)
the number of stars and stripes.

Adesoji Iginla (01:06:50.988)
Yeah, but maintaining the close relationship under the auspices of

Adesoji Iginla (01:07:00.43)
a foreign power having a military base, a strategic military base in West Africa to cover the African continent.

Some will find that very difficult to stomach.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:07:20.562)
Well,

We can, it's okay to see things from different lenses. Yeah, it is okay to things from different lenses.

Adesoji Iginla (01:07:29.43)
Yeah, yeah, yes, yes. But at least we can agree that you were.

persuaded to change your mind.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:07:44.114)
Well, I'm a very pragmatic leader and yes, always open to taking in additional information and making a decision that is best for whatever my aims are, yes. So let me just end by.

telling you some of the work that I've done since my presidency ended. And here's the other thing you didn't bring up, because I think sometimes we like to be more critical of women than we are of men. For the first time in the history of Liberia, I peacefully handed over power.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:08:32.388)
After my two terms as president, we had a peaceful election and I handed over power. I did not try to stay on as a dictator like some of the men. did not, and that was actually the first time in the history of Liberia where power had transferred not because someone had died in office or been disemboweled or there had been a coup, but it was actually a peaceful transfer. I did that.

Adesoji Iginla (01:08:44.398)
.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:09:01.008)
And I left the country, I handed the country over to the next president in significantly better shape than it was when I got it. And if I may say so myself, those are things that should be celebrated because I don't know that any other Liberian without the connections that I had.

could have turned that country around in the way that I did.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:09:35.214)
And I will be so bold as to say that. Yes, I did that. And so life after my time in office, I founded the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Presidential Center for Women and Development. called the EJS Center in 2018.

Adesoji Iginla (01:09:44.75)
time in office.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:10:01.746)
I have initiatives, the Amu Jai Initiative that mentors accomplished African women for top public leadership roles. In fact, the fourth cohort was just announced in May of 2025. I have been very active globally in terms of health issues. I co-chaired the WHO mandated independent panel.

for pandemic preparedness and response with Helen Clark. I'm also on a number of boards, the Elders, MasterCard Foundation, Global Leadership Foundation. I'm an advisory board member to Bloomberg and the Brent Hurst Foundations. I'm on the End Malaria Council.

I'm a member of the Africa Europe Foundation High Level Group, and I'm also a member of Club de Madrid. And so, you know, I've given speeches all across the globe at this point, including at my alma mater, Harvard. And I'm very proud of the work that I've done and the work that I continue to do.

Adesoji Iginla (01:11:30.619)
Salif, we thank you.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:11:33.574)
And on that note, I'm going to take Ms. Serleff off and I'm going to talk. So hold on. Yes.

Adesoji Iginla (01:11:41.451)
Before you talk, have to thank Marlon for the sizeable donation. Truly appreciate it. So thank you very much, Marlon. You were going to say?

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:11:49.245)
wow.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:11:54.544)
Okay, so now let's so now I'm talking as I okay, let me tell you it was so tough to get into characters as early Ellen Johnson sir. First of all, she's absolutely an amazing woman obviously

to have accomplished the things that she's accomplished. No small feat. Forget even becoming president of Liberia under those circumstances, but even to rise through the ranks in the way she did in the finance, international finance community. Haven't said that.

Adesoji Iginla (01:12:14.072)
Mm. Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:12:27.94)
One of the reasons we're doing Women in Resistance is not just to come here every Wednesday and just do that. It's really, first of all, to remember women and the work that has been done and to make sure that they're not erased. But it's also what we can learn and how we apply it moving forward. So certainly for those of us in the United States, what those women did to get Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

Adesoji Iginla (01:12:55.842)
elected.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:12:56.112)
Elected we must learn from it. I mean there were prayer groups, but these women were serious about strategy And they were not waiting for the men to do it and they did not care what obstacles every time there was an obstacle They just found a way to get around it. So we need to get serious. That's one thing I would say

But the other thing that you see is going back to Carter G. Woodson and when he says once you control a person's mind, you control everything else about them.

Adesoji Iginla (01:13:25.698)
They don't even have to be there when they...

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:13:29.006)
If, and I'm gonna say this with all the respect I would show if Madame President, if Mama Ellen was here, because she's about the same age as my father. So I'm gonna show her the utmost respect, even though we're on these internet airwaves, right? But who knows, she might watch this. The concern I have,

Adesoji Iginla (01:13:45.358)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:13:53.182)
is because she's been, you know, out of the presidency for a while now, is that being in these international finance rooms, she understands better than you and I do how these entities are designed to prey on us, how they are designed to extract but not add value, how the way that they get fat is off of us. And so,

to have all the intelligence she has and have all the knowledge she has. And at this point, I'm sure enough money to live on where she's not worried about how she paying her bills. I would love to see our quote unquote elite intellectuals turn their intellectual power, their resources to helping Africa carve a different way.

Our way cannot just be to copy what is not working in the West anyway. And these countries would not have what they have if they did not have a group of people and a continent that they preyed on. So to think that you can follow their path to ever become economically independent or sovereign is a joke. And so how about instead of just...

Adesoji Iginla (01:14:56.216)
Could you repeat that part?

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:15:16.06)
I mean, and I understand in that moment, it's like, hey, let me get this debt off of, of Liberia. But the crazy thing is in that book, madam president, there is a line there where she's meeting with Charles Taylor. And when she, when Charles Taylor comes up to her at the restaurant, she's reading the book on Thomas Sankara.

Adesoji Iginla (01:15:21.325)
Mm.

Adesoji Iginla (01:15:31.95)
below.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:15:45.214)
Charles Taylor says, is anyone still talking about this guy? And she's like, yeah, you know, all the things he accomplished. And one of the things Thomas Sankara said was, what if all African leaders came together and said, we are not paying you a dime.

Adesoji Iginla (01:15:48.738)
Guy. Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (01:15:59.822)
No

time.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:16:05.616)
So for her to have known about Thomas and Kara, Madam, Mama, Mama Ellen, you know, I know that I'm your kid and you're like, you don't know what you don't know. But I'm just saying that following this path, first of all, the whole concept of Liberia, Monrovia is named after James Monroe. The Ameri-

Adesoji Iginla (01:16:09.857)
and read the book.

Adesoji Iginla (01:16:13.865)
No excuses.

Adesoji Iginla (01:16:27.918)
It's Monroe.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:16:32.094)
would wear their waist coats and this and that and just then yeah, and their top hats and they were so much better than the people they came from and what differentiated them because they had been in proximity to whiteness. And that mindset, we still have not decolonized our minds, Madam President, because I think that if we had, we would stop going to the West, hands out, begging for aid.

Adesoji Iginla (01:16:35.468)
and top hat.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:17:00.19)
because all aid does is impoverish us. So rather than looking to the West to say, and save Liberia, you at one point, Madame, were over echo us. What did you do with that power and influence at that time to conceive of a different way of African countries trading with one another, sharing their intellectual acumen? We've got to come at this a different way. So if she

ever watches this. Madam, I have the utmost respect for you. Listen, as a mother with children, I can't imagine what it was like for you to leave your children behind and go to pursue your education. And I know that you carried a lot of guilt for that. You probably still do because that's just how it is. That might be why you wanted your sons to be in the government with you and you didn't criticize them even when corruption issues came up.

don't know, I'm not you, but what I would say is even now with however many days God still has for you to live on earth, it would be great if you, knowing the intricacies of the IMF, of World Bank, of the UN,

And then all these foundations you're sitting on, Bill Gates, this, that, that, all these things, if you would bring that knowledge and help us really figure out a strategy to get Africa out of this place of independence, would be so greatly appreciated.

Adesoji Iginla (01:18:42.67)
Even to add one more point to what you've made.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:18:47.676)
Sierra thought it was my story. No mail.

Adesoji Iginla (01:18:50.712)
Thank

Adesoji Iginla (01:18:54.734)
To add one more point, when you mentioned the Liberia mindset, the Liberian-American mindset, do remember the book, the message, Tanahasi Ko? What did he say about people who have previously experienced an event and then go on to do what?

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:19:13.339)
yes! Okay, yes.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:19:24.732)
Yeah, do the same or worse. Yeah. So if you haven't read the book, The Message, initially I was a little upset with Ta-Nehisi because I was like, why are you even intimating that black people could turn around and be as cruel to their oppressors as their oppressors have been to them? But we've done it. The only thing, though, is, again, because of this notion of white supremacy,

Adesoji Iginla (01:19:41.504)
Not knowing that.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:19:53.004)
We can do it to ourselves. I don't know that we can do it to white people.

Adesoji Iginla (01:19:57.582)
No, I don't think so.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:20:00.316)
Yeah, yeah, so so you definitely Who yeah, you definitely have that issue But yeah, so yeah the whole concept of Liberia is based on this first of all get rid of black people but then you come and then you impose yourselves in that way and then you create this very unequal system and then you do everything you can to maintain it as though these other people are not human beings so

Adesoji Iginla (01:20:10.936)
Mm.

Adesoji Iginla (01:20:25.802)
Mm. Mm, mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:20:29.942)
The more we study things, the more we can realize when we might be going off course and about to embark on something that is not helpful and maybe we can self-correct. But clearly Africa has a lot to do, a lot of work to do, grateful that she

broke that barrier to become the first female president. And let me also say this, when you're reading these books, and so I read the books about whoever we're talking about. If they have any interviews, I'm watching their interviews for like weeks. I'm going to bed listening to it. I'm waking up with their voice in my ear. The book, Madam President, written by Helen Cooper.

Adesoji Iginla (01:21:05.742)
podcast.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:21:17.52)
If you watch some of the interviews that she did, she talked about Africa being the worst place for women. And again, I'm just really tired of this narrative that takes a snapshot of a place and then just extrapolates it, but does not do the same to the West. So.

Adesoji Iginla (01:21:33.206)
Any time. Period in time, yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (01:21:42.67)
Mm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:21:44.886)
At the time that she was making the statement, she was actually in the United States of America. That still has never been able to elect a female president. In the United States of America, where, okay, if we took a snapshot in time, we would see where they would tie a black woman up and cut her pregnant stomach open and the baby will fall and they will crush the head. So if I took just that snapshot.

So we need to be very careful what we read, how we interpret what we're seeing and hearing about Africa. And it's not at all that we don't face the truth, but it's the issue of just taking one narrative.

Adesoji Iginla (01:22:23.786)
exaggeration and also exaggeration. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:22:26.36)
And that's it. It's complex. Just like Ellen Johnson-Sterlitz herself is a very complex woman. mean, she had lovers, she danced, there are pictures of her in shorts. She had a good time in her life. And she was always very strategic. And I would say that she had a penchant for...

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:22:53.778)
of figuring out a strategy to make sure that she won. So even when she was working for Citibank, but then she got a job with Equator Bank and they didn't know and she's playing them against each other and neither one of them would have wanted her to get involved in politics, but she goes and does that anyway, but she kept all of these connections and was very strategic. We can at least learn from that.

Adesoji Iginla (01:23:17.998)
So next week, we're doing Asata Shako. So yeah, I have to go to Cuba for that. We're doing Asata Shako next week. yeah, this week has been a staring episode.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:23:31.044)
my god!

Adesoji Iginla (01:23:47.263)
And yeah.

What can we say? Thank you, Aya, for bringing the goods, as always.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:23:57.202)
Thank you for the opportunity. These women are powerhouses, yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (01:24:00.556)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. mean, that's it. Somebody was saying the other day that this should be, this should be compulsory reading, compulsory read, watching and viewing for, for young ladies. And I said, well,

Each one bring one. Each one bring one. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Each one bring one. Yeah. So yeah. Subscribe. Oh, that's good. Yeah. Yeah. And you can also download the audio version in the course of the day tomorrow. So, and if you share that, he also puts it in the algorithm and more people might come to it.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:24:21.054)
It's on the internet. Each one bring one, it's on the internet one day, you know people, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so like, share, subscribe, all that good stuff. Talk about it, let people know, yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (01:24:50.496)
or will come to it, not might, will come to it. So sister?

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:24:51.964)
Yeah. And maybe, maybe Madam President will come to it and I might get a public spanking, but that's okay. I was still very respectful, man.

Adesoji Iginla (01:25:02.894)
So yeah, that said, any final thoughts?

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:25:10.542)
No, just grateful, grateful for our lineage as black women, as black people. And more convinced than ever that nothing is impossible for us because every single woman we have covered dealt with the challenges of her time. And

Adesoji Iginla (01:25:19.726)
Mmm.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:25:36.4)
The reason we're talking about them is they just didn't lie down and play dead. And because they kept fighting and persevered, we're here today. So that encourages me for the work we need to do.

Adesoji Iginla (01:25:40.558)
Yeah.

Adesoji Iginla (01:25:48.818)
And you evoked the name of Tomo Sankara earlier. So Tomo Sankara is famous for saying women are the mothers of revolution. And so they have to be allowed to participate in the revolution of their people. So enough said.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:26:09.247)
Actually, I think it's best when we not just participate, we lead because we lead with heart and we lead with mind. Y'all be leading with your NETA regions.

Adesoji Iginla (01:26:14.08)
okay.

Adesoji Iginla (01:26:22.346)
Okay.

Aya Fubara Eneli (01:26:25.278)
Yes, thanks Lisa. Thanks Lisa. was, I am, I I drank a whole bunch of tea and vitamin C and I even, I even broke the ginger and honey and all of that lemon. I even broke down and took some NyQuil cause I was like, I cannot be, all day I was sneezing. And I was like, I can't be sneezing during this podcast. So it worked out, but yes, I'm going to do that. Thank you, sir. And good night everybody.

Adesoji Iginla (01:26:48.522)
Okay.

Adesoji Iginla (01:26:52.226)
Good night everybody and next week it's Asata Shako. So, we'll see you then. Good night and God bless.