By Boakai Jaleiba
So now they want us to believe this whole border mess is about BK Enterprise and some sand mining agreement that went left? Please mehn . That’s not just a story, that’s a whole diversion, carefully packaged to distract us from what’s really happening on our soil.
Let me take you back to 1907, because apparently some people forgot their history. That border agreement they keep referencing was signed between Liberia and the French Republic. Not Guinea. Guinea didn’t even exist yet.
It was French Guinea, a colony. When they finally gained independence in 1958, they inherited those borders under a bedrock principle of international law where newly independent states step into the shoes of the colonial power and accept the boundaries they left behind.
No takebacks. No redos. And in 1960, both Liberia and Guinea sat down like adults and formally confirmed they recognized and respected that 1907 border. That’s not my opinion. That’s documented fact.
So now let’s talk about this river situation because the audacity is astronomical. The Makona River forms the natural boundary between our two countries.
That’s what a boundary river does. And in international law, no single country owns a boundary river. The border runs either down the median line or along the thalweg, the deepest navigable channel. Both countries have equal rights.
The 1907 treaty itself explicitly uses the Makona as the boundary, following its left bank. So when a Guinean official stands before cameras and claims the entire river belongs to them, that’s not a legal argument. That’s a fairy tale. And it’s legally impossible. 𝐈𝐧 𝐟𝐚𝐜𝐭, 𝐢𝐭 𝐦𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐬 𝐧𝐨 𝐬𝐞𝐧𝐬𝐞.
When their soldiers crossed that river, removed our flag, and raised theirs, they weren’t enforcing a broken contract. They were performing an act of annexation. Borders cannot be altered by force. That’s not my rule, that’s the Charter of the United Nations.
That’s the foundational principle of the African Union. And this isn’t even the first time. Just weeks earlier, Guinean soldiers detained Sierra Leonean security personnel in a similar confrontation. There’s a pattern here. A pattern of testing neighbors, pushing boundaries, seeing who will blink first.
And somehow we’re over here arguing about a sand mining permit. About BK Enterprise. About who authorized what. Those are valid questions, yes. Investigate the company. Do all of that.
But do not let these domestic concerns blind you to the primary issue. A foreign military planted their flag on Liberian soil. They are claiming ownership of a river that, by treaty and by law, we share. The breach of contract narrative is a red herring designed to put us on the defensive, forcing us to answer for a private company while they occupy our land.
And to those among us, the unprofessional agenda-setters, who have picked up this Guinean talking point and run with it like it’s gospel, bow your heads in shame. You have taken the words of an ignorant foreign official seeking to justify an act of aggression against our nation and amplified them as if they were your own discovery. You have done the work of Conakry for free. You have confused being oppositional with being unpatriotic. You have forgotten that before you belong to any political party or any tribe, you belong to Liberia. The same Liberia whose soil was violated.
The same Liberia whose flag was removed. The same Liberia whose youths had to face armed soldiers. If you cannot tell the difference between facts and parroting the propaganda of a foreign power occupying our land, then step aside. Read the 1907 treaty. Understand what a boundary river means under international law.
And then sit down. Because ignorance is one thing, but weaponizing that ignorance against your own country’s sovereignty is something else entirely. We are not asking for blind loyalty. We are asking for basic patriotism. If that’s too much, the door is right there.
We need answers. But we need the right answers to the right questions. Our sovereignty is not for sale. Not for sand. Not for anything.
