The first part of the journey from Monrovia is an object lesson for anyone who knew the territory during the divisive conflict that engulfed the nation and threatened to destroy it irredeemably. Monrovia’s formerly potholed and worn-out old boulevards have been given an impressive makeover. They are now well paved and in the older parts of the city, sidewalks and drainages dating back to the earlier years of the 20th century on such streets as Carey, Ashmun, Benson and Broad Street, have taken on a new life. The outskirts of the city also provide a revelation. The government has succeeded in repairing and even rebuilding the major routes leading out of the city. Then, there is the winding and picturesque highway that runs through the Firestone rubber plantation. This enormous plantation has been at the heart of Liberia’s economy for decades and is a reminder of the nation’s past as well as a harbinger of its future. In her first six-year term that is set to end later this year, Mrs. Johnson-Sirleaf has targeted the strategic restoration of international investor confidence in Liberia as a lynchpin of her strategy for renewal. In spite of the fact that her former Minister of Labour, now Minister of Public Works, Hon. Kofi Woods, a militant human rights activist, did not spare the company in his determined efforts to upgrade the welfare of Liberian workers employed by foreign companies, her administration has earned a vote of confidence from both old and new international investors. This is symbolised in the signs of renewed activity in institutions like Firestone.

The Firestone highway had been one of the most treacherous roads in Africa during the Liberian civil war. The Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) and the rebel fighters of Charles Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) wreaked havoc among the rubber trees. Beyond the plantation, the road through Kakata and the beautiful rolling landscape of Margibi County leading to the former NPFL headquarters of Gbarnga, in Bong County, is a fascinating introduction to the beauty of Liberia’s rural territory. This route is now completely transformed from the narrow, treacherous ambush trap that it was for most of the civil war, to a widened and smooth highway all the way to Gbarnga. This is fertile territory and the signs of restored agricultural activity are seen in the burgeoning market towns along the route.  The restored farming activities of the people are evident in the small plots of “country rice” being cultivated in almost any small depression where rain or spring water has collected along the route or the lush fields of cassava and potato greens. In most of these small hamlets, goats are in abundance once again. During the war years, a popular Liberian joke was that as soon as the animals heard the sound of gunfire, they took off into the bush even faster than human beings. Some people argued that since the wild animals in the jungle were less rapacious than the rebel fighters, the domestic animals were safer in the wild. The truth is that rebel forces on the move didn’t spare anyone’s livestock. Today, the presence of these ruminants moving languidly across the highway and forcing speeding travellers to slow down is one of the most definite signs of the return to normalcy in the Liberian countryside.

Gbarnga was well chosen as rebel headquarters because it is one of the most strategic junction towns in the country. Turn left on the way from Monrovia and you head along one of the most picturesque, but also what was once considered one of the most impassable motor roads in West Africa towards the borders of Sierra Leone and Guinea at Foya and Mendekoma. Go straight on and you find that you are heading deep into the interior of central counties like Nimba that provided the bulk of genuine support for the Taylor revolution before it collapsed into an unruly insurgency. The derailed revolt ruined the nation far more than the mismanagement by Samuel Doe that it was meant to correct. The town remains one of the most seminally characteristic Liberian metropolises because the laid back attitude of the people is immediately noticeable in their easy welcome and smiling attitudes when they answer travellers’ queries. This is also one town where no matter how rudimentary an eating place might be, the likelihood is that the meal that you order will surprise your taste buds with its deliciousness. Liberian ladies are actually famous for their culinary expertise among other attributes but while most West Africans assume that these attributes are only to be found among the more sophisticated city dwellers in Monrovia, a trip up country will easily disabuse their minds. Rural Liberians are indeed even more hospitable and easygoing in their lifestyles than the city dwellers. Mrs. Johnson-Sirleaf’s decision to open up the rural space as symbolised by the annual celebrations being held in a different county each year, has certainly created greater national cohesion because she is clearly committed to the equitable distribution of the nation’s resources and services.

Those who went to Voinjama for the celebration, but who have never travelled on the Lofa highway from Gbarnga to Voinjama before, might consider the five hour journey something of an ordeal. However, anyone who knew the road even six months prior to the celebrations would certainly have marvelled at the transformation. The fact is that at that time, the journey would have taken nothing less than eight hours in the dry season and could last for up to twelve hours or more in the rainy season. Even in a state of the art SUV, the trip could still be an ordeal of stops and starts in the mud. Our journey was smooth and devoid of any major mishaps or disturbances. Even though the rains had started, the day was fresh and clear and we were able to enjoy the incredible scenery of the surroundings especially after crossing the mighty St. Paul River that separates Bong County from Lofa. The Lofa highway traverses some of the most pristine rain-forest scenery still to be found anywhere in West Africa. The entire 140km stretch of this highway is a constant climb on red clay, but the government has deployed its resources judiciously to grade and fill the surface and repair all the narrow bridges that cross the innumerable streams and rivers that abound in the territory. In fact, the work that has been done on this legendary obstacle course has benefited not only the rural dwellers of the area, but also those from the area who live in the capital and have been reluctant to go home for years because it was such a difficult journey to undertake. As they streamed in their thousands to attend the celebrations in their home county this year, expressions of surprise and gratitude to the Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf administration for this simple show of concern were on the lips of people from all walks of life and across all generations. Mini-celebrations were going on in some of the small towns along the way. In Zorzor in particular, even though we were passing through this small hamlet near the Guinea border on the eve of the celebrations, it appeared that rehearsals were going on and the town was clearly in a festive mood. Masquerade dancers were performing their rhythmic displays in a field as we passed and students were practicing marches in the narrow streets near the market square. It was clear then that Liberians were determined to show the world that the old days of distressing insurrection were over once and for all. Nowhere was this more evident than in the hill town of Voinjama itself.

We arrived in the early evening to find thousands of visitors thronging the rustic metropolis as the strains of the latest Liberian music blared from every nook and cranny. On every street corner and in the market stalls of the famous Voinjama market, renowned as a meeting place for traders from Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia itself, impromptu independence parties were in full swing and the “Happy 26th” greeting was ubiquitous. The most effective evidence that the nation has put its violent past behind it was the moving and colourful march past and military parade inspected by Mrs. Johnson-Sirleaf at the parade ground in Voinjama by 8:00am on the 26th of July. The main body of the forces that were reviewed was of course made up of the army but units of the police (including a noticeably large contingent of women) and other uniformed services such as the immigration, the merchant navy, etc all participated with gusto and pride. For Liberia the rebuilding of confidence in the security agencies and military institutions has been a particular mark of success. The Minister of Defence, Brownie Samukai, is one of the youthful ministers whose inclusion in the cabinet gives credence to the assertion that Madam Johnson-Sirleaf is building a government for the future. It was even more instructive to discover that the Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces of Liberia is a Nigerian, Major General Abdurahman. This tall and presentable officer was striking in his professional bearing as he accompanied the president on her inspection of the Guard of Honour. The performance of the troops drew cheers from the hundreds of spectators as the AFL band rendered a moving programme of superbly played military marches and even some popular airs arranged to suit the drills devised by the commanders of the parade. By the time this short but extremely moving ceremony was concluded, the stage had been set for the climactic gathering of the president and her people in the community hall where the main event was billed to take place.

Liberians or at least, the Liberian settler elite, have always had a penchant for formal ceremonial conduct. They brought some of the almost baronial behaviour of the slave-owning Southern United States to the mother continent with them when they returned in search of freedom. The slogan, “the love of Liberty brought us here,” that adorns the national coat of arms and other insignia was supposed to be an expression of much more than a rationale for colonising a fertile swathe of West Africa. It was meant to define a new spirit of equality for disenfranchised African humanity in the global community of the nineteenth century as the principle of the domination and control of one race by another was reversed. However, over the decades that followed the establishment of the new nation, the ideal of that assertion was gradually corrupted and the imposition of a characteristic coloniser’s value system on the building of the national patrimony by the settler class became the norm. While the brutal overthrow of this system by the Samuel Doe-led insurrectionists of the AFL in 1980 might be hailed by some as the most transformative event in the history of Liberia, there are those who also argue that it set in train, the course of events that led to the civil war. The ceremony that took place in the old community hall built in the Tubman era but newly renovated by the incumbent regime, was a remarkable testimony to the way in which the government led by Mrs Johnson-Sirleaf, has set out to implement the aborted transformation of society that the earlier traumas failed to install. The central event of this ceremony was the oration, given this year by a young self-made female businesswoman who had been a refugee in various West African nations, especially in Guinea and Sierra Leone, during the civil war.

For days after the presentation by Garmai Estella Korboi, an indigenous citizen from Lofa County, the Liberian press continued to analyse and assess her views. In the past, before the advent of the Johnson-Sirleaf regime, the Independence Day oration was largely regarded as an opportunity for the government of the day to roll out its praise singers. The Johnson-Sirleaf initiative has been to seek out young people who have dynamic vision and innovative ideas and grant them the opportunity to unveil these for the nation’s scrutiny. This year’s oration was a seminal example of this initiative. Ms. Korboi chose to focus on the processes of self-education and choice that have been thrust upon her generation (she appeared to be in her late twenties or early thirties) and to appeal to the government to empower those Liberians who, though traumatised by their war experiences, have been able to survive by sheer will power. She stated unequivocally that Liberia’s “body politic has always shared these common values;

1.    A search for new opportunities,

2.    A search for identity and belonging, and,

3.    A desire to live free, secure, independent and to be master of their own destiny.

These are the common values that we celebrate as a people”

As Liberians listened to Ms. Korboi on a nationwide radio hook-up (there are nearly fifty radio stations, most of them privately owned, in Liberia) they were treated to a narrative of experiences and passionate advocacy that reminded them of the recent traumatic past. She seemed to be appealing to all Liberians to eschew old divisions and embrace the sense of unity and reconciliation that the government itself has defined as the basis for its policy decisions. What was particularly noticeable was that this year’s oration coming at the height of the political season with elections only a few months away, seemed to shy away from an official endorsement of the ruling party. Instead, Ms Korboi appealed to Liberians in the following words; “I urge all of us to look beyond the pictures of candidates and instead, focus on the red white and blue Liberian flag. Liberia and Liberians should emerge stronger from these elections not weaker. Liberia and Liberians should emerge better from these elections, not bitter. Liberia and Liberians should progress as a result of these elections, not retrogress. So let us vow to play by the rules and go through a violence free election that will make us a great nation. I call on all Liberians to join our advocacy for a unified, progressive Liberia.” The independence celebrations this year have thus become one more noticeable step towards the enshrining of the Johnson-Sirleaf legacy as one of unprecedented progressive advocacy.

Liberia today is a nation where the tolerance of criticism and competitive political challenge belie the nation’s long and tragic history. The traditions of leadership that had often been regarded as the consummation of privilege rather than the arbiter of public opportunity, have gradually been transformed into a basis for effective performance and fair governance. As the nation celebrated more than a century and a half of existence in a venue that illustrated its efforts to overcome past failings, the event encouraged the citizens to contemplate opportunities for progress rather than to reflect on the past out of nostalgia for lost glory.

Barrett is an Abuja based journalist