January 22, (THEWILL) – A former Vice President, Joseph Nyumah Boakai, has been sworn in as the 26th president of Liberia.
Boakai was sworn in for a six-year term on Monday, at a ceremony held in Monrovia, in the presence of several foreign leaders and diplomats.
Boakai, 79, defeated former President George Weah, in November’s run-off poll with 50.64 percent of the votes to 49.36 percent. He was vice President from 2006 to 2018 under Liberia’s first female president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
Born in Worsonga, a village in Foya District, Lofa County, on November 30, 1944, Joseph grew up with his parents toiling the soil as subsistence farmers, spending much of his adolescent days between school time and the farms.
When he left Worsonga for neighbouring Sierra Leone for primary and secondary school, Boakai landed in the hands of some distant relatives whose support he complemented by doing odd jobs to stay in school.
In 1972, Boakai graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Liberia.
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