SUP Condemns Police Brutality; Accuses Government of Authoritarianism, Calls for Police Chief's Unconditional Removal
Monrovia, Liberia: The University of Liberia student-based Vanguard Student Unification Party (SUP) has accused the Boakai-Koung ruling Unity Party-led government of slowly drifting toward dictatorship.
“This regime is dangerously slipping into dictatorial authoritarianism,” SUP Secretary General Odecious Mulbah said in a statement released on Monday, June 9, 2025.
The UL-campus-based political party accused the administration of President Joseph Nyuma Boakai and Vice President Jeremiah Koung of empowering the LNP to institute intimidation tactics to scare opposition political parties into submission.
In a statement harshly criticizing the police's heavy handling of political opponents' release on Monday, June 9, in Monrovia, SUP condemned the recent incarceration of former House Speaker Jonathan Fonati Koffa and several members of the Lower House at the 55th Legislature in connection with the December 18, 2024, fire incident at the Capitol Building.
SUP also condemned the assault on Attorney Janga Kowo, Acting National Chairman of the opposition Congress for Democratic Change (CDC), by officers of the Liberia National Police. The group claimed that the police action against Kowo depicted intolerance for political dissent.
The statement signed by SUP’s Secretary-General Odecious Mulbah, which was approved by Chairman Sylvester Wheeler, demands the unconditional removal of Police Inspector Colonel General Gregory Coleman on the grounds that he (Coleman) is the mastermind behind the violence perpetrated against high-profile opposition leaders.
“Weaponizing the state security apparatus to silence dissent, punish political opposition, and suppress the voices of the poor and marginalized,” SUP accuses Police IG Gregory Coleman in its statement.
The UL student-based political press group considered the ongoing investigation of the arson of the Capitol Building fire incident as a motivated partisan cover-up by the Government of Liberia, arguing that key actors from the majority bloc in the House of Representatives had not been called for questioning.
SUP accused the government through the national police of applying justice with the primary objective to target political dissent, saying the arrest and subsequent incarceration of former Speaker Koffa is well coordinated to scare the opposition community into political submission.
Wheeler also condemned President Boakai’s public statement labeling the Capitol fire as “hooliganism” before any investigation commenced.
SUP described the attack on CDC Chairman Janga Kowo as “vicious and inhumane.” The group said the incident highlights what it called a rise in “state-sponsored terrorism.”
In its list of demands, SUP called for the removal of Police Inspector General Gregory Coleman.
It also demanded an independent, citizen-led investigation into the Capitol fire. SUP called for justice for Janga Kowo and other alleged victims of what it described as police brutality.
SUP further demanded an end to what it termed the administration’s “creeping dictatorship.”
The group also criticized human rights advocate and Unity Party official Samuel Kofi Woods, calling him a “sellout” for allegedly failing to speak out against recent abuses.
SUP warned of planned mass mobilizations to protest the government’s actions. It vowed to resist what it described as the rule of “elite looters and enablers of imperialism.”
“At a time when the people cry for food, jobs, education, and dignity, this regime responds with batons, tear gas, and iron fists,” Wheeler said. No amount of intimidation, no barrel of a gun, can break the iron will of a conscious revolutionary movement.”
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