“You Commit a Sin, You Bear the Consequences”: Presidential Envoy on Tourism Takes Side in House’s Leadership Impasse, Blames Supreme Court Crisis

Monrovia, Liberia: In what appears to be an endorsement of Representative Richard Nagbe Koon of Montserrado Electoral District Eleven as Speaker of the House of Representatives, Special Presidential Envoy on Tourism Christopher Hayes Onanuga has indicted the Supreme Court of Liberia as the primary architect of the leadership crisis at the Lower House, accusing the judiciary of legal indecisiveness and political cowardice.

By: Abraham Sylvester Panto

“You commit a sin, you bear the consequences,” Onanuga fired at the Supreme Court confirmation of Cllr. Jonathan Fonati Koffa’s legitimacy as Speaker of the House of Representatives.

Ambassador Onanuga frowned at the high court for its failure to address serious allegations leveled against Speaker Koffa before abandoning his leadership position.

He emphasized that no amount of legal maneuvering or political sympathy can shield a leader from accountability when public trust is compromised, asserting that Koffa’s refusal to defend himself before the self-proclaimed ‘majority bloc led the way for his downfall.

Ambassador Onanuga argued that the current leadership crisis stemmed from Speaker Koffa's insistence on not appearing before his colleagues to exonerate himself and can be considered not as a constitutional crisis but as poetic justice for his willful neglect of ethical responsibility.

Speaking during his appearance on State Radio late Thursday evening, April 24, 2025, Ambassador Onanuga condemned the High Court for what he described as a dangerous abdication of judicial responsibility, asserting that the court’s prolonged, delayed, contradictory, and destabilizing rulings have created more questions than answers to the crisis, which has threatened Liberia’s democratic credentials among the comity of nations.

Ambassador Onanuga's position statement comes amid months of legislative paralysis triggered by the dramatic rejection of Speaker Fonati Koffa under disputed circumstances, followed by the swift election of Representative Richard Koon as Speaker, a controversy that has raised public backlash and legal scrutiny.

According to Envoy Onanuga, the root of Liberia’s current constitutional crisis lies not within the House of Representatives itself, but within the chambers of the Supreme Court, which he lambasted for issuing what he described as “contradictory, delayed, and destabilizing rulings that emboldened illegality while paralyzing leadership continuity.”

With what seems like an open frustration, he declared that the Supreme Court failed to exercise its sacred duty as a stabilizing arbiter, instead acting as an institutional accomplice to confusion by refusing to swiftly and decisively interpret the law regarding the status and legitimacy of the Speaker’s office.

The presidential tourism envoy pointed to the court’s initial ruling, which reaffirmed the constitutional supremacy of the speaker, asserting that once a speaker is elected and remains within the territory of Liberia, he or she cannot be constitutionally sidelined or replaced without due process grounded in transparency and legality.

According to him, the self-styled Majority Bloc did what they could to ensure the continuation of the people's jobs, adding that the court later backtracked under unexplained circumstances, issuing a second ruling that effectively undermined precedent—thereby deepening the very institutional crisis it was expected to resolve.

“The Supreme Court must be the guardian of constitutional order, not the catalyst of legislative anarchy,” Ambassador Onanuga stated while accusing the Supreme Court of knowingly creating a power vacuum that opportunists exploited to stage what he described as a “procedural coup d’état in the Lower House of the Legislature.

He further alleged that the court’s silence during the most explosive phases of the dispute amounted to calculated negligence, as its inaction emboldened internal actors to proceed with the election of an alternative leadership under conditions of legal ambiguity and political bitterness.

Ambassador Onanuga also raised alarm over the budgetary process, claiming that the national budget being debated and executed under Representative Koon is tainted by illegitimacy, since the authority behind its passage lacks judicial certification and constitutional grounding, as the high court ruled.

According to him, the executive’s reliance on such a budget for governance opens the administration to future legal battles and financial audits that could delegitimize national programs and trigger donor hesitations, given the increased scrutiny the country now faces from international partners.