George Weah Earns College Degree

27 June 2011

The USA branch of the Congress for Democracy Change (CDC) has announced that the party’s founding patron and 2011 vice presidential candidate, George Manneh Weah, has graduated with honors from the Devry University on June 25, 2011.

A CDC-USA Branch release issued in Monrovia said Mr. Weah earned a bachelor’s degree in Business management in small business and entrepreneurship.

“Ambassador Weah’s  achieving a  formal college education adds another laurel to an incredibly long list of achievements, which span the gamut from keeping the hopes of the Lone Star alive through personal football successes and organizational leadership during the nation’s darkest days of war, culminating in his winning FIFA’s  coveted World Best Player award in 1995; through humanitarian and scholarship assistance to dispossessed and impoverished students and citizens; to organizing a formidable grassroots political movement and winning the first round of presidential balloting in 2005,” the release said.

It further quoted an unnamed observer as recounting, ‘There was a time George Weah was the lone and brightest star from Liberia, when all else was chaos and blood. In the 90’s I watched a video on CNN portraying the macabre bloodletting that had convulsed the country and afterwards, the anchor said ‘meanwhile, George Weah of Liberia has just one the FIFA World’s best Footballer award’.’

The release said similar commentaries have regaled the public space in the run up to the graduation as scores of Liberians have arrived in Florida to celebrate with the national Patriot.

“Among the impressive array of  dignitaries is CDC’s illustrious Standard Bearer, the Harvard educated lawyer and accomplished and respected diplomat, Winston A. Tubman, who leads  now wields the mantle to take the grassroots  struggle of our battered and marginalized people to the level of electoral success,” it said.

The release noted that the gathering and programs in Florida were both a celebration and a retrospective of a wonderful and storied individual whose rise from the slums and ghettos of Gibraltar, Clara Town, to his launch of a major political movement is the stuff of a best selling biography.

“Life is a both a journey and a promise. All I think about now is the kid who is spending sleepless nights draining water from bedrooms, just as I used to do with my grandmother. What future is there for these kids? Maybe they may not be as talented as I was to break out of poverty.  I had to get a college degree to inspire them so that they see school and education as the way out for them. I dedicate this degree to all such suffering children and people just as I dedicate my politics to free them from misery,” Weah reportedly told the Florida gathering.

The release said having acquired a college education and borne the brunt of these excruciating circumstances, the CDC the vice standard bearer aims to use his education, experience, and politics to ensure that the majority of the nation’s children do not undergo his early childhood experience.

“Over the next several months, he and the Standard Bearer Tubman will crisscross the country to explain the CDC’s vision for building a more prosperous and equal Liberian society.  George Weah will share stories of the challenges of his upbringing and will communicate the meaning of his college degree for children who, like him several years ago, faced dire and protracted hunger on a daily basis, depriving them of energy, stamina and motivation to master reading and math skills,” the release said.

It said the CDC-USA wished Ambassador Weah a “sumptuous celebration and God’s speed in liberating the Liberian people”.

“We believe his college graduation puts to rest questions of his lack of formal education. Of course, we know there will still be critics and skeptics whose concern has really never been about Weah’s formal educational credentials but about his claim to national leadership. We dismiss these elements as hate-peddlers wallowing in the vortex of venom and having nothing substantive to offer the debate on the advance of Liberia’s socio-economics,” the release quoted the USA branch members as saying.

The release was signed by CDC-USA Branch Secretary General on behalf of the National Executive Committee and members.

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