MONROVIA – The Vanguard Student Unification Party (SUP) has issued a bold ultimatum to the Liberian government, announcing a nationwide mobilization set for April 14, 2025, to demand justice for the brutal assault on students during the July 26, 2022 protest. With mounting frustration over what it calls “systemic state violence and betrayal of public trust,” the student movement says it will no longer wait for justice; it will enforce it.
SUP Chairman Sylvester Wheeler, addressing a press conference on April 8, declared that the party will commemorate the 46th anniversary of the April 14, 1979 student-worker massacre not with memorials, but with action. “The criminals who brutalized our comrades on July 26 are still walking free,” Wheeler said. “If the government continues to find it difficult to bring them to justice, SUP will not hesitate to institute citizen arrests.”
The threat of citizen arrests marks a dramatic escalation in SUP’s rhetoric, signaling that the group is prepared to confront the administration directly if those responsible for past violence are not prosecuted. Wheeler accused the current government of gross negligence, stressing that the students who were brutalized in 2022 continue to suffer while their attackers enjoy impunity.
But the student party’s grievances run deeper. In a sweeping denunciation of the Boakai administration, SUP slammed President Joseph Nyuma Boakai as “incapable of governing,” accusing him of presiding over a worsening economic crisis, a collapsing health system, and deepening poverty. “Under Boakai’s regime, the Liberian people are suffering,” said Wheeler. “This is the worst government Liberia has ever had.”
SUP pointed to the Global Finance Index ranking Liberia as the eighth poorest country in the world as proof that Boakai’s leadership has failed to deliver. They criticized the government for doing little to reduce unemployment, fix the crumbling health sector, or ease the soaring inflation that has left many Liberians unable to afford basic goods. “The young people are still jobless, the roads are still deplorable, and inflation is skyrocketing,” the party asserted. “Our people are suffering, while Boakai enjoys the luxuries of life.”
The student party didn’t stop at the Executive Mansion. It took aim at Dr. Layli Maparyan, president of the University of Liberia, labeling her recent comments on SUP’s criticism of the Liberia Football Association (LFA) as “reckless and out of touch.” Wheeler accused Maparyan of aligning with the administration and using her role to silence student voices. He called her silence “deafening” during a recent incident when police stormed the UL campus with guns and tear gas to suppress a peaceful protest.
“Maparyan failed to speak out when Boakai’s police invaded the campus,” Wheeler declared. “Now she wants to lecture us about civility? We cannot stand for this kind of hypocrisy.”
SUP reaffirmed its ideological commitment to radical civil disobedience, denouncing what it called the ineffectiveness of diplomatic approaches in the face of state-sponsored violence and oppression. “We will continue to fight for the rights of the people, and we will not back down in the face of intimidation or repression,” Wheeler vowed.
