MONROVIA, Montserrado – Esther Walker has been suspended indefinitely as superintendent of Bong over a leaked audio recording that went viral on social media over the weekend.

According to an Executive Mansion release, Walker remains suspended pending an investigation into allegations she made in the leaked audio and has been advised to turn over all government properties in her possession.

The minister of internal affairs, Varney Sirleaf, has also asked the county’s assistant superintendent for development, Anthony Sheriff, to act in the position pending further decision following the outcome of the investigation.

The superintendent, who is also the chair of the Coalition for Democratic Change in Bong, was heard in the audio recording disclosing to her administrative assistant, Josephus Dormeyan, an interaction she had with President George Weah, Finance Minister Samuel Tweah, Minister of State Nathaniel McGill, and Mayor Jefferson Koijee of Monrovia, at the president’s Jamaica Resort briefly after his Annual Message to the legislature.

Though it is unknown who leaked the secret recording, Bong County Service Center’s coordinator, Jefferson Gbaryan, confirmed in a Facebook comment that he and other individuals, including the county coordinator of the vice president’s office, Amos Barbu; a member of the Coalition for Democratic Change’s Youth League in Bong, Victor Flomo; and another unidentified individual were also in the room with the superintendent when she made the revelation.

She alleged that while making her way to greet the president upon her arrival at Jamaica Resort, McGill and Tweah, sitting a slight distance from the president, insisted that she sit between them in order to have a discussion.

She said the three officials expressed their opposition to the conferring upon the vice president, “Ponofalo”– the highest traditional title in the Kpelleh tradition, by the Dakpanah, Chief Moses Suakollie.

She alleged that the two officials accused the vice president and Bong’s third district representative, Marvin Cole, of wanting to overthrow the government.

“Samuel Tweah said we will revenge to the letter. He said the only God that blessed you, you worked for all of us to be employed; two, you [are] in the middle. If you [was] coming be left and right, you was going to be the first to take the heat,” she alleged in the recording.

According to the suspended superintendent, Tweah threatened that she and others would have been executed if the government was a bad regime.

She said McGill, however, noted that instead of execution, all those involved in conferring the title would be removed. According to her, McGill also said, “Why two people will want to overthrow our government? They know how we suffered before we came to this point?”

In the recording, Walker said McGill had expressed the regime’s collective fear of appointing Howard-Taylor as vice president for fear of her ambition for the presidency.

The suspended superintendent, a confidante of Howard-Taylor, revealed in the recording that during the president’s Annual Message to the legislature, some of Weah’s supporters made comments suggesting that the vice president was being disrespectful to the president for playing on her phone while the president read his speech.

A day prior to Walker’s suspension on Friday, Information Minister Eugene Nagbe had posted on Facebook that Bong would soon have a new superintendent.

“Since you want to be a lying gossiper, we will send you back to your puppet master,” Nagbe wrote.

The development follows a series of unconfirmed reports of rifts between the president and his vice president. Recently, the chairman of the Coalition for Democratic Change, Mulbah Morlu, had also alleged that there was a plot endorsed by leaders of some opposition political parties to assassinate the president.

Featured photo by Moses Bailey