Snakes sack Liberia President George Weah from office

George Weah, President of Liberia, has been sacked from his office by snakes and is now forced to work from his private residence.

According to Press Secretary Smith Toby, who spoke with the BBC, two black snakes were found in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs building housing Weah’s official place of work.

Since Wednesday when the snakes were discovered, all staff have been told to stay away until Monday, April 22.

“It’s just to make sure that crawling and creeping things get fumigated from the building,” Toby was quoted as saying. “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs hosts the office of the President, so it did an internal memo asking the staff to stay home while they do the fumigation.”

The office of the President has been based in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs since a fire in 2006 gutted the nearby presidential mansion.

A FrontPage Africa news website video shows workers trying to attack the snakes when they appeared near the building’s reception.

“The snakes were never killed,” Toby said.  “There was a little hole somewhere [through which] they made their way back. That building’s been there for years now, and [because of] the drainage system, the possibility of having things like snakes crawling in that building was high.”

Police and presidential security were seen guarding Weah’s residence in the capital Monrovia. A fleet of vehicles including escorts jeeps were parked outside.

Toby said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs started to fumigate on Friday, and that the President “is definitely returning to his office on Monday after the fumigation whether or not the snakes are found and killed.”

The Liberian situation slightly mirrors that of Nigeria in August 2017, when presidential spokesman Garba Shehu said President Muhammadu Buhari, fresh back home from a lengthy medical vacation in the UK, would be working from home due to damage to his office by rodents during his absence.

“Following the three months period of disuse, rodents have caused a lot of damage to the furniture and the air conditioning units,” Shehu said.

Despite Shehu saying the maintenance company overseeing the renovations had been asked to expedite action, Buharii didn’t return to that office until another 11 weeks.