Samuel Doe’s Widow Tells It All

Samuel Doe’s Widow: ‘I Know It was the International People Who Killed Tolbert’

Story culled from FrontPageAfrica: Chilling Account

The wife of slain Liberian President Samuel Kanyon Doe says she is quite aware that it was international forces that killed the late President William R. Tolbert and not her late husband.

‘Would enjoy’ Tolbert Presidency

Speaking in an interview with FrontPageAfrica Thursday, Mrs. Nancy B. Doe said it was because of her belief that the Tolbert family does not have anything against her. “In fact, the NIC boss Mr. Richard Tolbert is a good friend of my. He knows that Doe did not kill his uncle, he knows that because of my husband’s position at the time Tolbert die, the people who did the act, just put him in the chair, so that it would look like he did it. He is a nice man and usually sent for me to help me with gas and money; he even used to leave his car with me when he used to travel.” 

Asked whether she would throw her support behind Richard Tolbert should he decide to seek the Liberian presidency – and win, Mrs. Doe declared: “If he becomes president, I will be happy, because I would enjoy and my children would feel free to return home.” 

In contrast, Mrs. Doe did not harbor room for forgiveness for the man whose forces captured and killed her husband. Mrs. Doe said the only way she would forgive Prince Johnson; the former Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPFL) leader is when Johnson, now a Senator from Nimba County, shows her the grave of her late husband. “I would forgive Senator Prince Johnson to some level only if he shows me where he buried my late husband. I feel bad when I see other women go to decorate their late husband’s grave when I don’t have any to decorate.”

During his appearance before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Senator Johnson said Doe’s body was burned and thrown into the St. Paul River.

Asked as to whether her late husband showed the Tolbert family grave, Mrs. Doe said: “Yes, the late Victoria Tolbert knew her husband’s grave because my late husband showed it to her. My husband even supported Mrs. Tolbert after her husband died and sent her children on scholarship in the USA, but my turn is different.”

‘Hurting my heart’

Addressing a number of pressing issues she said was really paining her heart, Mrs. Doe said she was unhappy that FrontPageAfrica and other media outlets were still rehashing the ghost of her husband’s era and rerunning photos of his capture and execution. “That is, to tell you that the war is finished and we are all enjoying the peace process, but the newspapers keep putting my dead husband’s photos in the news papers and I do not like it. It brings back painful memories and it is hurting my heart.”

In a painful tone she repeated these words; “I do not like it, enough is enough” I am asking the government to tell them to stop or else, if I ever see my dead husband’s photos in any news paper, I will take them to court. Why must they keep hurting my heart?

Continued Mrs. Doe: “We all enjoy peace, but why should the news papers put my dead husband’s picture on the front page of their paper at anytime? Why don’t they do the same thing to Tolbert? Is it because Doe was a native man?  Let us keep enjoying the peace we now have and not to burn each other’s heart.”

On the issue of benefits she claims she is owed by the Liberian government as a former first lady, Mrs. Doe said she believes President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is still retaliating against her because of hatred for her late husband. “President Sirleaf said during her independence Day speech that she brought the war to unseat my husband because according to her, Samuel was a bad man and a dictator, so I think this is the reason she does not want to support the wife of president she unseated.”  

‘White hands involved’: Doe did not bring war

Mrs. Doe said though her husband was an army man who did is own wrong, he did not bring the war in Liberia that killed the late Tolbert. “My husband told me that he did not kill Tolbert but he said it was some white hands involved. My husband was a native man who was a master sergeant who was just put in the chair after they killed Tolbert.” 

Mrs. Doe explained because of publications showing her dead husband’s pictures by the newspapers, her children are afraid to return to Liberia. “They do not want to come back home, because they don’t feel secure anymore. How would you feel if it was your father they were displaying all over the newspapers? That action can make anybody to do bad things. We are tired with war, so they should not keep reminding us of war.”

Mrs. Doe said she has been in Liberia for five years now and has paid her respects to the president to the President but despite promises that she would begin receive her pension, it has not materialized. “She promised that she was going to pension me and give my benefits, but every time she would say the budget has passed and I was not included in it, therefore I should wait for the next budget and this has been going on and on until now, she is just promising me all the time.”

Nobody knows ‘country woman’

Continued Mrs. Doe: “You know that I am a country woman and I have served this country for ten years. I also did some development which the present government is benefiting from but yet I am ill-treated by the government. Nobody knows Nancy Doe’s name because I am Samuel K. Doe’s wife and a country woman.” 

Mrs. Doe said the government has refused to give her benefits, but she is not talking because “Fly was living before dog ear cut” this means, that before madam Sirleaf became president she was eating and is still eating whether she receives benefits or not. “But the fact is I am not being treated fairly as a former first lady. My benefit is in the budget and she does not want to give it to me so I can’t force her.”

Reporter MAE AZANGO be reached at

Mazango@FrontPageAfrica.com or 077-920-058.