11 Facts About Amos Sawyer

Amos Claudius Sawyer was a Liberian politician and academic who served as interim president of Liberia from 22 November 1990 to 7 March 1994.

Amos Sawyer was voted into office by 35 leaders representing seven political parties and eleven interest groups.

Amos Claudius Sawyer was born in 1945 to Abel and Sarah Sawyer; his siblings include Joe Sawyer.

Amos Sawyer was educated in local schools and was a 1966 graduate of Liberia College.

Amos Sawyer was a founding member of the Movement for Justice in Africa and in 1983 founded the Liberian People's Party.

In 1992, Amos Sawyer wrote The Emergence of Autocracy in Liberia: Tragedy and Challenge, in this book, he depicts how dictatorial control rose up out of a custom of patrimonial power, with the privileges of administration tirelessly brought together and amassed in the possession of progressive presidents.

In 1994, Amos Sawyer was forced to step down as a part of the peace process, and subsequently the role of official leader of Liberia was held not by the president, but by the chairmen of the Council of State.

Amos Sawyer returned to the US for a period, invited to serve as associate director and research scholar at the Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis in the Department of Political Science at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana.

Amos Sawyer was chairman of the Governance Reform Commission in Liberia, which has recently become the Governance Commission.

Amos Sawyer supported Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in the October 2005 and 2011 elections.

Amos Sawyer died at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland, on 16 February 2022, at the age of 76.