Speaking at his 80th birthday celebrations over the weekend, Archbishop Desmond Tutu has praised the decision to grant the Nobel Peace Prize to Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
Sirleaf was elected as Africa’s first woman president in 2005 and has transformed Liberia since then. Before Sirleaf’s election into power, Liberia had suffered through 14 years of bloody civil war.
Sirleaf shares the prize jointly with Liberian “peace warrior” Leymah Gbowee and Tawakul Karman, an activist in Yemen.
“The president of Liberia? She deserves it many times over," Tutu said of the woman known by her supporters as the “Iron Lady”.
"She’s brought stability to a place that was going to hell.”
U2 frontman Bono agreed with Tutu’s assessment saying Sirleaf was an “extraordinary” woman that he felt lucky to have worked with on the cancellation of Liberia’s debt.