 On January 24, 2012, President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf nominated Lewis Brown, the architect of the National Democratic Coalition (NDC) as her new Minister of Information, Culture Affairs and Tourism.Brown, who served as interim foreign minister of Liberia in 2003 under President Charles Taylor replaces Cletus Sieh who was dismissed in the wake of last year's violent riots by rampaging vacation students protesting the failure of the Monrovia City Corporation to pay their week's wages.Brown, a once-vocal critic of the Sirleaf administration, threw his weight behind the incumbent just weeks before the disintegration of the NDC headed by Dew 
Mayson.