Being Away Too Long

It is amazing that I have not written on this blog from since July of this year. Nothing should reduce the passion to express my gut feelings!

I will be back.

A Rotational Presidency based on ethnicity in Liberia would take a long time and would be a bit frustrating and cumbersome. A Rotational Presidency, however, based on the zones in which groups are clustered would be more doable. The 'Failed State' status has allowed citizens to become creative. They are forming associations they hope will generate enough money and enthusiasm to develop their areas, since government seems to be unable to complete projects and give citizens the basic things of life: Electricity, water, roads, food, education, healthcare.

But first, and for Liberia, slicing the country into political and economic zones will begin the process of full participation of all citizens in the management of the natural resources for which the country is boastfully endowed. My configuration:


The failed state has engendered and invoked many and varied thoughts and behaviors from and within its people. The failed state has allowed the people to come to the economic and political realization that in order to make sense of it all, after so many years of progress without development, trials and errors, they must come together as ethnic groups, school associations, district associations, county associations, etc., to find ways and means to develop their areas of this one country they all love so dearly. Yes, indeed, the failed state has brought about a new dynamism in the people that will eventually result to zoning the land and finally instituting the idea of a rotational presidency in Liberia, based on one five-year term.

For  the people of Liberia to meaningfully develop and enjoy the resources of their land, in this new format, I will try to slice the country into four unique political and economic zones:

Zone I:

Sinoe County

Maryland County

River Gee County

Grand Gedeh County

Grand Kru County

Zone II:

Lofa County

Gbarpolu County

Cape Mount County

Bomi County

Zone III:

Margibi County

Bong County

Nimba County

Zone IV:

Montserrado County

Grand Bassa County

River Cess County

 

Liberians can look at this configuration and tell immediately which zones has produced most of Liberia's presidents and vice presidents. They can also look at the various zones and see immediately which areas have somehow benefited from the massive natural resources the country is endowed with, and which areas have benefited the least.

With all the other modalities in place, all T's crossed and all I's dotted, it is obvious from this setup, that Liberians from all walks of life and areas of habitat will become full participants in the future of their common patrimony.

A nation wanting peace and prosperity and equality, will remain peaceful and prosperous when the concentration of power is shared by all.

Liberia is a failed state. There is no light in the tunnel as far as the eyes can see. 167 years of failure is unbearable!

If we must figure out how to tackle infectious diseases, flooding, bad roads, poor education, lack of electricity, drinking from creeks and old wells, Liberia cannot continue to carry the failed state status.

America's Success Story in Africa will not happen if we continue to travel on the same path we've been traveling for 167 long years. It is too clear that whatever we've been doing to improve our lot has not work. This obvious insanity needs to come to an end and it cannot come fast enough!

The Constitutional Review Committee, Old Hands, and The Right to Vote

The 1986 Constitution of Liberia is being reviewed and the Committee came to America for suggestions. We did not have a lot of time to discuss the Constitution, but the Article that concerns us most, Citizenship, has been given some due diligence. My take on a few things:

This past Sunday was the first time I saw Dr Dunn up close. I always saw him on TV or read about him in the print media. I don't know how old he is but he seems alert and knows what he's doing.

The question of why the same old names keep coming up on these committees was raised at our meeting with the CRC in Silver Spring, MD. Dr Dunn was calm in explaining that it was the President who does the choosing, and that he was aware of the fact that not too many young people or women were equally represented on the committee. It was made clear, however, that if you went one rung of the ladder lower in the process, you would see youthful faces of all genders and stripes dominating the work of the CRC.

We live in an environment where age discrimination is frown upon. I would not have made that an issue, for age and wisdom do indeed go hand in hand. Since the President is not a young person, she appoints people at the top whom she considers wise and consistent. It's difficult to fight her on this one.

Let us all hope that all the suggestions from both the old and the young will be included in the final document to be seen by the President, seen and debated by the Legislature, written in a National Gazette, kept and pondered over for one calendar year, debated again, sent to a referendum, and if pleasing to the ears of the Liberian people, passed into law.

Constituents of the 16th County did not have enough time to discuss the Constitution in toto. I know, however, that our main section (Article 27) will be given enough thought and seriousness.

Did you hear the suggestion of a flat tax for development in LIB, to make the case for voting? Tax each working Liberian in the Diaspora say, $10.00 every pay period:

1. 50,000 working Diaspora Liberians x $10.00 = $500,000.00 every two weeks x 26 = $13,000,000, for example.

2. 300,000 working Liberians in the Diaspora x $10 x 26 weeks = $78,000,000, for example.

I usually give $5.00 every two weeks to United Way. Why not double the amount for the right to vote and help develop Liberia in healthcare, education, or electricity and pipe-borne water?

Many people have been trying to say something like this for years. We will manage and disburse from this side!

A thousand light bulbs just lit up in my head!

6/24/14

Changing the Symbols

In the 1800s, tribal people lived on the land now called Liberia; but when the settlers from America arrived and declared the country independent, they showed their disdain for the tribal people by establishing symbols and other artifacts that totally ignored and disregarded the presence of those they met on the land. Today, these symbols and handiwork of those from America are being challenged and calls for change are becoming a pastime. Here is my take:

I like the design of the Seal. It is beautiful. I want the Love of Liberty Brought Us Here to remain as is and to represent all of us...hosts and guests....indigenous settlers as well as settlers from America and those who were captured on slave ships in the Congo basin and the Gulf of Guinea.



I also want the dove on the Seal to be replaced with the Pepper Bird. Liberia's National Bird needs to be given it's rightful place on the Coat of Arms of the Republic. And as I said earlier the Pepper Bird is that special bird in Liberia that wakes us up in the morning to do something worthwhile for society. If over the years we have ignored the call of the Pepper Bird, now is the time for Liberians to wake up and give true meaning to the plough and shovel that are emblazoned on the Seal.

The plough and the shovel, as we all know, represent what Liberians need in order to be self sufficient. Our soil is rich. Feeding ourselves should not cause a riot. The palm tree that represents every productive tree in Liberia can give the cash we need to develop the people and the shovel to build infrastructure.

The Love of Liberty Brought Us Here, the plough, the shovel, the palm tree, are as Liberian as Liberian can be. We can keep those.

The Pepper Bird must replace the dove.

My prolific flow of thoughts

I will be posting many thoughts on a variety of issues that I have had and continue to have and that I have written of on other news outlets about how the land of my father is being run and has been run.

Because it is a reality that from the inception of the Republic of Liberia, that the leaders have not considered all the people of the land as a single entity, the coastal elites, merchant elites, and now the urban elites who have ruled and continue to rule, remain ambivalent to the needs and aspirations of the general population. These elites continue to marginalize and take advantage of the illiteracy of the people, something that is known to have been institutionalized in order to promote the welfare of the very few and powerful in society.

Many of us were brainwashed and made to believe that it was the settler class who meant no good for the country and its people. And so for a hundred or so years the tug of war between settlers and aborigines ensured, unabated. 

When a settler president was finally removed from office in 1980 by a group of Liberia's military men, it was believed that those who came in, mostly members of the aborigine group, would steer the ship of state in a new direction and into a future for which that most had been hoping.

The frustration from knowing that the more things change the more they remain the same and even worse, is what propels my conscience to write what's inside of me. These thoughts do not come to me in spurts; they flow consistantly like a raging stream within me, on a consistent and persistent basis, twenty-four hour daily. Whatever epipheny came my way, it has completely engulfed my being and it is allowing me to regorgitate what was slowly and poisonally injected into me by those who should have done a better job by allowing me to enjoy the citizenship of the country in which my parents conceived me.

Most of what you will read will sometimes appear contradictory and with a pinch of wonderment. Do not dispair. What you and how you feel are in complete alignment with the contradictory nature of the surroundings in which we find ourselves. So sit back and continue to enjoy what comes out from the bottom pit of my mind.

Fear of war coming to Liberia after fourteen years of the first devastating and destructive war, should be of no major concern to the power that is. Do the right thing for the nation and people and war will be no more. Deviate from the main course of corruption and ineptitude and indeed, something nostolgic will begin to brew:

Because of the situation in Nigeria (the issue with Boko Haram), sending 700 freshly trained Nigerian soldiers to keep peace in Liberia is ironic and seriously controversial. Goodluck Jonathan, the President of Nigeria, should have been able to discern this. Nigeria needs to settle the serious security issue in Nigeria first and foremost before sending one of its soldier anywhere else. Make this crystal clear to the UN.

 

If Liberia will continue to need UN troops to keep the peace, then let the UN take over Liberia for the next ten years after 2017. Or, is the UN in cahoots with the over all bad news that keeps coming from that part of the world? It is unfair to keep peace while standing over a timed bomb set to explode as soon as you leave the place. The UN should see something and say something; in fact, the UN must do something! Or else, it isn't worth being a peace-keeping organization in any country that takes sovereignty seriously only by just mere talking, not by actions and deeds.

It was a good idea to suggest that Liberia did not need a huge army. This idea was perhaps hinged upon the belief that those becoming leaders after the war would be clean and corrupt-free; and that things that led to the war, in the first place, would never be heard of again; and that concession agreements, for example, would be in the interest of the people and the nations, unlike the days of old; that the new leaders would be seen as fighters for the people and not just for themselves; and that old, wicked ways, like treating the country like a family estate, for example, would be a thing of the past....a nightmare gone away; and that behold, all things would now be new in a new Liberia.

Bur it is crystal clear and apparent that the UN should not have completely turned over the affairs of Liberia to the same old corrupt people who, for fourteen years, brought the same Liberia and its people to their knees. UN advisors should have been in every ministry and every agency until things appear to be in sync with SOP. The hands-off approach has not worked for Liberia, and just propping up a corrupt regime is not fair to the people of Liberia or to the UN itself.

But all is not lost. The UN can take a hard look at the Liberia case in point and reset its overall peacekeeping objectives. There is no way that the Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf government will ask the UN to leave Liberia because it 'meddles in Liberia's internal affairs' by its involvement in overseeing how things are done to enhance the peace. The UN needs to get more heavily involved in the day to day, hour by hour management of Liberia. There is no other way.

Two thirds of Liberia's land was taken away because America and the ACS allowed a hands-off approach after those they sent to that part of the world, were left to fend for themselves. These new settlers in Africa became complacent and easily satisfied with mediocrity. The French and British took advantage of the state of don't-care-ism demonstrated by the settlers who had declared Liberia a free and independent country. Actions did not boaster the declaration. Talk was cheap then and talk is even cheaper today.

Now that we have failed totally and miserably from 1847 to date, to govern our country for all; and now that the United Nations occupies the balance one third of what is left of Liberia, to help us wake up from the comatose of so many years, Liberians would be more than pleased not only with the peacekeeping aspect of the UN presence, but with the actual governance of the country.

UN experts should be heavily involved in the political, economic and financial running of Liberia. A new generation of Liberian counterparts will help put Liberia on a new path of actual recovery from the disastrous mismanagement of the past and the constant news of corruption presently dogging the country.

Sending peace keepers to Liberia from countries that have their own unresolved internal conflicts, does not make a lot of sense to the naked ears of a lay man. In Afghanistan, for example, we have the US, the British, Canada, Australia. In Liberia, we did not settled for the best, and so the same old, same old continues, undisturbed.

A second option: Since Liberia did not get the attention of America in the 1800s or even in the 1990s, it is time for the United States to send 10,000 or 5,000 or even 2,000 boots on the ground in Liberia from Afghanstan, with experts to put Liberia on the path to modernity and good governance. A mere five year tour will be less expensive and far less dangerous than the nightmare experienced in Iraq or Afghanistan. America can do this, alone!

I love Liberia, but it is uncompromisingly clear that we are unable to fend for ourselves. We have eaten crabs with shame for more than a century. We missed the boat of oneness and proper governance way before and after 1847. That misstep has haunted every aspect of our lives. It has caused us to hate each other in a strange way. We can end this, though, by swallowing our weak pride and calling out for genuine help.

The stubborn among us will say otherwise; but we need to somehow find a way to end this vicious circle of going nowhere. We cannot do it by ourselves.

From The Other America, The Story of Liberia, page 140, you will find how nepotism is embedded in our flesh: "Nepotism is a problem with no obvious solution, since there were no skilled people to replace its beneficiaries; the Liberian educational system turned out eloquent preachers and unnecessarily large cohort of lawyers but few competent administrators or businessmen. The post of treasury secretary usually went to a political insider will little experience in budgeting or even bookkeeping."

The above may no longer be the case; but still, nepotism is still alive and well in our LIB.

 

3/23/14

Free Rodney Sieh

Photos of human skulls in Bong County and videos of people being executed on a beach front and a sitting president being tortured in Monrovia, should all remind us of the evils that brought about the unspeakable tragedies that our people and the nation had to face for almost two decades.

These images stand as reminders, giving many of us hope that a journalist like Rodney Sieh would never have to go to jail. We expected these reminders to always prick the consciences of those who are elected or selected to power in Liberia. And that those in power would strive to always do the right thing.

We thought that the episodes of 1980 and those of 1989 to 2003 would forever remind Liberians that those evils that brought about the results of our many tragedies, would never again resurface in our new dispensation. We thought human beings in Liberia would always remember the ugly past and endeavor to perfect or even try to improve conditions for a better present and a glorious tomorrow.

That was our hope; that was our greatest expectation.

But apparently, there is an embedded and systemic evil in us human beings that does not remember the past or care about the present or a tomorrow.

In the midst of a preponderance of misdeeds, how can we be "the ones that we've been waiting for" to bring a new and hopeful day to the land and the people of Liberia? How in the world can we erase the notion and perception that what people in JJ Robert's time could not fix, we in this time must live and abide by the same norms?

Will an apology from Sieh to Toe give the GAC reports some credibility? Will an apology stop the miscarriage of justice in Liberia and cause justice to be done to those who have been mentioned in the various audit reports that tax payers' efforts have allowed to occur?

When the government says it's not getting involved in the Sieh-Toe case, what does that mean in the bigger scheme of thing? Did one bad move on the part of government lead to other things that did not auger well for some people?

Should audits be carried out in Liberia at all? Is the whole exercise of auditing government entities just a gimmick?


Kweme
"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek." Barack Obama

Free Rodney Sieh

The owner and publisher of FrontPageAfrica, Mr Rodney Sieh, has been in jail for almost two weeks now. His crime: He is unable to pay $1.5 Million to the former Minister of Agriculture, Dr Chris Toe, for publishing the results of an audit report that showed that Minister Toe could not give account or show documents for monies under his management. The Daily Observer Newspaper thinks that Mr Sieh should apologize to Dr Toe so that the case may be withdrawn. Here is a part of the Daily Observer suggestion: "The purpose of this editorial is to make it clear to the public and to the international community that this is not at all apolitical case, and that those arguing that it is are doing Sieh a major disservice. The only victims here are the people whose hard-earned reputations have been tarnished.We hope that upon leaving prison, Mr. Sieh will change the way he practices journalism and bring honor to the profession as all journalists are required to do."

With the audit reports clearly pointing to Minister Toe, it is amazing that Mr Sieh is being sued for publishing and exposing what had already been reported. I had to have my take in this one:

I think the editorial staff of the Daily Observer has seriously erred here. The constant and forever-business of apologizing for exposing the evil of society resolves nothing and is sickening.

If the government of Liberia and Chris Toe think that both of them are absolutely clear in conscience and mind, then they should allow Rodney Sieh to rot in jail.

If all the audit reports conducted in Liberia are now considered not credible and a farce, then Rodney Sieh will have to remain in jail; for it is clear that he does not have the $1.5 Million.

The more things change in Liberia(if that is really the case}, the more they remain the same old, same old!


Kweme