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

My desire to see the presidency of Liberia rotated as per county every four years, is seriously becoming a past time and a passion. What are some of the advantages of each of the fifteen counties taking the responsibility of leading the nation every four years? Keep reading.

Liberians can untangle themselves from the old ways by initially changing the way we elect our leaders. We can rewrite our constitution to reflect some of the suggestions I made, making life easy for all of us.

 

We are a tribal people. We love to see our kind up there. Make that possible and the potential for conflicts reduces. The potential for military coups is eliminated.

 

We can modify the democratic process by blending it with what is good for our situation. Only America has a tribal reservation. Everyone else comes and assimilates into the American way. That is impossible in Liberia with sixteen diverse ethnic groups. And the war made things even worse.

 

Everything falls into place when each county in Liberia is given the chance to lead the nation for four or six years. This will surely give Liberians the chance to think about things other than politics.

 

I myself want to be president of Liberia. I will never be reach that goal with the present system in tact. With my mode of thinking, I may have a chance if my county thinks I am good for the country. My impact in the county must reflect what's ahead for the country. My ability to negotiate with Mittal Steel to bring the pork home, for example, will show how well I will do for the country as a whole.

 

With Wologisi in the spotlight, how well are citizens in Lofa County doing when it comes to benefiting from the huge revenue potential from their mountain? How are the sons and daughters making things happen for the people of Lofa? How are the negotiations going in Sinoe County with regard to the oil palm entities?

 

165 years of an unblended system has left us with no water, no light, no roads, no hospitals, no nothing. The war did not even help!

 

If I don't kill my own people, I can never be president. If I don't put those who disagree with me in jail or threaten to unleash tragedy upon my own people, I can't rule in peace.That is so wrong and evil. How does one even rule normally after such carnage and brutality? 

 

My mode of thinking is similar to that of the Vatican's. A Pope is elected, the people wait, white smoke comes from a chimney, the people see their new leader, and happiness returns to society.

 

Liberians need to rethink this whole thing over for the good of all of us and posterity. We can do far better than what we are doing at the moment.

 

5/3/13

 

 

 

There is a word in Afghan called Wahsta. Wahsta means that no matter what, tribal affiliation and loyalty will always exist. Here is the quotation and what I glean from it with regard to the ignored or negligent development most of the people of Liberia have experienced over the years:

"According to a tribal tradition, it is appropriate to treat different people differently; killing someone outside of the tribe is seen as morally acceptable. Such differential treatment is not seen as unjust but is an indication of loyalty and solidarity to one’s tribe. Nepotism or favoritism towards members of the group is expected. In Afghanistan this is known as “wahsta” [WAH-stah]. Wahsta is particularly common in the hiring of workers. In other words, if a farmer is looking for field laborers, for example, the family, tribe or clan would always come first."


I read the piece above and immediately realize that this is it. Liberians have had this for 133 years from one tribe or ethnic group or section of our society....the congau group or Americo-Liberians. Then in 1980, the Krahn group enjoyed, big time, this status. Even today when we mention how the Krahns were all over the place during President Doe's regime, they say da lie. Even the Krahn book-people vehemently deny this. They want us to prove it. Proving what is globally known is boring!

The democratic version of rule is fine, but for Africa, we must admit without eating the crab silently, that indeed wahsta will always exist. How do we unshackle ourselves from this phenomenon, knowing that we must live together as 16 different ethnic groups in fifteen counties in Liberia?

My simple take: If a Gola person is the president of Liberia, that person should make sure that the opportunity to excel is open to all Liberians. Like Tubman said, each tribe in Liberia will have the chance to govern. Each ethnic group should be given the prospect that one day its time will arrive. That time has come. The urgency is now!

Let's try allowing each ethnic group six or four years to run the presidency of Liberia. Excluding the Golas, Krahns, Congaus, who have their chance, in the next seventy-two years as of 2016, the rest of the ethnic groups or counties in Liberia would have had the chance to captain the ship of state. With this system in place, Liberians will no longer worry about one tribe killing members of another tribe while the others sit and watch. With this new system in place, the rest of the people will wave their fingers and say: No, no! Don't even try it! Don't start that foolishness again!

Let me see: If I represent my ethnic group or county as president of Liberia, do I appoint so, so Dan and Maan and Krahn and Gbi and Mandingo and Kpelle people to the cabinet? My cabinet must look like Liberia, and so the democratic way will always prevail. The presidency is what we are concerned about.

Choosing the President and Vice President: There is this huge drum on wheels with 15 crumbled sheets of paper representing the 15 counties of Liberia. At a gathering of citizens, the wheel is turned fifteen times. A fifteen-year old girl puts her hand in the drum and brings out a crumbled sheet.The president who has two years left in his/her term, opens the sheet and reveals the county of the next president to the citizens that have gathered. A county that has been chosen is not entered into the next round of choice.

If this is being done at the Centennial Pavilion or the Capitol Building, fifteen county flags are flown at full staff, side by side of the Liberian flag. When the county is chosen, all fifteen flags will be lowered. As the nation waits, the flags of the counties whose sons or daughters will lead the nation for the next four or six years, will then be hoisted by two fifteen-year old kids from the two counties. Examples: County of the President: Nimba. County of the VP: Margibi: Nimba/Margibi; County of the President: Sinoe. County of the VP: Grand Gedeh: Sinoe/Grand Gedeh. The flag from the president's county is hoisted on the right and that of the VP on the left of the Liberian flag.

The campaign to select the president and vice president of Liberia is now set to take place in just two counties! Electing the president on a rotational basis is the best way forward for Liberia.

Wahsta is a given in Africa. It's the culture. It's an ethnic/tribal thing. Let's knowingly keep it that way and reduce the stress.

I feel like I just drank a nice cup of Liberica Coffee on a cold January morning in Ganta.

Good research, Dennis Jah 

The condition of majority of the people in Liberia is not something to boast about. No conscientious Liberian can look at the living standard of the people and say with glee that all is well. What is then the way forward before 2017? Here is my take after it was suggested that the conditions at Belle Yalla were no different than the present conditions being experienced by majority of Liberians:

If after seven years of an Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf government, the Liberian people are still congregating at Red Light, at Duport Road Junction; if the pathways through Kakata, Gbarnga, Ganta, Voinjama, and perhaps many other town and cities are being blocked by people struggling to make a living after the war ended  almost ten years ago; if Flumpa is still dark and Toe Town and Barclayville have no pipe-borne drinking water; if a pregnant woman must ride on the back of a motor scooter from Saclepea to the Jackson Doe Hospital in Tappita, on a muddy, back-breaking road; if students are struggling with their Legislators for scholarship money and government officials are scrambling to Nigeria or Ghana or the United States to seek medical attention, how can most of us say with sane and conscientious minds that indeed, Belle Yalla was most notorious for being oblivious to human dignity?

 

We can help to change these conditions by reminding those in power in Liberia that they are not doing well for the people whose sons and daughter were displaced and or killed during almost fourteen years of a brutal war. Those in the Diaspora must make this known to the people of the United States whose taxes made many things possible for the new and old big shots in Monrovia.

 

Liberians in the Diaspora must muster the strength to gather en masse in Washington, DC, at the UN in New York or even in European Capitals to remind Liberia's partners that what is being done in Monrovia is far from being in the interest of the people who deserve better.

 

And lastly, and more importantly, I don't think it will be fair to the Liberian people for the UN to leave Liberia when Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf's term to govern expires. Leaving Liberia will be like leaving the hen house exposed to the foxes. The UN cannot just protect Ellen and leave when she leaves the Executive Mansion in Monrovia.

 

What do I suggest the the UN do? The UN has accommodated with open arms, those who were most responsible for the atrocities in Liberia. These people are now representatives and senators; ministers and big shots in the government. (I don't know whether anything like this exists anywhere in the world.) Liberia must be a very bad lucky country.

 

The rain and snow that come from heaven do not water the earth for most Liberians. They do not bring forth the bud that gives rise to seeds for the farmers and bread to those in need. Our rains have been useless to us for more than a century and a half. The change we've been calling for has been very elusive.

 

The UN, with the help of the Liberian government, should come up with a retirement plan for the war lords of the land. Get them out of politics for good with a retirement plan, and supervise an election in 2017 that will bring in a new breed of Liberians that will preach and foster peace and commit to prosperity for all. 

 

The Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf era may not have prisoners at Belle Yalla or in Zwedru; freedom to speak one's mind may abound in the streets of cities and towns in Liberia; but corruption with impunity carries more evil than we can imagine. It sucks the life blood out of the country and those who are to inherit it.

 

We must cross our fingers and hope that the best for Liberia is yet to come.

For 165 years, Liberians continue to struggle to find their footing in nearly everything they try. The fourteen-year war did not move the needle one bit toward meaningful progress. We remain a poor people, a rich nation, and we continue to embrace a corrupt leadership. Our halls of power are occupied by mostly those who hurt us and destroyed our nation. The Bible is talking to me here, and I am bellowing the message:

Each morning, I get a popup of Bible verses on my phone. This is what popped up this morning:

⁶ Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near:

⁷ Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. - Isaiah 55: 6-7

Why are some Liberians mesmerized by and obscessed with the TRC Report? Why are they consistently in the business of calling for the implementation of what the report dictates?

It is clear from my understanding of the passages above that man is not the one to pardon the wicked ones. Man is not clothed with that ability to give mercy and have mercy upon the unrighteous.

And that is why God has given the wicked the unconditional chance to turn to Him for abundant pardon and to serve Him. In other words, those who were responsible for the carnage in Liberia should be serving God instead, and not mingling with their victims in the corridors of power.

"You kill my pa, you kill my ma, I will vote for you", is not a call of forgiveness. It's a call of a desperate, depressed and lamenting people to God to rid their nation of those who rained evil, death, and destruction upon a peaceful people. 

2014 and 2017 should be defining moments in the history of elections in Liberia: Anyone who has had a hand in the carnage and mayhem; in terrorist acts, that were experienced by the nation and its people, during the period of fourteen years, should not be voted into office.

This idea should be the battle cry of the future, if the people of Liberia are to ever be successfully responsible for their own destiny; if the people of Liberia are ever to divorce themselves from corruption, lack of roads, water, electricity, and good healthcare.

Liberians will be willing to accept the construction of thousands of churches that will entertain and accommodate the wicked and unrighteous in our society. Those churches and mosques are where our killers and collaborators divinely belong. And with the pillaging currently going on, God/Allah will, as He promised, take exceptional care of them.

It is time that the Cains of Liberia take cue from General Butt Naked and live a normal life in Jesus Christ , the Savior of the wicked and unrighteous.

All the analyses and historical perspectives will continue to waste our time if the main bogeymen amongst us are not unsnapped from our backs.

Humans have not the power to give genuine mercy and pardon to any of their wicked and unrighteous kind.

Keeping The Greasy Guts

There is a biter-sweet love between some of us and the colonialists of Africa. Those colonialists whom some of us really despise are Germany, the United States, France, and Great Britain. Spain and Portugal ventured into Africa, but we do not hear a lot about what they did or did not do in that part of the world. They stand absolutely immune. Once in a while, a shot is taken at these despised colonialists that some of us hate to love. A case in point is the gesture shown to Mali by the French, an old friend, who came to the aid of the Malian people when extremists occupied the Northern part of that country. Some people don't appreciate the help. I do not understand why:

So why are some of us so upset that France came to the aid of the Malian people? Mali, according to the BBC article, has been in the mining business since a King carried tons of gold on caravans from Timbuktu! The French and the Malians have been friends long before we were born.

What would some of you have preferred? Would you have wallowed and celebrated in the fact that Northern Mali was invaded, Timbuktu burned, people killed, and the invaders continue their escapade down South with Liberia in the cross hairs of their Libyan weapons?

We live in a dangerous and unpredictable world. And furthermore, I did not see the Malians whose city was liberated, protesting the presence of the French liberators. Had this been an all African affairs with all the blah, blah, blah, Bamako would be under siege by this time!

I know America, France, Britain, Germany, are all countries some of us hate to love. Some of us can't just stand these people. Yet, most of our people are much, much safer and happier with them around, looking after their backs. In other words, these porcupine guts are just too bitter to eat and yet, too greasy to get rid of.

Scenario: If there were a plan in the offing, for example, by a group of happy-go-lucky guys to say, blow up the iron ore facilities in Yen-yen with the intention of pushing further into Kakata, would any of you prefer that Liberia duke it out alone, without rapid outside intervention? I mean seriously, rapid intervention!

Well, here is what I would be doing in front of the Capitol Building in Washington, DC: I would print myself a placard and march around the reflecting pool in front of the Capitol, asking the American people to help Liberia immediately by sending a few Marines to end the Odyssey of this evil group. My first instinct won't be to worry about iron ore, rubber, future oil exploration, piassava, or anything else. I would be deeply concerned and worried about the lives of the Liberian people.

For like we say in Liberia: Duty before complaint!