My Heart Bleeds For My Grieving Homeland, LiberiaOp-ed 

My Heart Bleeds For My Grieving Homeland, Liberia

 

 

The Editor,

From dawn to night, ever so often, I see my homeland endures unbearable trials and bruising tribulations. I see fellow citizens grinding and bustling under clouds of uncertainty and continue to suffer the perennial and perilous fate of misrule. I see the perpetual idiosyncrasies and excesses of political governance besetting and impeding the growth of Liberia and the barrenness of its sprawling poor. Liberia is painfully grieving in the wilderness of brazen misrule and untold uncertainty. More than ever, our nation craves for national leadership with the lingering question; where are the elders of the homeland?

Rather than owning up to the streams of problems submerging the country and deriving effective and efficient solutions to fix them, I see the President and his government ludicrously burning enormous energy on shifting blames on past administrations and defaulting and purely negating their statutory responsibilities as an incumbent government. This is how shambolic and fundamentally clueless and lazy a government can be when it comes to power ill-prepared and is run by a low quality of people.

Instead of putting vast emphasis on governing a nation encumbered by spurts of challenges, I see the President and his officials donning red berets, batches and boots like militants and commandos. Halfway in their term, one would think our President and his officials will be deeply occupied with policy formulation and execution aimed at addressing the vexing socio-economic challenges confronting the homeland, but they are still slumping in the mood of vanguardism, as though twelve(12) years of that wasn’t enough. How unserious can a group ruling over a nation marred by a plethora of structural constraints and drawbacks be?

Interestingly, however, amid a myriad of national challenges, the people in power have chosen a political party over nation and people. Foreshadowing political intrigues over a genuine and truthful national conversation. Regurgitating inflammatory rhetorical blusters over the sober message of hope, peace, unity and coexistence. They have cleaved onto the monster of rampant corruption over transparency, accountability, sound and responsible economic governance. Corruption has whopped to the mountaintop and the President and his henchmen have gotten bloody rich overnight and living garish lifestyles while the masses on whose back they accentuated to power are subjected to deeper misery, traumas and perplexity.

They have elevated fear over hope and darkness over light. Their actions and inactions present shame and disgrace over national pride and dignity, for we know that where there is no shame, obviously there is no dignity. This government has no shame and is not bothered by shame as it takes pleasure in the bad narratives than the good tidings. Disconcerting and inconceivable! It is disreputable, irresponsible, lawless and notorious for all the wrong behaviors, which has made the regime very unpopular with the people just close to three years at the helm. The President and his apologists have chosen exclusion, marginalization, tribalism, regionalism and vicious hatred over diversity, tolerance, inclusion and “Liberianization”. Incompetence and absurdity are placed above competence and merit. With these malaises, one can safely argue that Liberia as a nation is in a state of ‘cognitive dissonance’ thus an abnormal country.

They are bastardizing the laws and violating the rights of citizens, and worst of all, they have sadistically embarked on a despotic agenda with the latest savagery attack on peaceful Liberian women/girls and their male counterparts who recently turned out to protest against the ravaging rape menace that has engulfed the homeland in no small. The recent national protest against rape was triggered by rivers of reported rape cases obtaining across the country and the need for the state to act robustly, to bring this madness to a decisive halt . What is even more astonishing and heartbreaking is the defiant refusal of the self-proclaimed “Feminist-in-Chief” to turnout and receive the petition of the women calling on his government that is rapidly diminishing in political relevance, to declare the scaring rise in cases of RAPE a National Emergency, a request many Liberians from all sides of the political divides including the Church, Mosque and Civil Society organizations, Human Rights Groups unanimously believe is very appropriate, realistic and timely.

Convinced by his doltish gang of advisors that the recent rape protest had a political undertone, the so-called “Feminist-in-Chief” didn’t only refuse to come out to receive the women’s petition, he ordered his ruthless, hawkish, bellicose and lawless police forces to move on peaceful protesters/citizens and use brute force indiscriminately. Protesters were flogged, teargassed, brutally injured and bundled to jail for hours. If this is not despotism, I know no other way to describe such barbarity. We thought Weah was a man of peace later did we know that he is an intolerant dictator.

To sum it all, we must consolidate forces and revolt through the ballot or the bullet? This will be our own struggle not others. United front or no progress - there should be no such thing as middle ground or negotiation with reactionary forces. Thank about it. Onward to victory!
Robert Kpadeh

Firstly, the constitution of Liberia (articles #14, 15, 16 &17) guarantees the fundamental rights to freely assemble, associate, speak freely amongst other civil liberties. Mr. George Weah violated the rights of the citizens by crushing down their peaceful assembly and ordering his reckless and barbarous police force to unleash savagery bravado on them. Standing up against the endemic rape menace was the crime they committed, in the view of ” Weah-cracy”. Hours later Weah would appear on the State Radio (ELBC) and condemn the police hostile action against peaceful and lawful citizens but in the same interview, he quickly somersaulted and praised the police for brutalizing people he described as bad elements that infiltrated the rape March. Weah perfectly matches the characterization I painted of him a month ago, a “Pendulum of Contradiction”! He says one thing and in spilt seconds does another, a very dishonest and deceptive character he is.

No doubt, Weah and his bunch are menacing our country in no small way. Under them, Liberia has become a domicile of trauma. The George Weah government is both a kleptocracy and neocracy that is now metamorphosing into a dreadful autocracy to wage untold calamity upon the homeland. But patriots and revolutionaries of the homeland are also watching them and readying themselves to face them with dare and fury. Truth be told, Weah and his Kingdom of desperate thieves and absurdists are an existential threat to the peace and survivability of our country.

We must open our eyes and brace for the worse and even the worst with these bandits and racketeers at the helm. The nation is plagued with a nightmare and more than ever, Patriots of the homeland must stand together and fight the hardest to democratically reclaim our country from the hands of these irritant buzzards. The fight must begin with the December 8th, 2020 Senatorial Midterm polls. We must decimate them at the ballot box and smoke them out of power, for they are not worthy of beholding the honorability of our country’s hallowed leadership. George Weah and his cronies who are looting and pillaging our country aren’t worthy of emulation least to bear the standard of our country. We must kick them OUT in 2020 and 2023. More than ever, Liberia needs genuine Leadership and sadly, Weah and his poodles have not the equanimity, ability, experience and the moral temperament to provide the leadership that our country yarns for. Political hustlers and gatecrashers they are, nothing less, nothing more, and nothing they can offer us aside from looting our resources on a grand scale and dancing in opulence.

Indeed, now is the winter of our discontent. And may I say more?

Blood in our eyes!

By Cde. Moncio Robert. Kpadeh

 

Main Photo: Crowd gathered in the Liberian capital Monrovia to protest

 

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