abraham dillionOp-ed 

Refutation to the piece of Vandalark R. Patricks, about Abraham Darius Dillion

By Alfred Bambo Kaidii

Some of our opposition friends believe that Darius Dillon is presidential material, and if he had not “messed up,” in their words, he would have been the main opposition force to challenge Weah for power. This assertion, in my opinion, is both illogical and disgusting, and it represents the bankruptcy of Liberian politics. The notion that the Republic’s leadership must be transferred from one Z-list politician to another demonstrates why Liberian politics is dominated by a corrupt band of charlatans and sycophants. Weah and Dillon are unsuitable candidates for the leadership of a serious country, not least a country in the throes of political decay and acute backwardness.

Even by debased Liberian standards, the Liberty Party politician, along with Edwin Snowe, Cassell, and that wretched collection of thugs whose claim to political leadership is to engage in primitive accumulation and plunge the country into a downward spiral cannot be the person to lead our country into a progressive future. Meanwhile, many people forget or choose to ignore the fact that Darius Dillon’s rise to the position of senator of Montserrado was largely the result of realpolitik rather than a genuine belief in the man’s abilities, morals, or understanding of government. I believe that this fact has been overlooked in all of the lurid narratives that have accompanied Dillon’s rise to the Senate. This omission or selection of facts renders any account of him throwing his figurative hat into the ring for the presidency and representing a formidable opposition candidate as nothing more than a wet dream of fantasy politics and a grating piece of hogwash.

A second reason why some of our fellow citizens have parroted this delusion of a Darius Dillon presidency is this confused and highly questionable notion of generational change. The proponents of this logic, as if they have not seen how many young people in the former government of Ellen Johnson and in the current regime of Weah have engaged in looting, lawlessness, and abuse of power, have convinced themselves that the malaise plaguing the Republic is generational as if being a young man entails possessing all the qualities, wits, and gifts of a decent leader.

alfred Kiadii
Comrade Bambo Kiadii

This school of thought contains numerous flaws and is purveyed by individuals displaying all the shallow amateurism of nondescript intellectuals. At the same time, the shortsightedness of the generational change misnomer is its lack of imagination and its diabolical attempts to situate the political discourse in the homeland on age rather than on competence, integrity, vision, and political prospectus. This is shown by the way that people who support it write articles that are full of hipster analysis which also implies that people like Dillion are not fit to be president.

It is, in fact, needless to remind everyone that the world is certainly a complicated place, which is why leadership is such a high-stakes game. The tragedy of Liberia, however, is that while other nations are electing their best and brightest, we have settled for political nonentities as viable candidates for leadership. Ironically, somehow, we wonder why the political discourse in our country is so degraded. I believe that the same fantasy that characterized the dialogue surrounding a Weah presidency has also characterized the dialogue surrounding a Dillon presidency. Regardless of the latter’s seductive appeal to impressionable minds, any talk of Darius Dillon running for President of Liberia is supremely insane. How could these “generational change” evangelists use the rise of Weah as an example to promote an equally weak, vapid, short-sighted, and uninspiring moron? Why are we acting so sadistically cavalier?

In summary, if Darius Dillon were to be the alternative to the CDC historical parenthesis, then Marx would be correct: “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce.”

Main Photo: Abraham Darius Dillion, /smart news liberia

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