Africa-Press – Liberia. The annual celebration of National Unification Day by Liberians necessitates a reflection on the sequence of events culminating in the designation of May 14 as the date that commemorates the unity of our people, given the deep polarization which today besets the nation.
In 1944, William V. S. Tubman assumed the mantle of leadership in Liberia just as World War 2, the most destructive global conflict in human history, ebbed to a conclusion. At that time, Liberia, although having been gifted with a democratic constitution by the founding fathers, was a virtual one party state ruled by a hierarchy of the descendants of the settlers, to the absolute exclusion of people of non settler origin, who were denied citizenship and thus, along with women, disenfranchised. The settlers had been so indoctrinated up to that point by the unjust society from which they hailed, that they viewed the world through a prism of the Anglo Saxon mindset. As one would expect under the circumstances, the settlers set up a cast system based upon the same obnoxious segregation practices of the ante bellum south of the United States, which necessitated their flight to the motherland to escape the inhumanity of brutal servitude; they conceived themselves as the whites and their African brothers and sisters who they met here as the niggars. Given that state of mind, they could not countenance sharing governance of the nation with a group that they considered to be intellectually inferior, and, unfairly so, incapable of comprehending the idea of nationhood.
As a consequence of the foregoing, and given the warped mindsets they had developed resulting from the distortions that had been washed into their brains by their American masters, they contrived a system of governance designed to accommodate their cloudy worldview.
At independence in 1847, the Constitution of Liberia crafted by the founding fathers and patterned closely after that of the United States, was one of the most democratic instruments in the world designed to execute governance; but from all indications, it is apparent that the original intent of the constitution was washed away like a beautiful but easily faded garment, in order to be in sync with the settlers’ view of what was best for the nation.
The government was accordingly organized within the framework of the constitution, with three distinct branches (Legislative, Judiciary, Executive). The three branches of government, though independent of each other were interrelated in that each had a specific function in a system of check and balance designed to corroborate their interrelationship: the Legislature made the laws; the Judiciary interpreted the laws; and the Executive executed the laws.
Administratively, Liberia was divided into five counties (Montserrado, Grand Bassa, Sinoe, Grand Cape Mount, Maryland) and three provinces (Central, Western, Eastern). Moreover, it is interesting to note that most Liberians of settler origin (95 percent) resided in the five counties along the coast while most of the indigenes (Liberians of non settler origin) who constituted more than 95 percent of the total population of the nation resided in the three provinces which were located in the non coastal interior; and therein lies the caveat.
The five counties mentioned above were, in essence, regarded as the bonafide Republic of Liberia and the provinces were mere colonies of the Republic; the residents of the provinces were denied the privileges of citizenship but were mandated to pay taxes into the coffers of the central government, although they were denied representation in the governance of the nation, an inherent and deliberate abuse of their human rights; a textbook case of taxation without representation. The collection of what was referred to as hut tax was rigidly enforced by tax collectors appointed by the central government in Monrovia, sometimes with outright brutality. The tax collectors were directly supervised by government appointed Provincial Commissioners who tolerated no defiance of government authority.
Liberia, a nation founded by freed slaves who fled the United States of America to escape man’s inhumanity to man, had now become a brutal police state poised as a beacon of hope for the oppressed people of Africa. What a nasty contradiction!
This was the unblemished state of the Republic that William V. S. Tubman inherited when he was sworn into office as President in 1944. William Tubman’s candidacy had been instigated, financed and promoted with a passion by then President Edwin Barclay, in a fierce intraparty battle with the Monrovia Establishment of the True Whig Party who favored James F. Cooper, a wealthy Rubber Baron, who was also supported by the People’s Party. Barclay’s greatest fear was that James Cooper would undo many of the controversial and highly politicised decisions he had made; for instance, he unwisely, but unsuccessfully and bedgruginly sought to confiscate a lot of properties owned by the man he had succeeded, Former President C. D. B. king, who had retained him as his Secretary of State for many years; many regarded this as a brutal stab in the back and a betrayal of trust.
Once William Tubman became President, he decided that he would be his own man, irrespective of whatever promises he may or may not have made to Former President Barclay to tow the line that he (Barclay) had laid for the governance of the nation; as a sign of what was forthcoming, in the early days of his presidency, he opted to rely on the advice and guidance of one of the greatest sages of the Liberian political game, Former President C. D. B. King, rather than Former President Barclay, severely obsfuscating his(Barclay’s) designs to control the government though he was no longer the president.
Without much delay, William Tubman began the process of instituting reforms in Liberia, just as Adolph Hitler’s days appeared to be numbered in World War 2, with allied forces converging on Germany from all fronts. Firstly, he granted universal suffrage to all of the nation’s women and all non settler Liberians in 1944, effectively giving them the rights and privileges of citizenship, ninety seven years after the declaration of Independence. What an interesting anomaly, given the circumstances leading to Liberia’s founding!
Despite these long overdued reforms, President Tubman didn’t just stop there, he brought several men who had been outspoken advocates against the atrocities of the regime of Former President Barclay into his government. I refer to men like Nete Sie Brownell of Maryland County, a great legal mind, Gabriel L. Dennis, C. Abayomi Cassell, and several others; to the great disdain of the Former President. These men, known for their opposition to the policies of President Barclay’s government, formed the core of President Tubman’s government as he set out to introduce radical reforms that would modernize Liberia.
in July, 1944, President Tubman selected Didwho Tweah, a prominent Kru intellectual and his close friend at that time, to gave the independence day oration. As a harbinger of what was forthcoming, Mr. Tweah, who understood the thinking of his friend, William Tubman, accurately predicted that the first indigene to lead Liberia would hail from South Eastern Liberia, 36 years before Samuel K. Doe of Grand Gedeh County in the Southeast toppled the True Whig Party oligarchy in a brutal military Coup d’etat, effectively becoming the defacto leader of Liberia. At the time of Mr. Tweah’s prediction, many skeptics had laughed it off as wishful thinking and far-fetched, considering the stranglehold that the Whig Party had on Liberia.
Meanwhile, in order to implement the epic agenda that he envisioned would accelerate the cadence of Liberia’s march to moderniztion, William Tubman needed to first address, with undue haste, delicate political issues pertinent to his survival and consolidation of power. Under the terms of the compromise reached by Former President Edwin Barclay with the hierarchy of the True Whig Party to ensure Tubman’s selection as its presidential candidate, Barclay’s Secretary of State, Clarence L. Simpson, a very ambitious man, would become the Vice President and succeed to the Presidency in 1952 after William Tubman had been in office for only one term. Given the scope of His reform agenda this arrangement was completely out of sync with William Tubman’s ambitious plans.
Being the crafty politician that he was, President Tubman reasoned that in order to implement his reforms unhindered, he needed to gain control of the Whig party’s decision making machinery. Firstly, he cleverly convinced the party’s hierarchy to endorse the selection of his confidante, Wilkins Tyler, to be Chairman of the True Whig Party as a first step. Then, with deliberate purpose, he began to replace members of the upper echelon of the party with individuals loyal to himself. By 1951, when, in consonance with the compromise of 1943 reached between President Edwin Barclay and the True Whig Party oligarchy,Tubman was to handover power to his Vice President, Clarence L. Simpson, he had already gained complete control of the decision making machinery of the Whig Party.
As a consequence of the foregoing, it may not have been suprising to close observers of events unfolding in this scenario that, the Whig Party dumped Clarence Simpson in favor of Benjamin Green Freeman, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, who hailed from the City of Careysburg in Montserrado County and was a very close friend of the President. Simpson, in turn, was appointed as Liberia’s Ambassador to the United States and commissioned in a lavish full dress ceremony held in the splendorous parlors of the Executive Mansion; Tubman was certainly adept at appeasing his enemies. What a diplomat and a show boy!
Speaker Freeman was duly nominated at the Whig Party’s convention as the Vice Presidential candidate in February 1951, on a ticket headed by William Tubman with elections scheduled for May of that year. Unfortunately, Speaker Freeman died suddenly before the elections from a mysterious illness that defied diagnosis by the best doctors in the country. It is alleged that he was poisoned by a clique opposed to someone so close to William Tubman becoming the Vice President as this would put too much power within his grasp.
William Richard Tolbert, Jr. a member of the House of Representatives From Bensonville, in Montserrado County, and the son of the Whig Party’s powerful Chairman, William R. Tolbert, Sr., was selected by the Party to replace the deceased Benjamin Freeman as its nominee for the Vice Presidency. The Whig Party’s ticket for the elections of 1951 was now complete and ready.
Meanwhile, it is interesting to note that William Tubman’s one-time friend, Didwho Tweah, had decided to vie for the Presidency against his erstwhile confidante, with the ruse that as an indigene he represented the majority in the nation and was therefore more legitimately positioned to be the president than William Tubman. This assertion so alarmed the Whig Party, when it made no point for it to be, leading it to resort to ill advised machinations that resulted In Tweah’s party being unfairly denied registration. There was no need for this devious shenanigan as Tweah’s support was obviously tenuous at the best and lacked national recognition, was not well organized and was basically confined to his ethnic group and the beer drinking halls of Old Kru Town as well as sporadic segments of Greater Monrovia. This was an embarrassing overreaction by the Tubman campaign and the True Whig Party which reeked of insecurity.
As a consequence of this unfortunate development, Didwho Tweah was cowed into fear for his life and fled the country, seeking asylum in neighboring Sierra Leone. With the coast now clear, William Tubman cruised to victory unchallenged in the elections of 1951.
Once safely entrenched in office, William Tubman wasted no time in pursuing his dream of modernizing Liberia and truly making it “One Nation Indivisible,” to actualize the words so proudly acclaimed in the Pledge of Allegiance to our national flag. Liberia College, the national institution of higher education was now upgraded to a university, the University of Liberia; it’s doors were opened to all qualified Liberians irrespective of ethnicity. As such, many persons from the provinces enrolled at the University, greatly increasing the number of Liberians who had access to higher education. Significantly, as events would late prove, this increase in access to higher education would be a harbinger of the changes that were forthcoming as Liberia marched into the future in keeping with William Tubman’s ambitious agenda.
President Tubman, initiated a mass program of scholarships, as an inherent aspect of his modernization scheme, whereby many Liberians were given the opportunity to study abroad, especially in the United States, under the auspices of the government. In a few years, these students would be returning home to apply their skills to the development and eventual modernization of the country; this, in essence, proved to be one of William Tubman’s soundest investments in the future of the country.
In 1954, as the end of the second term approached and elections loomed in 1955, Gabriel Lafayette Dennis, Liberia’s Secretary of State (Foreign Minister) since the inception of William Tubman’s regime, passed away. The historical significance of this event is that it led to the appointment of Momolu Dukuly as Secretary of State, the first indigene to be awarded the most high profile cabinet slot in the Liberian government, which under normal circumstances was reserved for persons of settler origin. This bold step by William Tubman foretold that he was serious about creating a more inclusive society and what was forthcoming as his agenda to modernize Liberia began to take shape. While this appointment met the overwhelming approbation of the masses, it greatly alarmed the old guard of the True Whig Party and the Monrovia Establishment who felt that the President was moving the country too fast, and in the wrong direction.
In 1955, given the dissention within the ranks of the arch conservative Bloc of the Whig Party and the Monrovia elite over the fast paced liberalization of the country by PresidentTubman, despite the fact that this had endeared him to the overwhelming majority of Liberians, Former President Edwin Barclay, who had become incensed at what, to him, was Tubman’s betrayal of his trust, was nudged into contesting the elections of 1955 as the Standard Bearer of a newly established political party named The Independent True Whig Party. It was amazing that given Edwin Barclay’s vast political experience and acute intelligence, he permitted himself to be misled into believing that he could defeat an incumbent president who had become immensely popular with the people because he had embraced the idea of inclusivity.
Although the Independent True Whig Party waged a vibrant campaign, the outcome was a foregone conclusion and William Tubman basically won the elections without any real sweat, a pill that Former President Barclay and his supporters found too bitter to swallow.
Shots were fired at President Tubman during celebrations marking his victory, and although he was not hit, one of his body guards was slightly wounded. It was alleged that this attempt on the President’s life was ultimately inspired by the Opposition and arrests were made. There was some resistance as security forces attempted to arrest some leading members of the opposition party. During the resulting fracas there were casualties on both sides.
A prominent member of the Opposition, S. David Coleman and his son John, including an officer of the security forces were killed in an exchange of fire with security forces. The word on the streets of Monrovia was that this was an assassination attempt designed to overthrow the government and install Edwin Barclay as the president. But, according to reliable sources, the Mastermind behind the attempted coup d’etat was Mr. S. David Coleman and the Former President only became aware of it after the fact. Although security forces surrounded his home, no attempt was made to arrest him. The question is could he have been arrested by the government? I think not. There was an unwritten rule in the Liberian political game that a Former President could not be arrested; a fact not unknown to President Tubman, a legal giant in his own right.
With respect to the historicity of Liberia’s long trek to an era of national Indivisibility and unity in diversity, 1955 must, without a modicum of doubt, be recorded in the archives of this nation as the beginning of its emergence as a modern nation state, for it marked the beginning of William Tubman’s consolidation of absolute power in Liberia. This paved the way for him to unite the two Liberias, one tribal and one settler oriented, into one body politic, undeterred by partisan squabbles which tend to delay or eviscerate important moments which determine a nation’s manifest destiny.
As a sequel to the unfolding political and social revolution that he had unleashed in Liberia, William Tubman convened the National Unification Conference in Voinjama, Western Province, now Lofa County, in an effort to solidify his bid to bring genuine unity to the nation; this had always been the main thrust of his agenda from the day he was sworn into office as the President of Liberia in 1944. He thereupon summoned all of the Paramount, Clan, and Town Chiefs from every nook and cranny of Liberia to attend that historic conference held in the nation’s hinterland. President Tubman created three new counties, carved out of the three Provinces, Central, Eastern and Western, after duly consulting with the plethora of politicians, Chiefs and elders assembled during the deliberations. The Counties were named Nimba, Bong, and Lofa respectively, with their respective native sons appointed as their first Superintendents.
The course was now set for William Tubman to pursue his dreams of modernizing Liberia and uniting its people. Tubman, although a dictator, and I am not in denial of this, succeeded in achieving his goals because he was blessed with a benevolent disposition, and this primarily was responsible for his longevity in office. Despite the great and unchallenged political power that he had amassed during his incumbency, sometimes even exceeding the constraints of the nation’s constitution, he was genuinely loved by most Liberians.
President William Tubman died in office in 1971, after a reign of 27 years and was succeeded by William Tolbert, his Vice President of 19 years. During the 9 years of his incumbency, William Tolbert greatly accelerated the pace of development in Liberia and was on track to develop the country much more than President Tubman, before his unfortunate overthrow and assassination on April 12, 1980.
William Tolbert’s folly was allowing himself to be persuaded by the Whig Party’s conservative wing to disregard his better judgement by not nominating Jackson Doe of Nimba county to succeed the deceased Vice President, James Greene, as he was initially inclined to do,but rather to select Rev. Bennie Warner, a Bassa man, who the Whig Party’s hierarchy had mistakenly presumed to be a descendant of settlers and thus successfully prevailed on the President to nominate him. This, in itself, was a fatal error in judgement which showcased the President’s political naivete. Had Jackson Doe been the Vice President, one may safely assume that those who staged the coup d’etat to end the hegemony of the so called Americo-Liberians might have had second thoughts, as one of their own would have held the second highest office in the land, only a heart beat away from the Presidency.
In actuality, the Liberian Civil War started in 1980 with the overthrow of President William Tolbert and the brutal summary executions of 13 prominent officials of government, including the charismatic Minister of Foreign Affairs, C. Cecil Dennis, and not in 1989 as some historians would have us believe. The People’s Redemption Council (PRC), with Samuel Doe as Chairman and Head of State, declared that the military would hold fair and free elections and would return to the barracks immediately thereafter. Unfortunately, Samuel Doe yielded to pressure from his tribesmen and refused to honor that pledge, even going to the extent of massively rigging the presidential elections of 1985 which was really won by Jackson Doe, the man who the late President Tolbert had been conned into rejecting for the office of the Vice Presidency. This led to a serious rift among the powerbrokers of the PRC (People’s Redemption Council), resulting in an unsuccessful Coup d’etat led by a Senior member of the PRC, General Thomas Quiwonkpa, probably its most loved and popular member. The General was killed and the rebellion was crushed with extraordinary vehemence and unprecedented brutality with repercussions that proved to be anathema to the country’s stability.
The extent of the brutality with which the attempted coup d’etat was crushed proved to be very costly to the nation as Samuel Doe unleashed his anger against the Gios, General Quiwonkpa’s tribe and Nimba county, his home County. Thousands of Gios and Manos from that county were needlessly and mercilessly murdered with unrelenting and barbaric savagery, reminiscent of the Nazi hate fest waged against the Jewish people during Adolph Hitler’s regime in Germany. Thousands fled Liberia to escape this sadistic onslaught, which further sowed the seeds of revenge and exacerbated the polarization of this great nation, Africa’s erstwhile beacon of hope, setting the stage for the civil war which brought it to its knees and transformed it into a skeleton of its former self.
In 1989, the second phase of the civil war began in earnest when Charles Ghankay Taylor, a disgruntled former official of Samuel Doe’s government, in collaboration with Prince Yomie Johnson a former Aide to General Quiwonkpa and self-exiled officer of the Arm Forces of Liberia (AFL), crossed the Liberian-Ivorian border into Nimba County. Charles Taylor’s forces entered the town of Butuo but General Johnson, after a power struggle with Taylor, split from the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) and formed the Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia(INPFL). However, both forces had the same objective; the ultimate and unconditional overthrow of Samuel Doe’s government at all costs.
General Johnson’s forces rapidly advanced towards Monrovia, capturing Caldwell City in the suburbs of Monrovia and eventually the Freeport of Monrovia, the nation’s largest seaport. Charles Taylor meanwhile advanced through Central Liberia and captured the seaport city of Buchanan in Grand Bassa County after sometimes fierce battles along the way. Taylor’s next target, Roberts International Airport (RIA), was captured after a fierce battle during which it was completely destroyed. Taylor’s NPFL then rapidly advanced deep into Monrovia reaching as far as the Foreign Ministry and only a mile from central Monrovia.
After several years of brutal fighting with hundreds of thousands lives lost, most of the nation’s territory seemed to be controlled by Charles Taylor’s NPFL However, Prince Johnson’s INPFL had also gained control of a considerable part of the rest of the country. Both Warlords had advanced on the capital from opposite directions. General Johnson’s forces had gained possession of most of the northern surburbs of Monrovia. The Taylor forces, a formidable fighting machine, controlled most of the city’s southern surburbs. The dial was now cast for an epic battle between two warring Titans with projections of horrendous casualties. This fact alarmed the international community, particularly the nations in the region. As a result, the Economic Community of West African States, with the endorsement of the the United Nations Organization (UNO) and the tacit support of the United States government, was constrained to intervene in order to avert further bloodshed.
ECOWAS rushed forces (ECOMOG) to intervene in the conflict in 1990 when fighting broke out, and took control of the Freeport of Monrovia which was at the midpoint separating the two warring factions. The INPFL was based in Cadwell and the NPFL was at the opposite end in the South and had control of the city”s southern surburbs.
Meanwhile, one cannot help but take note of the serious vaccum in the nation’s leadership created by the capture and eventual execution of its leader, Samuel K. Doe, by General Prince Johnson, allegedly with the connivance of the ECOMOG commander and, the more or less, tacit approval of certain diplomats at the US Embassy. Whatever the circumstances, this sequence of events, for all intents and purposes, might have considerably lessoned the chances of more bloodshed resulting from a catastrophic escalation in the fighting.
The involvement of ECOMOG, heavily flavored with Nigerian troops, which later evolved into a UN backed force, UNMIL, ultimately hastened the end of the fighting. In the meantime time, the activities of progressives and concerned political activists in the diaspora ensured that the respite which most Liberians craved was now in sight. in mid 1990, Liberians from the diaspora along with many activists gathered in Banjul, the Gambia at an extraordinary session of ECOWAS and selected Dr. Amos Sawyer to head an Interim Government pending elections scheduled for 1992.
Sawyer’s government was the most effective of all the Interim Governments that held the reins of power until the elections of 1997, because he better understood the nuances of governance under dire political circumstances than those who came after him.
The elections, initially scheduled for 1992, were delayed until 1997 due to internecine squabbles, primarily instigated by tribal based rebel factions; ULIMO-J (krahn) and ULIMO-K (Mandingo). However, ECOMOG forces were effective in containing the fighting. A final peace agreement was brokered in Abuja, Nigeria, in 1993 at the instigation of the UN, ECOWAS and some Partners, leading to the election of Charles Taylor, the NPFL’ s leader in 1997, who had defeated Madam Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a political activist and former Finance Minister during the regime of William Tolbert.
Taylor’s tenure as President was destined to end in failure primarily because the disarmament of the forces that were in the vanguard of the fighting during the civil war was ineffective. As such, he was denied the opportunity to govern peacefully, and, as a consequence, was forced to assume a defensive posture throughout his flawed presidency, when his focus should have been on rebuilding this war shattered country and taking the initiative to bring unity and reconciliation to his people. Throughout his entire presidency there was never really any peace.
Meanwhile, in neighboring Guinea, a powerful rebel army, the Liberians United For Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD), led by Seku Damate Konneh, a virtual unknown up to that point, was being trained to do battle with Taylor’s NPFL for control of Liberia. The fact that this army was being trained in Guinea was not unknown to President Conte, that nation’s leader, who viewed Taylor with an ounce of suspicion since he (Taylor) had allegedly lay claim to parts of Guinea as rightful Liberian territory abitrarily annexed by colonial France that should be returned.
By 1999 fighting had commenced and by 2003 LURD had advanced as far as the Johnson Street Bridge in Clara Town, a renown Monrovia shantytown. However, the NPFL fought them to a virtual standstill and they were unable to advance beyond the bridge, despite their heavy bombardment of the city. The potential for more brutal fighting and mammoth casualties are the overriding factors that led to the ECOWAS and UN sponsored conference in Accra which led to the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the Government of Liberia and the warring factions, LURD, ULIMO-K, ULIMO-J and MODEL, on August 18, 2003, which mandated free and fair elections by 2005.
Under the terms of the agreement, cabinet positions were split between the warring factions, the Government of Liberia and Civil Society, with an Interim Chairman elected by the participants to serve as Head of State and Government.
Meanwhile, President Taylor had resgned just prior to the signing of the agreement and left for Nigeria where he had already been granted political assylum by President Obasanjo. The government was left in the care of Vice President Moses Blah until the Interim Chairman elected at the Accra peace conference, Gyude Bryant, took office in September, 2003.
By the time Gyude Bryant took office in September, 2003, the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL), was in the process of building a very large multinational peace keeping force in Liberia, which eventually became the UN’s largest peace keeping operation in the world. As a result, although Bryant was the Interim Head of State and Government, the head of UNMIL was the most powerful person in the nation. No major decisions in the governance of the country could be made without his endorsement. This arrangement ensured that the elections would be free, fair, and devoid of the usual ballot stuffing associated with elections in Africa.
The elections of 2005 offered the nation an opportunity to choose between two veteran politicians and a world renown football superstar new to politics: 1. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. 2. Charles W. Brumskine. 3. George Manneh Weah.
The elections, conducted by SECOM and closely monitored by observers from UNMIL and our international partners, were essentially free of fraud. George Weah, the CDC’s candidate won the first round of the elections by overwhelmingly winning vote rich Montserado County, thus necessitating a second round of voting since he failed to obtain 51 percent of the votes in keeping with the election laws of the country.
In the second round, which was bitterly fought, the other parties United with the Unity Party’s candidate, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf who came second to George Weah of the CDC in the first round. The campaign of 2005 was one for the history books. The art of disinformation was taken to a new level as the Unity Party and its supporters waged a determined battle to defeat GEORGE Weah at all costs. The fact that Ellen Sirleaf won the elections was primarily because she and her allies were successful in persuading the people of Liberia that they would be best served by an experienced hand as their leader, in view of the complete discombobulation of all facets of Liberian society as the result of a devastating Civil conflict. Weah’s campaign strategists, in contrast, could have cast doubt on this strategy and won the second round had they appropriately countered Sirleaf’s relentless campaign of mass misinformation and disinformation with an even more reckless distortion of the facts, in view of the edge they had going into the final round; their folly was their overconfidence which squandered a golden opportunity.
Ellen Sirleaf, the first female to be elected to head an African nation, took over the reins of leadership in 2006 of a country completely shattered by the exigencies and horrors of a senseless Civil War. Liberia had descended from the prestigious position of being a semblance of hope to the Nations of Africa battling to sever the chains of colonialism during the liberation struggle, to the humiliation of failed statehood. The challenges ahead for the new president would be awesome.
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf took the oath office in January 2006 in a somber atmosphere, with all of the burdens of rebuilding a war-shattered nation suddenly thrust upon her shoulders. The nation would literally have to be rebuilt from scratch, compelling many skeptics to wonder whether she would be up to the task.
President Sirleaf smartly assembled and appointed a team of astute veterans and highly skilled young technocrats to her cabinet and other high profiled strategic portfolios. For instance her first Minister of Foreign Affairs was the diplomatically savvy foreign service veteran, George W. Wallace, Jr., a man known within the Foreign Ministry as a walking diplomatic encyclopedia. Additionally, she appointed a brilliant World Bank economist, Dr Mills Jones, to head Liberia’s Central Bank and Dr Togar G. Mackintosh, another brilliant Economist as the Minister of Finance, to be the prime managers of the nation’s eçonomy in a bid to ensure fiscal responsibility in government expenditures during the process of rebuilding and reconstruction. With the appointment of Olubankie King Akerele, also one of the nation’s topnotched Economic thinkers, as the Minister of Commerce, the economic team was now in place and ready to roll.
When Ellen Sirleaf commenced her duties as Chief Executive of the nation, the enormity of the tasks ahead immediately confronted her. Infrastructures in the nation’s capital, Monrovia, was a shambles. All of the major streets in the capital, for instance, Broad, Randall, Carey and Benson streets, had become a hodgepodge of potholes and the horrendous stench created by broken sewage lines in downtown Monrovia due to prolonged neglect and heavy bombardment during the civil war, had become a national embarrassment.
In the first two years of Madam Sirleaf’s administration, the process of rebuilding the nation was rather sluggish, slow, and lacked coordination and a sense of direction, most especially in the Ministry of Public Works, the Ministry primarily responsible to manage and resuscitate the nation’s infrastructure. However, with the removal of Lusine Dunzo and the subsequent appointment of Kofi Woods as the Minister of Public Works, the pace of the nation’s reconstruction and rebuilding received a boost and accerlerated rapidly.
The reason for this overnight change was none other than Kofi Woods,who, though not an engineer, possessed extraordinary managerial skills which he successfully employed to coordinate the activities of the ernecent Ministry of Public Works; this greatly increased the pace of development in the country,so much so, that by the time of the elections in 2011 Madam Sirleaf’s position was secured as she sought reelection.
As Madam Sirleaf and the Unity Party prepared for the elections in 2011, there was one fear that overwhelmed the councils of their strategic meetings; the fact that they would face George Weah again, being fully aware that he could have defeated them in the 2nd round as he did in round one of the elections in 2005 had his supporters campaigned with the same enthusiasm and zeal as they had in the first round.
As fate would have it, that fear was unwarranted because Weah had opted not to head the CDC’s ticket. instead, Winston Tubman was nominated as the Party’s candidate for the Presidency with George Weah as its Vice Presidential Candidate. As expected,with the absence of Weah at the head of its ticket the CDC lost the elections,given Madam Sirleaf’s fairly good record as the reconstruction of the country’s infrastructure was in full swing and the fact that Winston Tubman lacked George Weah’s charisma. Moreover, Winston Tubman, a highly educated Harvard trained Lawyer and smart former Permanent Representative of Liberia to the United Nations, did not match Madam Sirleaf’s political savvy, although he was certainly qualified to be the president of Liberia. Madam Sirleaf, although sometimes flawed in her political calculations, is a master of the Liberian political game.
I should note that the zealots of the CDC did not display the same enthusiasm for Winston Tubman as they did for George Weah in 2005. Many pundits believe that the rank and file of the Party had made up their minds to wait out President Sirleaf’s term until 20017 and then put forth George Weah once more; in retrospect, this turned out to be a wise decision. Although George Weah accepted the Party’s nomination for the Vice Presidency in 2011, I am convinced that he was more keen on being elected to the Senate in the 2014 Montserrado County Senatorial Elections than becoming the Vice President in 2011, because this would position him well for a presidential bid in 2017; his inexperience in holding elective office would no longer be an option for the attackdogs of the Unity Party and other opponents. In retrospect, this proved to be a wise choice, considering how events unfolded several years later in the elections of 2017.
As expected, Madam Sirleaf was elected to a second term. Winston Tubman, a scholarly lawyer and diplomat, failed to effectively counter her wits and considerable political skills, despite having the organizational prowess of the CDC with its massive grassroots machinery at his disposal. Additionaly, Madam Sirleaf’s success in making Liberia more stable by the end of her first term, thanks in part to the large UNMIL force deployed, and successfully beginning the rebuilding of the nation’s devastated infrastructures, beating the odds in her usual can-do Spirit, convinced most Liberians that she righfully deserved another term to complete a job well done.
Madam Sirleaf easily won reelection as the CDC and it’s candidate, Cllr Winston Tubman, opted not to actively participate in the second round of the elections, out of dissatisfaction with what they conceived as irregularities in the first round. In my mind, this amounted to a virtual concession.
Ellen Sirleaf began her final term of office in January, 2011 with the confidence that she was on track to create an enduring legacy for herself by securing the peace in Liberia and vigorously persuing the reconstruction and rebuilding of all facets of the nation’s war shattered infrastructure and its social and economic systems. By the end of her administration in 2017, she had mostly succeeded in achieving her goals and securing the peace, with thanks to UNMIL’s peace keepiñg forces, in a nation where mayhem had become a way of life prior to her incumbency; this may be her legacy for which Liberians should be grateful. However, Ellen Sirleaf failed miserably in the battle against corruption, a fact she honestly admits, because she lacked the political will and the valor to confront this formidable institution with the uncompromising vim and gusto that would have undoubtedly guaranteed its defeat. Although she brought stability to the nation and saved it from the humiliation of failed statehood, she gifted it with a stubborn demon which continues to torment the national psych.
As the elections of 2017 loomed and the Sirleaf administration reached the twilight
of its incumbency, the soon-to-be Presidential candidates of Liberia’s major political parties began to prepare for what promised to be an extremely competitive race. Constitutional constraints denied the incumbent President the right to seek a third term. As such, the political battle ground would be a level playing field, with no candidate having the advantages of incumbency.
After the major political parties had held their respective primaries, the following candidates emerged as contestants for the Presidency in the elections of 2017:
1. Unity Party, Joseph Borkai (Nuquay-Vice President).
2. Congress For Democratic Change (CDC), George Manneh Weah (Jewel Howard Taylor-Vice President).
3. Liberty Party (LP), Charles Walker Brumskine (Harrison Kanweah-Vice President).
4. Alternative National Congress (ANC), Alexander Cummings (Jeremiah Sulunteh-Vice President).
During what would prove to be a historic race within the context of the smooth transfer of power in Africa, the balance of power during the campaign shifted to George Weah and his CDC with Ellen Sirleaf’s tacit support for his candidacy. Not being blessed with the gift of extra sensory perception, it would be foolhardy for me to presume to know what motivated Madam to go against her faithful Vice President of 12 years. I believe that this is a matter best left to the judgement of history. What I do know though is that this was one of the significant factors that led to Joe Boakai’s fall from Grace with the electorate. Succinctly put, Boakai lost the Elections with Ellen Sirleaf’s help because she didn’t want him to win, and it would be preposterous for anyone but her to pretend to know what led her down this lane
All things being equal, and many times the predictable course of history is diverted as if by divine intervention, George Manneh won the elections of 2017 clearly and fairly. The fact that Joe Boikai lost because events premeditated by Madam Sirleaf laid the groundwork for him to lose doesn’t negate the stark reality that the superior and massive ground game of the CDC concocted by its political gurus was the determining factor in Weah’s victory, together with the glow of his charisma and mass adoration by the youths of Liberia. Boikai lacked these virtues and it seemed as if history had turned its back on him. All of these factors militated against Joe Boikai’s winning the Elections of 2017.
George Manneh Weah won the Presidential Elections of 2017 and was sworn into office as President of Liberia in an elaborate populist ceremony in January, 2018 at the Samuel K. Doe Stadium in Paynesville. I was a living witness to the euphoria of the masses as their hero took the oath of office in the huge setting of the SKD stadium as they watched with adoring eyes. This was, undoubtedly, unprecedented in the annals of inaugural ceremonies in Liberia. Traditionally, inaugurations in Liberia were held within the hallowed walls of the Centennial Memorial Pavilion on Ashmun Street in Central Monrovia and were by invitation only. This meant that only high officials of government, diplomats and the elites were privy to the President taking the oath of office. Ellen Sirleaf’s inaugural took place on the grounds of the Capitol Building, but the audience was dwarfed by the attendance at George Weah’s inauguration.
In his inaugural address, George Weah pledged that his government would be primarily committed to improving the lot of Liberians who have not been privileged to enjoy a good life because of poverty. As such, he proposed an agenda that would lift poor Liberians out of poverty. This idea is referred to as the Pro Poor Agenda.
President Weah’s first four years in office have been focused on actualizing his Pro Poor Agenda by vigorously and successfully implementing programs designed to appease the abject poverty of Liberia’s downtrodden masses. More jobs are being created to ease the problems of unemployment which plague the nation’s idled youths. Supplementary to this, the massive construction of roads in Southeastern Liberia which is imminent should greatly alleviate the difficulties that this mineral and agricultural rich region continues to experience in gaining access to markets, especially during the rainy season. When this process is completed, development which has mostly eluded the nation’s Southeast, a potential national economic powerhouse, can proceed rapidly and unhindered.
Should President Weah succeed in implementing all of the ambitious projects being pursued under the umbrella of his Pro Poor Agenda, and the pace of progress thus far indicates that this is highly likely, his victory in the presidential elections of 2023 would be a foregone conclusion. My thoughts in this regard are greatly influenced by the apparent lack of any meanful alternatives to President Weah’s development schemes, from an opposition that has fallen into disarray, and seems incapable of finding a simple solution to its internal wrangling which threatens to irreversibly diminish its chances of success in 2023. At this point, no personality with a credible vision to lead Liberia has yet emerged from within the midst of the potential candidates in the opposition.
As this nation moves forward in the deep state of polarization that seems to be the order of the day, the key to national unity is reconciliation. This would be the best means of preserving the unity of this nation which the great Unificator, William V. S. Tubman envisioned when he successfully introduced the National Unification Policy to a coterie of the nation’s political and traditional leaders assembled in 1964 at the historic conference of National Unity in Voinjama.
The call for a War Crimes Court by some politicians is ill advised in this period of our history. This trend of thought is not an endorsement of impunity, far from it, but rather, is an attempt to put the years of bitter civil conflict behind us and help, as one united nation, to heal the scars of the many who lost love ones.
When the great Nelson Mendela became the President of South Africa after being imprisoned by the Apartheid regime of the Boers under terrible circumstances for more than 20 years, he chosed reconciliation as the balm that would heald the wounds in that deeply polarized nation and bring unity to it’s people. Africans in South Africa were treated as mere chattels in their own country by the Europeans (Boers and British) for almost a hundred years, and yet Mendela had the courage and the political will to forgave them, because he wanted to preserve South Africa as one nation indivisible. Just look at South Africa today! Although the Africans have political power and are the virtual rulers of South Africa, they coexist peacefully with white South Africans who mostly control the economy. This experiment works and South Africa today has the second largest economy in Africa as well as being one of world’s most technologically advanced nation’s.
Liberians would do well to embrace reconciliation as this would enhance the unity of our people, be an asset to the rebuilding of our nation and preserve the legacy of President William Tubman. This is about national unity and the best interest of our nation, not partisanship. Liberia must be One Nation Indivisible to survive as a body politic or risk a return to an era of failed statehood with all of its ramifications.
And so you have it.
For More News And Analysis About Liberia Follow Africa-Press
