Voice of Liberia
Fighting for Justice for all Liberians
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A Country on
-When Reps Become Petty Traders
By Mulbah K. Morlu, Jr. | January 27, 2007
A Rep and a businesswoman’s conversation somewhere around the Foreign Ministry:
Businesswoman: “are you serious honorable, I can buy the whole country and all its remaining power?”
Rep: “that’s not what I mean; I’m just saying I need to roof my house and some of my colleagues need to keep regular at Mona Lisa; you know when you rise to power…and it’s tight. We can change the laws once that country boy is thrown out…and you can do whatever you like…you already control the other two branc... you know. And once all that happen, can’t you say you have bought the entire country?”
Businesswoman: “oh, great idea! Great idea! So, how much?”
Rep: “negotiable, but you have to put five grand upfront first, plus regular champagne and…food and…”
Businesswoman: “forget the money but, will it not back fire? I’m just curious.”
Rep: “to be frank, the property’s owned by the people but it’s now ‘spoils of war’ and the ‘land deeds’ can always be changed at plenary, we make the rules, Granny!”
Businesswoman: “ok, but please don’t mention my name when I give the m…” -12 December 2006.
I waited in vain anticipating the early morning crow of the few hens and roosters left in the community. I rolled in bed, or rather changed position from one end of the mattress to the other, keeping this motion a pattern whenever a particular place soaked-wet with perspiration. I kept at this tactics until every spot on the pallet soaked deep with sweat as if immersed in a bucket of water. As a matter-of-course, in the ensuing discomfiture, the only alternative to the thinking mind would be, slipping off the mattress onto the cold flood for temporary comfort. Dishearteningly however, the congestion of the room’s square, and the fact that the four-inch mattress filled every space in the tiny room negated this option. The only additional space in the US$50 dollars a month downtown rented room, was occupied by a table that had a lamp, a pile of books and a single bowl used to mix my gari. And so, my fate would be left to be decided by renegade mosquitoes operating within my premises without permit, singing their strange songs as they feasted on my most vulnerable parts.
I rolled again to the next end of the pallet and jammed the wall, taking advantage of a little dry spot. My ears remained open, eager to hear the fowl’s announcement of coo-coo-lea-coooo! But instead of hearing the crowing of a cock, the merciless stinking of the lethal insects brought to my mind a fresh reminder of my being a Liberian, a country associated with all the negatives; and from all the many diabolic unearthing, it would appear as though it is a part of our culture to import all the unwanted sociopolitical toxics here. And as far as our painful history is concerned, the unraveling contretemps are the perfect doings of a segment of our society, elites so-called!
These are the woes that baffle even the least literate, my deceased granny being amongst them. She once questioned, “Is there nothing good in the white man’s land…why do the book people go there, leave all the good things there and tote all the bad things to come bring trouble to us?” These were not mere questions thrown to test the brightness of a lad, rather, granny sought cogent and satisfactory answers in the midst of torturing agony; her index finger had swollen to infections and would not cure. The village chieftaincy would equally not allow her treatment in the only clinic available some 50 miles of jungle alleyway. Her crime: failure to fulfill a few pennies tax obligation, the very unjust offense that left my step Father a dead prisoner! Granny cried restlessly without comfort and the finger virus ate up the flesh leaving the bones fully exposed. Without any available corridor for solace, she did the unbelievable: laid the hurting finger on top a fire wood, and had it cut off with a machete herself, leaving blood splashing everywhere as the pain-struck echo of her shout compelled gathered birds to be strewn to the four winds of the heaven. But that was many years back though memories are still afresh as though it was just yesterday. These are the compelling factors motivating my fight against eco-social ills. Almost my entire generation got sacrificed on the desecrated altar of merciless political gormandism. And I must fight to prevent others from being sacrificed; this is how I honor their memory, not vice versa.
I still remained in bed however, hugged to the wall awaiting the announcement of a particular rooster that refused to crow. There were similarly other colleague roosters and hens, too in this neighborhood. You could find them everywhere a year ago until just now. Someone has said that the prevalence of unparalleled hardship under the current regime has led to a conspiracy theory against chicken kingdom! Even chickens can no longer be allowed to be domesticated in the midst of the absence of everything. Dogs, too, are in harms way as scores of animal thieves roamed all over the place, carrying hammers and sticks carefully fixed to hustle a ‘gleywui’ (Lorma name for dog)for a hot market!
I still waited, half awaked, half asleep and it was beginning to look like the chickens were on a go-slow. But no, the ones in my community had simply been exterminated due to the harsh hardship and we were left without a crier to wake us up daily. But all was not lost, a nearby mosque took up the responsibility and the early morning prayers of their religious leaders console us to forget the fowl’s disappearances.
I was now up and toned to my first news program broadcasts on Star Radio. The feed back was a familiar voice, Jowee Kennedy. And from the way he read the news, pronouncing every word with care, caution and sufficient emphasis, I knew it pertained to something worth the attention. “Renegade Law Makers gathering at the Unity Conference center in
I quickly switched to another Broadcast news station, the State own Radio Station, ELBC and heard the rendition: “46 Law Makers meeting at the Unity Conference center have cast a vote of no confidence in House Speaker Edwin Snowe…blah blah blah” What I took note of here was the various nomenclature the media ascribed to the Unity Conference center gathering of the “majority of the law Makers. While the Star Radio referred to them as “Renegades”, ELBC’s newscast summed up their assemblage as just “46 Law Makers meeting…” besides the fact they had given live coverage to their sessions while Edwin Snowe and his 20 loyalists assembled at the Centennial Memorial Pavilion ignored by the State own Radio Station. Radio Veritas too, employed the term “Renegade Law makers”
The print press was also having its share and delivering editorials filled with intermixture of facts, some bit of fantasy, a little more of sentimentalism, and a lashing at friends and foes alike. Almost all of the editorials, except two took a clear position on the unfolding legislative burlesque. The Analyst and the Daily Observer Newspapers seemed to have developed a clear policy of noncompliance with the Snowe regime and constituted the two editorials that became dissenters.
On the other hand, as the maelstrom whirkpooled across the land, the conversation became entrenched in the minds, mouths and midst of the ordinary people. And day, by day, it seemed to be gearing up to unimaginable proportions to the disadvantage of the conspirators.
First, the factor of timing heavily weighed against the masterminds of the subterranean intrigue. In their underestimation of the influence and inveigles of Snowe, they unleashed the game plan in manners and forms totally detached from the most rudimentary political wisdom. Had they not been overly emotional, unnecessarily overcharged and, having worked out too much with fist punches bigger than their boxing gloves, they may have at least succeeded to a level we can not determine.
The dissidents should have known that the premature hatching of a conspiracy to kick Edwin Snowe out with polo boots would have created a countermeasure. To think that they expected Ed Snowe to play freeze like his name and form a cheering squad to go into applaud for his own demise, is a monumental flabbergast. This is their dilemma; a whole 7 days or more were left as an open space where anything could happen before the set date to present the resolution. In their calculation, once you get the majority to signature a resolution, it becomes the “word of God that goes out and cannot return void.” But I am sure they have now learned in the strictest way that the legitimacy of any resolution is determined at planery, not in the cabal chambers of an existing parallel throne! More so, when you gave seven days to a Snowe, it will simply be melted by descending heat waves and in the process, every space is occupied through expansion. So, the current countermeasures are just a part of the expansions of the melted Snowe that has just now transformed into tormenting heat waves causing a lot of discomfort for the disciples of lawlessness.
From another crotch, the concourses of the congressional warriors proved to be astonishingly misguided and unequivocally consigned to mediocrity. This fact became evident when the cabalists refused to change strategy even though their mode of operation and the very axis, upon which the conspiracy spanned, had become public knowledge. When “The Speaker’s Funeral; beware the ides of March” was envisaged and written, it was not an attempt to build an embankment for the shielding of an individual, it was an objective drive to prevent the paralysis of our Central Government through the schemes of unsuspecting political mischief-makers bent on undermining the integrity of our basic political document( the constitution). This is the key motivator behind my stance and staunch in our body politics and inasmuch as I appreciate the diatribes; my consistency in approach shall remain uncompromised till my dying day.
Hence, the objective mind will easily see the nature of the plot revealed in that article I wrote more than two weeks before the event leading to what is now being debated as a huge legislative bribery scandal. In details, names and specific amounts were revealed. To the amazement of many, those same names were the architects distributing the alleged filthy lucre in US$5.000 bulks! This is the issue we must review from an impartial scaffold. And I say again without any fear of being held in contempt, it is baffling how ‘46’ Law makers could fail to see that there had already been a prophetic leakage about a carefully planned collusion to use financial emoluments and bribes for the Speaker’s removal!
Outside of that terrain, the devil-may-care approach of these Law Breakers, oops! I mean, Law Makers who appear to have placed themselves on oath to break the laws in order to make themselves leaves us wondering as to whether they still deserve the honorable appellation. When men of law become men of tricks, seeking to find a way around the law for self-aggrandizement and to appease the quest of a cunning master trickster, they must be checked and stopped.
As I view this matter from a vantage pedestal, my hands and mouth overflows with shocks, surprises and utmost suspense. That a seating House of Representatives, the first ever truly elected legislative representatives of the Liberian masses, will stooge so low as to be partakers of an alleged wider bribery scam disappoints us all. Unlike the satire of pigs which portraits the dirt-ridden animal as having no understandable value for the gold ring pierced in its nose, these are “Law Makers” who must realize who they are!
Pluralistic Liberians in an ever changing multicultural environment have good reasons to raise concerns in the unfolding congressional embarrassment. For instance, the constitution says “The Legislature shall have the power to create new counties…, to provide for the security of the republic…, to level taxies, duties, imports, exercise and other revenues…, to constitute courts inferior to the Supreme Court…, to approve treaties, conventions and such other international agreements…, to establish laws for citizenship, naturalization and residence…, to enact the election laws… etc. Indeed, the House of Representatives has so much power and authority: amongst other things, they can determine who citizens of
Badly enough, that this enormous power House of Representatives in the majority, is now setting unconstitutional agendas and making crucial paradigm shifts, all for the exchange of monetary and other gains, has far reaching consequences. Liberians must be on the alert! If these ‘Honorables’, whose tracking leave behind footprints of lawless Apostles rather than law-making people’s servants, could shield themselves behind the façade of “majority bloc” so as to conveniently twist the laws and their own rules of procedures, in the midst of the overwhelming counter sentiments, then we can almost be sure to wake up one day and discover that most of our Lebanese friends are now Liberian citizens; very soon a part of Lofa could be secretly traded to the Fulahs for a bag full of ‘Franc Guinee!’ To be paradoxical, with the current legislative twisting and turning on the shaft of profit-making, I would suggest that the Law Makers make new laws creating a fourth branch of government called, House of Briberies! They will find this rather easy since they can change the rules any time without regards to the will and pleasure of the electorates. Besides, what an easy way to accommodate the greed and ego of legislative dissidents who have lost every sense of morality!
In furtherance, the legal judgment of thinkers and actors of this nasty congressional conspiracy theory must come under severe scrutiny here; they appeared on fire to unseat the one they elected yesteryear for breaking the law even though, like the executioners of Master Sergeant Doe, they don’t seem to notice that they are not just breaking the laws in their misguided quests, they are shamelessly destroying it and reducing it to particles. People ought to know the difference between breaking the law and destroying the law. When the crafters of the law deliberately twist the constitution for self-aggrandizement, and refuses to detour on corrective courses, they are likewise instructing everyone to go ahead and disregard anything call laws. The message then becomes clear, laws are made for the weak, the poor and underprivileged; the laws protect only the strong! But, this pattern of impunity must be exceptionally debunked to the highest degree lest we breed a state in perpetual chaos and crisis in circles.
Sadly, the mawkish approach of the honorables in the unfolding hodgepodge deserves the condemnation of every well-meaning son of the soil. Whilst it is their right to effect a regime change at the level of their leadership, there are set rules, statues and procedures that must be respected. This is the point that should not be missed; these are not just rules and procedures governing the House of reps, they are fundamental principles and laws enacted to protect the rights of every Liberian, and Ed Snowe is just another Liberian as everyone else from any of the 16 political subdivisions.
In the minds of the dissident lawmakers converging in Virginia, whenever the majority rules, Jesus has spoken and, the entire nation must burst out into singing choruses of praise. But have they come to realize that the majority can sometimes be wrong like the case under consideration?
I was lucky to have witnessed the decision-making gathering of the congressmen in
Interestingly enough, no sooner had Kettehkuemuehn (kpelle name meaning, hurry get big so we can eat you) announced his Snowe-is-out verdict when he himself became a lamb laid on an already desecrated altar for slaughter! I was wondering, had the guy known that his colleagues were pushing him to make-it-get-bit-so-we-can-eat-you, would he have presided over such a Taliban-style unconstitutional revolt? The greed and inordinate quest for power of major rankings of the coup plotters seem so intolerant that it has become a cat-eat-its-own-baby comic drama; who else would have sponsored the early morning front page headline story that unveiled Kett.
Now that old Prof. Ketto Murray has just received his red card, the inner fight has just begun. Though we expect the Supreme Court’s opinion on the matter very soon, the ongoing game going on behind the scene promises to be a continuous tragedy for the cabalists. It is a farce whose end depends on who is the last man standing, the one who succeeds in getting his friends knocked out even if it means breaking the rules as it has just recently become the norm. This new way of playing the game, as introduced by the newcomers under the tutelage of an old hand in the business, has its tragic effects, too.
Whatever the outcome of the Supreme Court’s ruling will be, just in case Ed Snowe is sent to be consoled by veteran George Dweh, there has to be a last man standing in this uncertain dupe game. And from all indication, seeing that Kett Murray is now history as the execution list goes under regular review for any emerging threats to the patron’s interest, I doubt there will be any man left standing. Most likely, the signals are becoming glaring that, the last man standing, if not Ed Snowe, will be a woman!
The actor is Mulbah K. Morlu, Jr. and can be reached at godsprince2001@yahoo.com.
Cell: 002316626209. He resides in Sinkor, Monrovia-Liberia and Teshie Nungua Estates, Accra-Ghana
Coming soon, the following Mulbah K. Morlu articles: An open Challenge to the Critics of Doom; Strayed Bullets; Born to save lives; Charley in Accra; A legacy of exploits in Egypt; Debunking the Tomfoolery of a Scoundrel, part II, etc.
