Voice of Liberia

The Speaker’s Funeral II - fulfilling the prophecies

BY MULBAH K. MORLU, JR. | January 8, 2007

 

It was a quiet night and the sky seemed impregnated with millions of barrels of water about to be emptied on church worshippers who would soon take to the streets in jubilation for their being fortunate to see the beginning of another new year. And they had good causes for their street dances of joy, for only the cemeteries knew the innumerable corpses whose medical records reveal hunger-related deaths since the ascendance of a new government; a government that claimed it came to set the captives free from ‘bad governance’, though the term has just over-germinated to reproduce more political captivities. So, the ones lucky enough to survive the national affliction had the justifications to dance to the rhythm of the echoing drum beat that was now fading fast in the twilight of the December 31^st ‘watch night.’ Choruses and sermons swept over noisy pews occupied by people who were not too sure they were Christians; yet, they hardly waited to roll out, unaware of the pending fat rains about to pour as though God had forgotten to patch up wide leakages inflicted in the skies. But the choirs went on singing while preachers preached with great might, eyes rolling in sockets here and there at the heaped offertory; the increasing difficulties under this government was enough ground for every preacher to keep the most faithful ushers in check!

 

When the minister’s sermon was done, the impatient congregations of the predominantly once-a-year New-Year-eve-church-goers would storm the streets, singing “happy new year me na die ooh” songs. This has since been the custom since the return of the ‘American chickens coming home to roost’. To be frank, it is a tradition that has grown new wings, a convenient practice that has become more of a social festivity than a religious Eucharist; night clubs and beer bars would keep jamming up till 11 P.M and the one hour spare time would be utilized to walk down various church aisles already flooded with church goers who may have never heard a pastor preach in the last one year except, perhaps, from a T. D Jake televised ‘potter’s house sermon.’

 

A voice from a radio tied close to the dash board of a rust-smitten moving taxi in which I rode, announced the time as 10:05. From my experience with drunken men, the sound of the voice indisputably disclosed the possibility of an external influence blurring the sight of the radio announcer which may have led to his miscalculation of the actual time. I glanced on my left hand and my BBC-set chronometer confirmed the error, placing the time at 11:50 instead. Realizing that I had just ten minutes to reach my destination before the rushing church crowd filled everywhere; I gesticulated to the driver, and he understood, dropping me off after making sure his LD$10.00 fare was secured in his palm, no one took chances in a city starving of everything. Disembarking from a taxi cab whose doors had to be slammed several times before closing, I involuntarily stared the other way and saw a vacuum previously occupied by the monument of a national celebrity, Ambassador George Weah. 

 

I could have continued my ten-to-mid-night sojourn had it not been that the monument of this great son of Africa, Ambassador George Manneh Weah reminded me of thousands of hard historical truths. He had grown up in nasty peasants’ palaces, a downtrodden community clustered with make-shift houses befitting cockroaches and rodents. Gibraltar, Clara Town, is where this man, like millions of other economically chained Liberians, was consigned by the aristocrats. Way back then, when they knew you had potentials and determinations that made you a rising competitor of their exclusive power cathedra, they would encourage you to play football. Those days, football in Liberia was considered a field for failures. It took a George Weah to change that mentality, bringing proud to his countrymen and to his country, even his continent. During the blitzkriegs, ‘the dons’ now in power could not pity even the kiddies; they armed them and turned them into disciples of doom, a messenger of peace, George Weah and others, helped disarm them.

 

The people, whose few joys during their unwanted wars derived from the laurels brought home by ‘King George’, appreciated him by erecting a monument in his honor. And the fact that George Weah dare break the taboo in a country where the presidency was not to be imagined except by light-skinned settlers was the straw that maliciously reduced his monument into a heap of rubbles. Around two hundred yards or so from the place his statue once stood, the obelisk (statue) of the late William V.S Tubman, a former president usually carried in hammock from one village to the other preying on innocent virgins, stood untouched. If the argument is that Weah’s statue had to be smashed in order to make room for planting flowers on Broad Street, how come Tubman’s statue still remains proudly erected on broad/Randall Streets? But I raised this question in forgetfulness, failing to remember that George Weah, though he had brought more pride to his land than those that pillaged it, could not be compared to Tubaman; The Tubmans, the Johnsons, the Tolberts can all be traced to the ‘American chickens that came home to roost’, and they are supposed to be superior ones.

 

I went on in hurry, shaking my head, passing by drunken kids and Shakira girls who had been refused church worship by virtue of the crowds overflowing the ‘watch night’ services. I lifted my eyes and read a sign that said “Rivoli.” I tried crossing in its direction as thick rains showed signs of descend. I took a step across the street, remembering the shattered monument of Weah, fright grabbed me. Today it is his monument, who knows…?

 

Anyway, I fought in my mind to push away the haunting thought. I shifted my thought to other equally serious stuffs as I moved on, humming a famous church song which lyrics echoed “when the messiah comes, we shall not be hungry nor suffer lack…” It was a good song and I took comfort in its prophetic rhythms. I marched forward, now in the middle of the street, and abruptly, two men showed up, and from the oversized coats they wore, I knew they were members of the Special Security services guarding the President. “Don’t you know that you are not supposed to be walking this part of the road when the Old ma is in church?” From the way the men were poised to strike, I could not tell whether they were asking a question or providing a justification for a pending assault. I was surprised, not that the men were going to kick me around, for these also are no different from their predecessors, but that President Sirleaf would be in ‘watch night’, too.

 

 In a few minutes, one of the guards had recognized me and whispered to the others, creating quite a scene that brought back memories of brutal legacies. Many things happened that night that must be reserved for an appropriate discourse. But the shock remained, that Madam Sirleaf had denied herself the sleep to be in the mid-night church, was baffling! Had she finally gone to confess to the Lord over her role in the affliction in the last 20 years of senseless fracas?  No sooner had this thought crossed my mind when I heard the commander of the guards shout, “this is the Morlu who accused the Old ma of wanting to remove the Speaker; he’s a trouble maker and if he f…up, we will deal with him!” The threats and intimidations did not cease for once. Nevertheless, in the extreme outbursts of anger, the vents of the guards had left me reminded of a dream I did not go looking for, it just came.

 

You see, sometimes it becomes a difficult affairs trying to decipher why the supernatural chooses certain persons as vessels to transmit crucial messages. Well, one may argue that I have no evidence germane enough to drag the supernatural into this; but dreams in themselves are a metaphysical spontaneity that will come when it will. So let it be with the dreams unveiled in “The Speaker’s Funeral; behold the ides of March.” The article itself fills with visualizations resulting from a dream I have had depicting a conspiracy to undermine the office of the first branch of government. The classic plot, which revealed the double-dealings of the president, sought to impeach the Speaker in manners and forms that run diametrical to ethics that governed global democracies. Quite objectively, I believe anyone, including the Speaker, should be impeach in the face of the evidence of a breach of the constitution. However, when taxpayers money are thrown around as bribes in order to ‘peddle influence’ for the removal of someone we hate, it’s no longer a matter of laws but an issue of unwarranted vindictiveness in a personal vendetta. What a tragic approach in our quests to nurture democracy!

 

Though many quacks have become queasy over a dream told, I will only have something to apologize for if the prophecies fail to match up to the facts unfolding under our current political uncertainties. Unfortunately for my critics, apologies will never come and the contravening cloudbursts must be halted to allow for a full visitation of recent events opening up at the Legislature that keeps running on vacation.

 

Firstly, it has just been reported that someone from the dons executive club, have found proxies in the house and the new-found proxies are now dishing out taxpayers money as bribes to bring down the Speaker in one last blow comparable to the bulldozer’s hit that brought down the monument of George Weah. And as unveiled in my dream, at least one of the culprits mentioned stands in the middle of the bribery scandal!

 

Secondly, and most interestingly, more than “US$200,000.00”of suspected taxpayer’s sweat-money has already been dished out as ‘baits and bribes’ and the unprincipled ones have become partakers of a filthy feast of “US$5,000.00” per person! on the popular talk-show ‘I beg to differ’ held last night on Star Radio, a Law Maker disclosed that “The five thousand US dollars bribe money were fresh and clean as though never being used, piled in bills of hundred, hundred…”

 

Besides, “events of the recent past keep magnetizing President Sirleaf towards the middle of the conspiracy”, said another Lawmaker. And he cited the Dusty Wolokolie proxy bribery campaign employed at the Accra parliamentary workshop designed to prevent Snowe’s ascendance, as a case in point. All these cabals, coupled with the most recent Ellen-Sirleaf media bribery scandal, for which the Forum for the Establishment of a War Crimes Court will be peacefully demonstrating on January 16, send out unequivocal signals that our democracy has suffered drastic incursions at the hands of the Executive branch.

 

Subsequently, the unfolding chain of events clearly establish new ways and means through which our incumbent power moguls intend to soar high upon the clouds of corruption and bad governance  behind the façade of competence, integrity and good human rights record. However, if these moguls and elites are to triumph in their subtleties, they will need a House Speaker in the order of Richard Henries. This may turn out to be the strongest motivations behind the vendetta. Unfortunately, a cross-section of the unsuspecting zealots ganging behind the plot, themselves unaware of the true motives, cannot prevent the dupe, either way. Nevertheless, the alleged giver of the bribe money may herself be disappointed; in any game, anyone can get duped, especially in the game of illegitimacy.

 

By this time, the well-armed SSS guards that had followed me through the streets got scared off by the approaching flock of youthful singers who were celebrating their surprises to still be alive in the aftermath of a highly controversial electoral process a year ago. And I was even the more grateful to God that I was still breathing, a miracle that pushed me on my knees, incessantly appreciating good heavenly graces.

 

The actor is Mulbah K. Morlu, Jr. and can be reached at godsprince2001@yahoo.com. Cell: 00231-77-268-265. He resides in Sinkor, Monrovia-Liberia and Teshie Nungua Estates, Accra-Ghana and is Chairman of the Forum for the Establishment of a war Crimes Court in Liberia.