A Patriot’s Diary with Ekena Wesley
Amid the aura of troubling silence, the people seem withered. But they sought to turn on the somewhat nonchalance of the opposition. Could the opposition do anything other than what they have been doing? There is a government in power. Liberians elected a new corps of leaders owing to some kind of Unity Party fatigue.
It was the people’s call at the ballot box. They did what they thought was right but perhaps not prudent. But the people, in their desperation, disenchantment and frustration seem to lay blame at the doorsteps of the opposition. There was a June 7′ and then January 22′ organized by the Council of Patriots (COPs) led by fierce government critic, Henry Costa.
The people have a right to be hopeless! Yes! The government miserably failed them! The madness called “Change for Hope” has become even more hopeless though! They have been panting for a reassuring voice. A fierce cum unwavering voice to herald their plight for all the compelling reasons. They have outrightly condemned opposition politicians for doing little or nothing. We can all understand where they are coming from in the midst of uncertainty.
The last time we heard and listened to militantly fiery and firebrand radical utterances was in the mid and late 70s as leaders of the Progressive Alliance of Liberia (PAL) and the Movement for Justice in Africa (MOJA) assembled the masses in largely slum-dominated communities to embark on political sensitization and awareness-creation. Those mass gatherings paid off. The consciousness of the masses was ignited. The masses became illuminated about their rights and civil liberties.
They were enlightened about the obligations of the government to the people. The masses became schooled about massive and widespread corruption that was occasioning the True Whig Party’s government. They were lectured about the culture of nepotism, cronyism, and ineptitude.
Nearly four decades on, an avid student of one of the pro-democracy ideological blocs at the time had seemingly resurfaced. Comrade Lewis G. Brown, a former student leader of the UL-based Student Integration Movement (SIM) has uncharacteristically emerged out of valor to challenge the status quo. Lewis Brown, the late Manbutu Nyenpan, Augustine Nyensuah, Teah FarCarthy, et al are all from the SIM stock.
But Lewis Brown’s reemergence has been greeted in a politically grotesque fashion. What could that be? The usual ‘names-calling’ psychic! His critics have chosen to revisit his closet, and his association with former warlord and elected president, Charles Taylor. What could we say about Liberians who did not belong to any faction but wanted the late President Samuel Kanyon Doe out of the way? Whatever Lewis Brown’s critics think, it is all politics. Lewis is an avid student of Harry Truman: “If you don’t like heat, stay out of the kitchen.”
Lewis G. Brown’s fiery press conference on Friday, December 2, 2022, was at the behest of the rebranded Collaborating Political Parties (CPP). The proposed December 17′ rally is fundamentally not different from June 7′ 2019 cum January 22′ 2020 respectively. The laundry list as enumerated by Lewis Brown during the press conference was similarly cataloged by the Council of Patriots during their protest in the Liberian capital. But the Liberian people have become further bedeviled by the trappings of bad governance, massive looting, cluelessness, and sheer incompetence as it were.
The CPP has made the necessary representation to ensure its rally goes on unhindered. Lewis Brown displayed invoices and receipts from the Government of Liberia through the Ministry of Youth & Sports for use outside of the Samuel Kanyon Doe Sports Complex for the planned December 17, 2022 rally. He also said the CPP communicated with the Ministry of Justice as to its would-be rally.
The December 17′ rebranded CPP-sponsored rally, dubbed “We’re TIYAH! ‘WE ARE TIRED SUFFERING’ “We are tired suffering is a cry for President George Manneh Weah and his administration to be more accountable and stop being wasteful, deceptive, and corrupt.” the organizers of the rally think President George Weah and his government have adopted a ‘don’t care attitude amid hardship and societal ills confronting the masses.
Comrade Lewis Brown did not mince his words at the press conference. With direct reference to Monrovia City Mayor, Jefferson Koijee, who he squarely blamed for organizing pro-government vigilantes against militants of the Student Unification Party (SUP) during the July 26′ Independence Day celebration, Lewis Brown vehemently dared the Mayor of Monrovia whatsoever to stand in the way of the planned rally.
Is it the same Koijee who sought to suggest that the Americans cannot intimidate the CDC-led government by imposing sanctions on senior government officials? Like his former boss and mentor, Chuckie Taylor, Jeff Koijee thrives on lawlessness. This time he has met a match. Lewis Brown has issued a caveat – “I dare Koijee!” Surely, enough is enough! Why should a bunch of mad men led by Koijee continue to parade the city consumed by filth and mounting rubbish that he cannot clean up but would rather take on a vigilante task?
If Koijee and his band of thieves are doing just fine, Liberians are experiencing undue hardships at the hands of a rogue regime. The rally seeks to enable the people to voice their frustration and disquiet that the country is dogged by bad governance. While piles of dirt and stench take over Monrovia, a faceless Monrovia is seen visiting the Borough of New Kru Town – not on a clean-up campaign but to show the strength of banditry and lawlessness in the midst of extreme poverty.
Will the December 17’ rally fold? The events and circumstances of the coming days will surely manifest the plausibility or possibility. Why shouldn’t the CDC tolerate protest – when it formed the beam of their discomfort while in opposition? If it was their right to protest yesterday why shouldn’t others exercise a similar constitutional prerogative as it were?
Lewis Brown’s sainthood adoratipn by Ekena Wesley is the equivalent of an Adolf Hitler attaining to democracy!
This mass murderer of a Lewis Brown is one of the reasons why Liberia has never thrived since the infamous NPLF era when at the behest of Lewis Brown heyday women, children and the ederly, were sytematically slaughtered at the esclatory vamperism of the system Lewis Brown was a beneficiary!
Sycophancy in contempory Liberian politics is the growing gimmicks that an Ekena Wesley extols a mass murderer for political relevance!