An Opinion By Grace RK Guar
Every six years, Liberians put their faith in either the CDC or UP parties in hopes that our love will be reciprocated. Yet every six years the brutalization by one of the parties continues. This time it is both parties as CDC controls roughly one third of the Senate and the CDC Speaker of the House, Fonati Koffa, has already started manipulating the budget and rewarding his political friends. We know what will happen next; in five years, both parties will be apologizing and promising they will do better next time. They will say “we may be bad, but the other one is worse” or “we stole but we gave some back to the community”. Their surrogates will go on Spoon TV or other media that claim to be neutral and make excuses or point out where the other party stole more than their own party. They will pledge to build roads and increase agricultural development. They will pledge to be “Pro Poor” or promise to “Rescue” us. Yet, when they take power, the stealing will begin on inauguration day. The choice between the UP and CDC is no better than the choice between being raped or beaten.
It is hard to break away from an abusive relationship, because the abusers are cunning. They make us believe that they love us, but they only show that love every six years before each election. Afterwards, they disappear and court their foreign lovers who provide them with riches in return for our leaders’ promise to give away Liberia’s most precious assets. When honest foreign investors try bringing real development and business to Liberia, things that will help the average Liberian, they chase them away in lieu of those that will pay our abusers hefty sums in return for free reign on our precious gold, diamonds iron ore, forests, fertile land and fisheries. Recently, President Boakai returned from China touting how he negotiated for $120M US for Liberia, but $100M is a loan that just adds to the $3B of debt that Liberia already cannot afford to pay back. What will China and other countries that have given us loans that can’t be paid back want in return? Who will be in charge of doling those funds out? Who will be accountable for implementing these funds for good use to the Liberian people? This money will almost assuredly disappear into the hands of government officials and their families just as they did under the previous UP and CDC Administrations and in return, these countries we owe will be allowed to have their way with Liberia’s natural resources.
The Boakai Administration and UP are not in on this alone. We have one of the most corrupt legislative bodies in the world who will do their own pilfering. One out of every six of our Senators has been sanctioned by the United States for corruption. Nathaniel McGill (CDC), Bill Twehway (CDC), Prince Johnson (MDR but teamed with UP, then CDC, then UP as they ascended to the presidency), Albert Chie (CDC) and Emmanuel Nuquay (former member of UP and served in the Weah Administration) have all been sanctioned under the International Magnitsky Act for corruption. Are these the people we expect to do the right thing for the Liberian People, when they have only served themselves in the past? The few thousand dollars they throw to their constituents are mere scraps compared to the millions they are feasting on themselves. The speaker of the House, Fonati Koffa (CDC) is a convicted felon in the United States and spent 2 ½ years in a U.S. prison for embezzlement, yet we have entrusted our country’s entire budget to him. The result of our trust in a convicted felon is that we have already had numerous irregularities in our budget, yet when things pointed to him, he silenced the media with money.
There were many choices for President in the last election cycle. Two of the worst made it to the runoff, only because they belonged to the CDC and UP. They had no real qualifications; they wouldn’t debate or discuss policies. There were at least 2-3 viable candidates with Liberia first on their agendas and were serious about their pledge, but they were drowned out by the noise and backroom deals of those who were intent on plundering Liberia for their own good. Like in any abusive relationship, your abuser will try to isolate you from those who would counsel you to leave or remind you that you are worthy of a better partnership. We do not know who will be in the race in 2029, but we can no longer listen to the so-called neutral voices that push us to CDC or UP. We must drown out those voices that would tell you that anyone in the UP or CDC is good for this country; That they care about the average Liberian. We don’t have to wonder if they are bad for us, for our country; they have proven they are unworthy of our love time and time again. Anyone who does not condemn these parties in the next election cycle is in the pocket of one or the other party. No sane person would think that electing anyone from the UP or CDC after what we have experienced in the past 20 years is going to help the average Liberian.
Liberians are forgiving people. We tend to believe someone when they say they love us. However, there comes a time when one must admit when they have been fooled. There is no shame in this. We were fooled because we trusted, because we loved our fellow tribesman, or our county neighbor. Now, we must admit that we have given UP and CDC the benefit of the doubt for too long. We have seen qualified, experienced and educated people who love this country vie for office, but we allowed our abusers to convince us that those good people were the liars, that they would steal even though they had no history of stealing like our abusers.
It is time to love ourselves, love our children, and put the good of the Liberian people first. Our abusers have mistreated us for too long. Our country, our day to day life is no better than it was 20 years ago. Meanwhile other countries who have broken from their oppressors are thriving or beginning to thrive. They are no smarter than us, they are certainly no better than us, but they have come together and stood up to their abusers, their oppressors and replaced them with those who have a true vision of a better country and who followed through with their promises. Those leaders are far from perfect, but they know that the people are not to be played with and that they will be replaced if the people are unhappy. We can no longer forgive politicians who have treated us as less than dirt. We can no longer accept their excuses; we can no longer tolerate their infidelity and their abuse. We have five years to break away and start a better life for ourselves and our families, but we have to start today.
