MONROVIA – Emmanuel Polay Nyan, Chairman on Propaganda of the Vanguard Student Unification Party (SUP), has launched a scathing critique of Liberia’s two dominant political parties, the Unity Party (UP) and the Congress for Democratic Change (CDC), accusing them of deliberately using ignorance and poverty as tools to manipulate the masses for political gain.
In a commentary titled “Ignorance: The Weapon in the Hands of Liberia’s Two Leading Political Establishments,” Nyan described Liberian politics as a tragic performance, stripped of ideas and vision. “Politics, by its true meaning, is supposed to be a contest of ideas, a platform where superior knowledge and vision for a nation’s progress are tested.” But in Liberia, the oldest republic in West Africa, politics has become nothing more than a stage for dramatic performances,” Nyan said.
He argued that since the 2005 elections, the nation has been trapped in a political tug of war between two arrogant forces, one representing the old establishment in the Unity Party and the other, a so-called grassroots movement under the CDC, which he labeled as “ideologically bankrupt.” According to Nyan, both parties have spent two decades fighting for control without any clear vision to transform the lives of ordinary Liberians.
“In this endless battle for power, the true victims remain the masses, the ordinary people, who continue to thirst for a better life and struggle daily for dignity,” he stated. Nyan asserted that the strategy of Liberia’s political elite has always been to keep the people poor and uneducated so they can be exploited for political ends. “The major strategy of these political cartels has always been the same, to keep the people uneducated, poor, and dependent so they can be easily exploited as instruments for political power and personal glory, glory for Mr. Boakai and Mr. Weah, while the nation bleeds,” he said.
The student leader accused both the Unity Party and the CDC of feeding off the suffering of Liberians by maintaining systems that perpetuate poverty, ignorance, and disease. “While progressive voices push for genuine transformation, the CDC and UP continue their noisy and meaningless political theatrics, keeping the people distracted from the real issues of poverty, ignorance, hunger, and disease, all conditions they helped create and continue to benefit from,” Nyan noted.
He further argued that neither of the two parties has demonstrated genuine leadership. “Both parties have had the opportunity to prove their worth. “Yet, each time, they return to their old playbook, manipulating the people’s ignorance, feeding on their suffering, and circling them in endless cycles of deception and poverty,” he lamented.
According to Nyan, the CDC left behind “a wrecked economy, massive corruption, and empty promises,” while the Unity Party, under President Joseph Boakai, is already “walking the same tired path” and will soon justify its own failure to deliver on its promises.
As he reflected on the way forward, Nyan called for a national awakening driven by education and civic consciousness. “Our responsibility, the duty of the conscious few, is to awaken the people. With the little resources we have, we must educate the masses. Because only through mass education can we break the chains of political slavery, ignorance, and deliberate neglect that these two self-serving establishments have used to keep Liberia underdeveloped,” he said.
He concluded by reaffirming the SUP’s long-standing commitment to social justice and mental liberation. “The struggle continues not for the glory of any politician, but for the liberation of the Liberian mind,” Nyan declared.
