MONROVIA – The political leader of the All Liberian Party (ALP), business mogul cum politician, Benoni Wilfred Urey, has lamented ill-treatments meted out against him and members of the ALP allegedly by the former ruling Unity Party of ex-Vice President Joseph N. Boakai.
Urey, who was an avowed ally of Boakai and the UP, until a rift over the Unity Party’s vice standard bearer pick recently ensued, stated in a recent meeting with members of the ALP that his party no longer supports the former ruling Unity Party.
He averred that the reason for the ALP severing ties with the UP is based upon how the Unity Party treated the All Liberian Party, among others citing the UP’s alleged influencing of the defection of some members of his party to the former ruling party.
“Almost four of our candidates, they took them away from us – based on the fact that they are from the same tribe, from the same county, they took them from us. They used tribal pressure to force the people to leave our party,” Urey lamented.
He continued: “We spent out time, our energy, our resources for six years, and one or two legislative seats, you fight us, you take it away. You take away our candidates that we had nurtured and made strong over the years with tribal thing, and you put it behind them and you forced them to join your party.”
Urey, who claims that for six years, he and the ALP used time, energy and resources to support the UP and former VP Boakai’s presidential ambition, is of the belief that predicated upon the current ill-treatments allegedly from the UP, the former ruling party would have treated members of the ALP as dogs in the event it won the presidential election slated for later this year on 10 October.
“You know, there is a common saying, if on Christmas Eve, how the Eve goes, you will know how the Christmas will be. God is a wonderful God. He showed us these people now – if we had gone through these elections and they would have won, they would have treated us like dogs,” the ALP political leader emphasized.
Sounding disappointed and angry, Urey added: “People we worked with for six years, were bad enough to go and try and destroy us as a party. But we’ll let them know during this election that we’re a force to reckon with.
He seized the opportunity to debunk recent media reports that he was soliciting money to pledge support for incumbent President George Weah and the ruling CDC, attributing such reports which he termed as lies, to allegedly being the handiwork of folks within the Unity Party.
“They’re all over Facebook fabricating all kinds of lies. The last one was that we were at Boulevard Hotel with Government officials,” he stated, adding, “Man like me, Benoni Urey in Liberia will sit to Boulevard Hotel and people will bring lil money to him when I can go to George Weah House any hour to tell them to go tell him I’m there [and] he will come? If I call him and tell him President come see me I want to see you, he will come. That’s my younger brother. I have to go to Boulevard Hotel?”
Urey, who feels used and betrayed by Boakai and the UP, vowed never again to allow himself nor the ALP to ever be treated in such a manner.
“I want the world to know that we’re not stupid, and we will never be used that way again,” Urey noted.
He told the ALP partisans and supporters present at the meeting that if they make a decision to return to the UP, they are free to go, but as for him, he would no longer support Joe Boakai and the Unity Party for the 2023 elections.
“If y’all decide y’all will go back to Unity Party, I’m not going, y’all can go. But, anywhere else the party decides we’re going, we are going and we are going there with force,” Urey said, amid thunderous applause from those attending the meeting.
