A Patriot’s Diary
With Ekena Nyankun Juagbe-Droh Wesley
The year, 2023, was greeted, or as it were, eclipsed with a pseudo ploy that died a natural death on arrival. What the Weah-led government has failed to appreciate historically is that – now incarcerated former President Charles Ghankay Taylor succeeded in his effectively-managed propaganda warfare because he understood the arts and craft of the game. Propaganda is a tool anchored on make-believe and must be aggressively sustained by actors who clearly understand the science and arts.
Early this year, Liberians awoke to the dawn of a grotesque quasi-government incensed publicity stunt. A huge press conference was organized by the Liberia National Police (LNP) which has a history of unsolved and inconclusive investigations of all manners of petty crimes and major murders.
Should we have reasons to believe the LNP our foreign partners invested so hugely to train and equip cannot unravel simple investigation? There are capable people within the LNP but the entity is inundated with bootlicking and cronyism that is undermining professionalism and productivity.
Ironically, the same Freeport that witnessed an undetected passage of a container load of cocaine with a street value worth $100 million, miraculously busted a huge cache of arms and ammunition. Lest we forget, our security forces have a duty to protect and safeguard the fragile peace we continue to enjoy in the small West African nation.
Busting a dastardly security threat is good for our sanity though. More so, we experience threats to our national security daily amid a marooning band of Zogos snatching phones in broad daylight thereby rendering the streets and communities unsafe for the citizenry.
How can we expect the police to effectively fight crimes when the Legislature persistently ignores the daunting task the police are confronted with and has failed to adequately resource the police budgetary-wise – year after year? In the last five years, the police have become reduced to a partisan organization rather than a force responsible to protect all and sundry.
The police continue to suffer from a serious professional and leadership deficit as it were. And it is sickening – to say the least. Under the CDC, we cannot expect a magic formula, folks.
When Police Inspector General, Patrick Sudue was programmed to become the face of a useless publicity stunt, little did he realize that Liberians have become so fatigued about continued government-sponsored shenanigans.
The press conference was clumsily organized. Journalists attending the news conference must have been teleguided. Such a preposterous press conference should have provided the opportunity to ask all the hard and tough questions. As such, journalists would resort to the doctrine of “The Leading Question Methodology.”
Ever since that fake publicity fiasco, we are yet to hear from the Liberia National Police (LNP). When we sought to unravel the missing links, deconstruct the jigsaw and connect the dots in our last commentary amid the so-called confiscated arms and ammunition, we theorized and dissected Police Inspector, Patrick Sudue and his elder brother, Lawal Sudue’s surprise yet coincidental visit to Minnesota, which later took the Inspector General to Texas, the origin of the allegedly shipped arms cache.
We reckoned that Lawah Sudue, an Israeli-trained counter-terrorist tactician and Head of the Freeport security was found wanting when a container load of cocaine valued at $100 million survived through the cracks at the port – where the surprise container of arms and ammunition was discovered and confiscated. Something undoubtedly seems not to be right!
Amid the foiled and unnecessary security alert to instill fear in an election year, those who seek to hold onto power by any means necessary have got to have a second thought. Our international partners have repeatedly said: “We are committed to investing in the 2023 general and presidential elections but insist on free, fair, peaceful, orderly, and transparent elections.”
We want to borrow from the late Alhaji G.V. Kromah, who following a visit to Washington in 1984 said: “The people of Liberia will not accept anything short of free, fair, and democratic elections that correlate with the popular will of the people. They will resist anything next to Americo-Liberianistic, Congualistic, socialistic, communistic, or tribalistic!”
President George Weah will unarguably be on the ballot! He was handed power following a process characterized as free and fair. Graciously accepting the outcome and popular will of the Liberian people will be his best farewell contribution to our nascent democracy after all. NOBODY IS STUPID HERE!!
