An Opinion by Robert Moncio Kpadeh
A few days ago the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) designated three Liberian government officials Nathaniel McGill, Sayma Syrenius Cephus, and Bill Twehway for their alleged involvement in rampant public corruption in Liberia, a legendary decision that has inflicted untold colossal damage to the regime nationally and internationally. The sanction of the three officials is under Executive Order (E.O.) 13818, which draws its legitimacy from the Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act that aggressively targets perpetrators of serious human rights abuse and corruption around the world.
A day after the United States government announced the sanction of the three top brass, Mr. George Weah suspended the officials in a statement that said “the suspension is to allow them to face investigation”, but the statement, however, failed to say who will conduct the investigation and give no timeline for such investigation, lingering more questions than answers.
Liberians across the divide are in no small way stunned and disillusioned that instead of taking a much more rigid action against the sanctioned officials to demonstrate his government’s disapproval or zero tolerance for corruption, Weah would choose to filibuster a grave matter in the name of shielding his friends, even though at the detriment of his government.
Weah’s stonewall posture on the issue of the sanction especially involving his Presidential Affairs Minister reveals a lot about his cognition and his leadership inadequacies.
Political pundits and foreign relations analysts too are pondering why Weah would elect to palliate a matter with far-reaching grave implications for his government.
Here are questions some are asking; Does the regime understand the dire implications of these sanctions? Do they know the danger that looms over them? Do they realize that these sanctions set the path and create the conditions that will eventually plunge the regime into extinction if cautious approaches are not taken with proportional and compelling emphasis?
“Only people suffering from chronic psychosis will soft-pedal the gravity of these biting and perilous U.S. sanctions”, a lecturer of International Relations at the IBB School of International Relations, name withheld, stated last evening.
Many are of the viewpoint that Weah and enablers are downplaying the sanction because Liberians aren’t responding to it as they should.
Rather than expressing dread, fury, and dare over the exposure of how the treasury of the country is being dreadfully looted by a few gluttons at the helm of power, Liberians are on Social Media cracking comic jokes and laughing about the sanctions.
At the same time, the gutless, fractured, and ineffectual opposition, as usual, is intellectualizing and romanticizing yet again a grave issue instead of staging fierce protestations in resistance to rampant corruption and misrule.
Millions of public funds have been stolen by a few greedy and wicked men, while the struggling deprived citizenry grapples with extreme hunger daily, poor healthcare, substandard education, and severe economic hardship, an appalling and disgusting national condition that certainly necessitates public outrage and resistance, which must be led by the opposition community.
Sadly, the opposition is doing what it is best known for, which is issuing faint-worded press statements, as though the deadly crooks at the helm care about the feeble press statements they often issue. The opposition has issued press statements for five years and counting, and Mr. George Weah remains unbothered and hell-bent on the same trajectory of misrule and other idiosyncratic tendencies with which he rules the country, and yet the opposition keeps issuing bundles of press statements and except change to happen.
Did Liberians listen to Amb. McCarthy’s admonishment to victims of rampant corruption in Liberia? What more must the Americans say and do for us? The Americans and Europeans can’t do for us what we ought to do for ourselves. Let those who seek power in Liberia be bold, courageous, daring, fearless, and patriotic enough should they truly desire power.
Power doesn’t come on Silver Platter and neither does freedom come free. They all come with a price and if we are not ready and willing to pay the ultimate price so be our fate.
We welcome the U.S. Sanctions and we are profoundly pleased that more biting sanctions are pending. I am especially pleased that the Americans will act decisively on the blatant plundering, abusing, misusing, diverting, and pillaging of the National Road Fund by Samuel D. Tweah and Boniface Satu. I am thankful that the Americans received my letter on the issue of the Road Fund. We shall continue to stand for our country and people, no matter what.
