Monrovia – “When I see a person coming, and read them to know if they have resources on them, I will raise the song that says: ‘Can you see your blessing coming?’
Report by Mae Azango [email protected]
Then my boys would reply: ‘I see it coming…’, then I will raise the chorus: ‘lift him up higher, lift him up higher’, and right away I will lift you in the air and shake you for everything in your pocket to drop.
When I knock you down to the ground, we charge you for the remaining belongings that did not drop out.” – Williams R. Wilson, former combatant and gang leader
Monrovia – For almost a decade Williams R. Wilson alias Rufus Kokolati carried guns and bullets, defending the ideology of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL). When the NPFL was defunct, he then led a dreadfully notorious gang in the commercial district of Redlight, Paynesville dubbed by many as ‘Lift him up higher’ gang.
The gang, in the early 2000s victimized hundreds, many losing valuables in cash and properties.
As a combatant, the infamous Kokolate had a merciless killer instinct and when he led the gang of robbers after the exile of former President Charles Taylor, his followers rained havoc and terror in most of Paynesville City.
Now Wilson is a ‘Man of God’ and a professional mason, who mode blocks out of clay and also teaching several others the craft.
“I started robbing people after Charles Taylor left and there was no means of survival, so I turn to the street for survival and I was the head of the gang called: ‘Lift him up higher in Red light,’ he recalls during an interview with FrontPageAfrica.
He continued: “When I see a person coming, and read them to know if they have resources on them, I will raise the song that says: ‘Can you see your blessing coming?’ Then my boys would reply: ‘
I see it coming…’, then I will raise the chorus: ‘lift him up higher, lift him up higher’, and right away I will lift you in the air and shake you for everything in your pocket to drop. When I knock you down to the ground, we charge you for the remaining belongings that did not drop out.”
Williams joined the NPFL in Cape Palmas, Mary Land County, served Taylor until the latter departure from country in 2003 due to international pressure as rebel forces gained control of the Monrovia.
Homeless and jobless, Wilson and many other ex-combatants later lived in the Palm Grove Cemetery in central Monrovia (Center Street grave yard) where they robbed pedestrians and fed on drugs.
His life changed in 2007 when he met notorious ex-combatant ‘Butt naked’ now evangelist Joshua Milton Blayee at the Barclay Training Center (BTC barrack).
Wilson recalls: “My boys came to tell me [and said] a man of God was there to talk to us, so when I saw him, I told my boys: ‘what could a man like General Butt Necked, who also fought the war and killed people like us have to say to us’. So, I started pushing him away from the barrack and he left.
“The following day, when Evangelist Blayee came back, he said some words to us that touched me, he said: ‘I was just like you, but if you see me today a change man, you too can be like me through the help of God.’ Twenty people raised their hands to give their life to Christ, and I raised my hands and when my boys saw me doing so, they also put up their hands, this is how I changed.”
Wilson said Evangelist Blayee accompanied him and several of his gangs to the Bethel Cathedral but their presence there was not met too kindly due to the stench from their body odors. He said they had not taken shower for over two months.
And when Blayee introduced them, the congregation prayed for them and raised an offering of over 300,000 LD for them.
And at the end of the church service, his friends said Evangelist Blayee should share the money among them, but he decided to rent a house to start their rehabilitation process.
“When I was leaving the drugs, I used to go to the toilet more than ten times a day, I used to feel so bad and helpless but I went through it,” he said.
“Bethel Cathedral started supporting us under a program called ‘God Bless Liberia’ and UNMIL came to our aid and six of us attended a bible school and graduated and they also send us to a vocational school in Congo Town.”
Wilson learned carpentry and masonry and now makes bricks with clay that can be used to build a house without the use cement.
“I never knew that I could have ever owned a family when I was in the streets but now I have a wife and two children that I am catering to from my building trade,” said.
The former gang leader was proud to show his beautifully built home in Mount Barclay. Explaining his handy work, he illustrates how each brick locks inside the other, without using cement to hold them together.
The house was built with visible brown clay bricks on both sides. At the front of the building, is a porch with concrete veranda held by three white poles with two ark-like blue and white window frames banners overlooking the porch.
It was here many others lived during their rehabilitation process before getting back into the wider society as useful citizens.
About 50 meters away from Wilson’s home, stands a construction site with two unfinished houses. Sweaty workers tucked wet cement on the rough wall while carpenters nailed the zincs on the roof.
Saah Stephens, one of the carpenters, had taken a break to recall how he was trapped into being a child soldier.
“I was 15 years old and in the fourth grade and dressed in my school uniform at Assembly of God Mission Central High School in Foya Lofa County, when I and my friends were arrested in 2002,” said Stephens.
“We were seven students taken to the Sierra Leone Border by the soldiers of Taylor to fight because they were looking for man power to fight.”
Stephens was only taught to dismantle and reassemble a raffle, and was deemed readied and sent to the war front.
“We were fighting until we came to 72nd barrack in Monrovia, and after Taylor left the Country, and there was nothing to do,” he said. “I started working for my friend Wilson, who was the head of ‘lift him higher gang’.”
Stephens was one of those motivated by Wilson to go through the rehabilitation process after they were accepted into the Journey Against Violence (JAV) project run by Evangelist Blayee.
“Wilson trained us how to mode blocks and do building and construction. I used to smoked drugs, but now I am a change man since I joined JAV in 2008 and working for ourselves and making our own money. I am happy to be making my own money and know how to spend it.”
Much credit goes to Evangelist Blayee for initiating Wilson’s transformation and reintegration in the society, although he too, has a horrific past.
The name General Butt Naked still echoes despite his new identity and attributes. For those who lived through the April 6 fracas, ‘Butt Naked’ was, for some, villainous for his starring role in thwarting the arrest of late Roosevelt Johnson, then leader of the ULIMO J.
Blayee, who said he inherited the name ‘General Butt naked’ because he danced naked when he performed his mystics to protect his kinsmen during the war, is now a famous preacher.
He is also president of the End Time Training Evangelism Ministry, implementing the ‘Journey against Violence’ program.
“The project discourages violence, it got the name because it speaks of our past violence in the war and how we are trying to prevent ourselves from going back to violence, and finding a way forward in stopping violence,” he said of the project, adding it targets ex-rebels and children hooked on drugs living on the streets and in ghettos.
“As the disarmament project did not work for many ex-fighters who went back to the streets to take drugs and rob people as a way of life,” he said.
Since 2007, he has helped 516 persons got off the street, cleaned them up, rehabilitated them and provided them skill training to help them reintegrate in the society.
“If I was responsible for just a child getting hooked unto drugs and becoming a fighter when I was General Butt Naked, it means I am also responsible for thousands of other children who got into drugs, because we are all connected somehow,” he said of significance of his project.
“So I feel responsible for turning many Liberian children into drug infested criminals, because I contributed in making them who they are when I led them through the war.”
He continued: “When we recruit these guys and they start doing their own businesses, they become securities for the community, because these boys know all of the criminals from the ghettos, because they were once part of them, so the criminals do not come around here because they know their friends would recognize them.
“We recruit these guys according to fractions they fought in. Since NPFL had more ex combatants, so we take 40 percent NPFL from different ghettoes and since we all fought, we know one another.”
He said delinquent youth, who are not ex-combatants, are also target beneficiaries of the program, while the ex-combatants are accepted into the program on a percentage basis.
He said 30 percent are ex-NPFL, 20 percent ex-ULIMO, 20 percent ex- LPC, 20 percent ex-MODEL and LURD and 10 percent non-fighters.
“We had some who went back into the street because we did not have enough equipment and some of the weak minded ones who did not have the will power to overcome and leave the streets, went back,” he said.