Monrovia – Siatta Fofana, 23, is now relieved as she continues her apprenticeship at a small tailoring shop located in the heart of the infamous Turtle Base community.
Report by Alpha Daffae Senkpeni, Al-Varney Rogers and Mae Azango-[email protected]
“I am in the community and there is nobody to feed me, and I do not have anywhere to sleep, so if I commit a crime, they will put me in jail, and the government will be responsible to feed me.”
One Zogo aliased Sky Power in the God Bless You community around Pan-African Plaza in Monrovia
While attending training for the past several months, Fofana lived in despair until the Liberian National Police raided the base; dismantling makeshift structures, ghettos and arresting alleged drug addicts and criminals.
The notorious Turtle Base in the Red-Light commercial district of Paynesville City has been a hub for crimes, with drug addicts leaving many pedestrians, commuters and shoppers victimized over the years.
The once infamous Turtle Base is still visible. The debris of a its makeshift structures is still piled up on the site, while the Liberian National Police constructs a depot to prevent criminals and drug users now widely referred to as “Zogos” from resettling in the area.
“Everyday I’m seeing it, they (Police) are taking them (Zogos) from here,” Siatta said with relief as she looked through a bag half full with threads of different colors.
“I’m very, very happy and want to tell the government thanks for that.”
A week ago, new Police Inspector General Gregory Coleman said the operation would create a safe environment to foster economic growth and development.
“You have to make the people and the investors comfortable to be able to move to any parts of the country,” Coleman said in an interview with FrontPage Africa in late September.
Coleman’s comments epitomize what the Police are doing in chasing away untidy, suspected drug users who were just barely a month ago were the commonest feature on the streets of Paynesville, Monrovia and their environs.
Residents and petty traders alike are celebrating success of the Police’s operation on Turtle Base and its proximity.
Joseph Jallah operates a mineral water factor just in the heart of Turtle base. He remembers the menace from the thugs over the years when he had to cage the building housing the water factor in a wire fence to prevent burglary.
Jallah is committed to buttressing Police’s work in preventing Zogos from returning but thinks rehabilitating Zogos will have a long term impact than just raiding them off the streets.
“The question is,” Jallah said. “What’s the next plan the government has?” Jallah asked as he moved his eyes away from papers scattered on a table tucked in small room he’s turned into an office.
“You see the problem, my brother,” he said calmly.”
“It is not just taking them from here but when you take them from here, you should have a plan or a program for them.”
Jallah’s argument supports that of the head of a grassroots youth group – Association of Progressive Youth of Liberia – Rueben Logan, who also describes the situation as an emergency.
“The APYL is calling on all citizens of Liberia to see reason to add their voices to ours and ask government of Liberia, international partners, philanthropist, churches and individuals to come to the emergency aid of our brothers and sisters who are victims of hardened substances and the use of illicit drugs,” Logan had said to FrontPage Africa in an exclusive interview a week ago.
He too is puzzled by the means of fetching a sustainable solution to rehabilitate the ‘Zogos’.
“The question is: After burning down ghettos, where is the Substance abuse rehabilitation and treatment center?”
Meanwhile, outside Jallah’s mineral water factor were old mini buses and taxis parked in cues on an open field – the notorious Turtle base without ghettos and criminals.
It was another cloudy but very busy day for commuters and drivers, but passengers heading to the parking station were not jittery of an onrushing thief.
Five drivers sat under a makeshift shelter away from the vehicles.
About a stone throw away from them, the construction of a Police depot continues, a handful of uniformed Police officers pacing around, maybe on the lookout for an obstinate Zogo.
The drivers too have had their fair share of harassment from the thugs. Many of them expect increase in passengers now that the Zogos have been raided.
Zobon Glaybor laments his five-year experience in the midst of Zogos, and recalls how passengers were often threatened and terrified by those derelicts and only few could dare.
“These guys were complete problem for us here,” Glaybor recalls, knocking the old stick galvanizing the makeshift kitchen as dust spill from the rusty roof sheeting. “With our support as drivers, we think the Police will help to make things well,” he adds.
“For me I blame the weak law on drugs,” interrupted a gray hair man who appears to be in his mid 50s. “Drug addiction has caused more social problem in this country, so I think it is the weak law, because the government law against drug in this country is so weak.”
The gray hair man later identified himself as Boakai Sakou Kanneh as he continued to vaunt about his over 20 years of being a commercial driver surviving many incidents of crimes and violence.
Under the makeshift kitchen, there were more chattering about the absence of the Zogos in the area and how it could attract customers to the area.
Fast food seller Bendu says the diminishing rate of crime and violence will allow her sell more noodles and beans.
“I’m happy!” she shouts, “because we are free.”
Benjamin Willie enters the conversation with ferocity, recounting the setbacks the Zogos-cum-criminals had caused him.
Two years ago, Willie owned a mechanic garage in the area but was later constrained to shut it down due to increasing crime rate.
He thinks being a vigilante to support the Police effort in raiding criminals and drug addicts from the community will ensure the reopens his garage.
“The work we are doing now, we will not get tired,” he said enthusiastically.
“We will fight hard to help the Police to drive them away from here.”
For these alleged drug users and criminals, the Police are making life more difficult for them.
To sourcing funding for their daily upkeep, is unfeasible these days during daylight in marketplaces. They are being chased out of communities.
On a hot Sunday Afternoon in the God Blessed You community’, one Zogo known as Sky Power walked up a parked vehicle and slammed a big rock into the back windshield and broke it into tiny pieces.
“In fact, I wanted to kill someone, but since I did not find someone to kill I bust the car windshield,” brags Zogo Sky Power.
The Police are chasing the Zogos from the streets and into their communities to change their lifestyle, but to some like the owner of the vehicle in the God Bless You community the decision of the Police is a curse, not a cure.
“I am in the community and there is nobody to feed me, and I do not have anywhere to sleep, so if I commit a crime, they will put me in jail, and the government will be responsible to feed me,” says Zogo Sky Power.
Meanwhile, the Police are insistent on raiding the streets from these way-wards, pickpockets and gangsters.
“During our Police operations, we usually raid ghettoes, and when the Zogos are caught with substances, they are the ones we sent to court, but if they are only loitering the streets, we send them home to their various communities to become productive citizens,” says LNP spokesman Sam Collins.
Media reports say a huge number of Zogos were rejected by the court on ground of over crowdedness of the Monrovia Central Prison. Some 931 inmate are reported to be in per-trial detention for various offenses already.
With the Police left with no other alternative but to release rounded Zogos, society is left to ponder over what becomes of them next.
Will they be provided rehabilitation homes or will they wander in communities robbing others and endangering their own lives?
Some sell cold water as the Police continue the crackdown, which prevents them from conducting commercial vehicles or load taxi as it is called here.
The Police action has given communities in and around Monrovia the impetus to chase and beat away Zogos. Over 25 alleged drug addicts were rounded, flogged and turned over to the Police in the Du Port Road’s Cow Field community just a week ago.
At the busy ELWA Junction, the presence of taxi conductors is pretty rare and those who are recruited by the Federation of Road Transport Union (FRTUL) must wear uniform or risked being arrested by the Police.
Victor Marshall is a supervisor for the FRTUL. He says the union opted to organize the car loaders to avoid the Police.
“They are now organized and they go by our rules and regulations,” Marshall said.
“For that reason it is hard to find criminals around them. We have two shifts and we make sure that once a shift is over those on the shift go home and stay away from the streets.”
As Marshall explains to a visiting reporter, three car-loaders, Amara Toaroe, Foday Johnson and Macaulay Bealded, maneuver through the crowd, persuading one or two travelers to board the next vehicle heading for Buchanan, Harbel or Duazohn.
“We don’t have any of those bad guys here amongst us,” insists Foday Johnson, who says he’s now peacefully loading commercial vehicles at the ELWA Junction.
Wearing yellow T-shirts with an imprint to identify them, they all claim to be enjoying the protection of the FRTUL.
“As for some of us we’ve been here for long time and we don’t want for bad people to come among us so we’re working with the drivers’ union,” Toaroe said.
For Bealded, another alleged drug user who has worked as a taxi conductor over five years, the uniform distinguishes them from others that are often seen loading commercial cars without authorization.
“Some days ago, some of them came here just around there,” Bealded says pointing to a crowd of people stirring at him from a distance.
“Because of the pressure from us here they ran away.
Bealded and his fellow car loaders are fortunate to continue car loading in Paynesville, but across Monrovia and its environs, the Police pressure is keeping many suspected users and criminals off the streets.
Back in Red-Light Market District, communities in close proximity to the market are hailing the Police operations but some are weary about a potential slump in the Police operations.
But the calls to rehabilitate these suspected drug addicts are echoing in every voice that enters the debate.
“When we went to arrest some of the Zogos in the community some of them say they are going back to the community but are being rejected by their parents and family,” Willie the vigilante said. Willie confirmed that most Zogos complained that they are constrained to come back on the streets because they are rejected at home.
Like Willie, Jallah and several others are concern about the rehabilitation of these suspected drug addicts-cum-criminals.
“Let’s agree that every one of them will not be willing to change but maybe out of 100, 30 or 40 will change their minds,” Jallah said. “By driving them away will only lead them to another community and this will continue more disaster.”
Away from Turtle base, ELWA Junction, Du Port Road or on the busy streets of Monrovia, the debate about keeping Zogos out of the streets without rehabilitation remains a topically issue.
And APYL chairman complains that before finding a solution to a problem, “one should firstly define the problem and know the source of the problem because if the wrong solution is found, when it backfires it will be a turmoil”.
Logan continues his assertion: I personally think that we should solve this issue of suspected drug addicts leaving the streets more progressively and productively as they are citizens of Liberia and do have rights. Liberia has so many problems already.”
“Whilst it is true that these people themselves are victims of the systemic issues—the problem we have to deal with is not Police problem is system problem—they kind of impede our functions, so if we cannot deal with them we cannot have our parts of the job taken care of,” the LNP boss said in that interview with FrontPageAfrica in September.
Despite the lingering concern about rehabilitating these suspected drug users, however, folks around the Turtle base don’t want the Zogos to return and inflate more misery upon them.
Residents in the Turtle Base area have confidence in the Police operations but are cautiously optimistic.
“They will only come back if the Police don’t continue to clump down hard on them, because they use to arrest them and put them in trucks and carry them to prison compound but after few days you will see them back,” James Garwaye sounded pessimistic.
But for Satta Fofana, she’s enjoying a respite from the frequent crimes that occurred on Turtle base. She’s focus on improving her skills as a tailor, hoping that Zogos will not return, whether rehabilitated or not.
“Anytime they took them away from here, they used to come back,” she says. They are even still jerking people phone at night as I speak to you today.”