Monrovia – Rapper MC Hammer’s 1991 hit “Too Legit to Quit” aptly sums up the ongoing fracas in the Lower House of Liberia’s national legislature: A defiant Speaker rejecting calls to step aside and an equally defiant anti-bloc determined to see him relinquish his gavel.
The embattled Speaker, Alex J. Tyler insists that he will not be rushed out of his job. Despite several interventions from the Council of Churches, traditional council and a meeting with the U.S. embassy in Monrovia, Mr. Tyler, who has been indicted over allegations of bribery in a damning Global Witness report, is leaving his fate to chance that his accusers will abandon their quest to oust him or called them a bluff in hopes that they may never be able to gain the two-third majority required to kick him out of the Speakership.
Mr. Tyler has been indicted along Senator Varney Sherman as well as former and current officials of government, after a report by the British NGO Global Witness alleged that the Speaker and others allegedly received bribes of US$950,000 from a British Company, Sable Mining, to amend the Public Procurement Concession Commission Act (PPCC) in favor of the company to mine the Wologisi Mountain in Lofa County.
Clinging to Legitimacy
In calling members of the opposing bloc a bluff, Mr. Tyler appears to be channeling Hammer who raps in the hit song: “I don’t quit no! I just press harder than I ever did before…. I gotta get mine and nobody’s takin it away.”
Mr. Tyler has been getting his for eight years, since he and his peers orchestrated the removal of Rep. Edwin Melvin Snowe (UP, District 6, Montserrado). The former Speaker, Snowe was removed from his position in January 2007 following a vote of no confidence.
Even then, Mr. Snowe fought tooth and nails to preserve his position, clinging on to the legitimacy of his reign before finally caving in for the sake of peace.
Years, later, Tyler finds himself sitting in the very shoes Mr. Snowe sat not so long ago, a painful reminder of a play that rings familiar refrain, going as far as to suggest a sinister plot by the Executive to oust him from power insisting to go only when the law determines.
“We will go according to the constitution and law, you heard the tape and I am sure most of you know the voices you heard on the tape the other day that is clear. This is our country we are not going to play games with it.”
“I have been here 11 years if my colleagues say they cannot work with me for the remaining one year in a proper way I will give way but once it is induced and influenced I will not do so it will be a wrong precedent”.
One source who accompanied Mr. Tyler to the US Embassy told FrontPageAfrica it was the same message Tyler expressed in meeting with embassy officials.
For Tyler, if those seeking his ouster succeed, it would set a precedence which he is trying to avoid. “Because it means the next group will do the same thing when they are disenchanted with the presiding officer. But there are procedures and once they follow the proper procedure, definitely we will grant them audience.”
Snowe Redux; Tyler’s Defiance
Ironically, at the time of his removal, Mr. Snowe charged that the no-confidence vote was illegal, alleging that some votes against him were obtained through bribery and that the vote was not legitimate because it did not occur in a city, as required by the constitution.
The Supreme Court agreed. On January 29, 2007, the court ruled in Snowe’s favor, describing his removal as unconstitutional.
This week, the 2007 play reprisal was in full effect as Rep. Richard Matenokay Tingban(Independent, Nimba, Dist. 9) suggested the tables had turn on Tyler. “This is a man who is accusing his colleagues of taking bribe today when in fact during the Edwin Snowe saga, was it not this same guy who was distributing money at the time? Yes!”
Snowe, referencing Tyler’s suggestions that the Executive branch was behind the plot to oust him said: “The recused Speaker had a press conference. Among several allegations, he accused his colleagues, those of us that were asking him to recuse himself, he said we took bribes, he called us surrogates.”
But lawmakers like Rep. Acarous Moses Gray (CDC, District 8, Montserrado) charge that it is a grave matter for the accused Speaker to bring this body into disrepute. “It is a violation of the rules governing this August body that the much recused Speaker had executed.”
But as the fracas hit boiling point, missteps on both sides of the aisle have been ricocheting political vibrations in the public sphere.
Debate Over Recalled Letter
Take Thursday for example when a letter read on the floor of the lower house and posted on the social media Facebook suggested that President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf had recognized the anti-Tyler faction.
Dear Hon .Barchue,
I present compliments to you and herewith acknowledge receipt of your letter dated August 11, 2016 with attached Resolution taken by the majority of the House of Representatives leading to your instalment as Presiding Officer.
Please be assured that every lawful and constitutional act of the House of Representatives will be honored and respected by the Executive Branch of Government.
I wish to bring to the attention of your Honorable Body that programs under our Agenda for Transformation, including several long standing draft legislations critical to our development have been stalled by the activities of the Legislature over the last few weeks. This has also led to the little progress on the 2016/2017 Annual budget.
It is my sincere hope that a constitutionally organized majority will properly and swiftly attend these matters. The Executive stands ready to cooperate.
But hours after the surfacing of the letter, the Executive Mansion issued a clarity and recalled the letter, stating the following:
The Executive Mansion has responded to a communication dated August 11, 2016 from Dep. Speaker Hans Barchue with an attached Resolution taken by Majority of the House of Representatives. Notwithstanding, due to clerical error involving the addressee, Reference No., and one typo – the communication was recalled.
Further action on this matter will be taken after decision by the Supreme Court is seized of the matter.
The Executive Mansion stands by its commitment to honor and respect every lawful and constitutional act by the House of Representatives.
As Liberians debate the confusion over Thursday’s letter, Tyler remains defiantly perplexed even as numbers shrink against his gavel, previously from 36 to 32 as more lawmakers defect to the opposing side.
On the upside for Tyler, an action in the upper house, the Senate Thursday suggests that his peers still recognize his reign as the secretary of the Senate under instruction from plenary wrote the House of Representatives, addressed to Speaker Tyler transmitting an Act Granting Financial Autonomy to the legislature for concurrence.
The Senate move at least for a day fortified Tyler’s legitimacy and likely will prolong his hold on to the gavel of leadership.
Snowe Route Out of Cards for Now
Tyler has already shown his resolve to press on with the recent filing of a writ of prohibition at the Supreme Court challenging efforts by some of his colleagues, known as the anti-Tyler bloc, to recuse himself from further presiding as Speaker due to his indictment. Tyler claims that there is no law and rules within the Legislature or the Constitution for an elected officer from the House of Representatives to recuse himself.
As the high court ponders the Speaker’s fate, Mr. Tyler and his supporters are already looking ahead and confident that comes January 2017, he will be presiding over the State of Nation address.
“Even if they get it and they do not remove the Speaker constitutionally, comes January, the fourth working Monday the Speaker will preside as Speaker and the Presidents will be under constitutional obligation to sit under his gavel and it is not whether she likes it or not that what the constitution require to present her state of the union address,” says Representatives, James Biney (NPP, District 1, Maryland).
For Tyler, the channeling of the “Too Legit to Quit” mantra could be his only hope for survival. What remains certain at least for now is that the embattled Speaker has no intention of following the route of Snowe as he holds on to what’s left of his legitimacy.