Monrovia–The United People’s Party (UPP) has announced that Mr. MacDonald A. Wento, a prominent Liberian businessman, has restored his membership in the Party.
At a Special Session of the UPP Executive Committee, held on Monday, September 5, 2016, at the Party headquarters in Monrovia, Mr. Wento, along with an array of other prominent Liberian colleagues from the proposed Liberia Restoration Party (LRP) said that, they were re-committing themselves to Phase-II of the UPP Progressive Agenda: Empowering the Liberian People for Effective Political and Economic Governance.
During the re-admission ceremony at the UPP headquarters on 17th Street, Sinkor, Monrovia, Mr. Wento recounted that UPP has a history.
He said it was the founding fathers of the Party that gave light to what Liberians are enjoying today – the multi-party political system.
Mr. Wento insisted that he is not a new member in UPP; He said he was born, and grew in the Party. Said Mr. Wento, “I have only come to re-affirm my membership in the Party”.
My father, Alex Wento, Sr., is a founding member of the Party. I have been a foot soldier. In the 1970s and early 1980s. I worked with my father who had a small printing press on Lynch Street. He produced, and I helped distribute, The UPP Times, official newsletter of the Party.
Mr. Wento explained that he comes from a grassroots background. He said that he was the Founding Chairman of the Congress for Democratic Change (CDC). Mr. Wento further disclosed that he had encouraged the UPP founding Chairman, the late Gabriel Baccus Matthews and others to give support, during the 2005 elections, to the Presidential candidate of the CDC, then Ambassador George Manneh Weah, now Senator for Montserrado County.
Mr. Wento announced that he did not just come to the UPP. He said, “if I am in the driver seat, we are not going to wait for 2030. We are going to start making UPP a viable institution to win the Presidency in 2017 and fix the country”.
He called on UPP members to accept a new beginning and re-brand the Party, with everybody coming together on board.
Mr. Wento proclaimed that UPP is the mother of CDC, so “we are going to reach to them and attract a lot of other parties because we cannot win alone”. Mr. Wento called on all UPP members that have stayed away from the Party to return home and the UPP great again.
As he was submitting his Membership Re-Affirmation Form to Madam Wayfa Florence Ciapha, UPP Vice Chairman and Acting Chairman, Mr. Wento concluded by saying that “we are going to tell the Liberian people precisely how we are going to take the country to the next level — working on education; working on healthcare; working on creating more access-roads across the county; and working on food security and productive job creation for the youth”.