POLITICAL ACTORS IN LIBERIA must prove themselves deserving of their inclusion in the comity of noble men. We say this to mean that people who take upon themselves as political leader at any level must be well schooled in government policies and factors governing the state. Most importantly, they must be fully aware of the implications of their actions and what they say.
LEADERS IN OPPOSITION PARTIES must raise political standards. With the bar lowered to the notch we are witnessing today. Perhaps, we should not be surprised that some actors whose comical activities should be shunned are being accommodated and even allowed to issue statements.
IF ONLY THE FRAMERS OF THE Constitution had foreseen such a situation arising, they would perhaps have found a way of obviating it with the appropriate clause or so. Perhaps, that is why the laws needed to be amended time after time. Every day comes with its varying levels of degraded politics, all of which are contaminating the quality of politics and even governance and undermining security.
THE CONGRESS FOR DEMOCRATIC CHANGE (CDC) youth league chairman Jefferson Koijee must be reminded that in portfolio, he has people, especially young people, who look up to him for direction. But, leading them blindly would only create chaos for our country.
KOIJEE IN A PRESS STATEMENT Tuesday accused the Liberia National Police of not being able to account for loiterers who were taken off the streets by the Police. The CDC man went on to say that they have received information that four of those the Police took off the streets were dead, and that they are being surreptitiously buried without the involvement of their families.
WHILE IT IS NO ESSENCE DIGNIFYING these wild accusations, we cannot let it pass without addressing some issues of concern to us. We’re at a critical stage of our country’s peace as we get closer to an election year, where the Liberia National Police, which Koijeee accuses here, would is fully in charge of national security for the first time since the end of the civil war in 2003.
WE SEE KOIJEEE’S STATEMENTS, which he failed to back with facts, as inciting and have the tendency to derail the progress we’ve made in our nation building process.
POLITICAL LEADERS HAVE to be the torchbearers of peace instead of provoking their followers to rise against the powers that be when there are no grounds for such.
THIS DISCREDITS THEIR LEADERSHIP credibility and should not be condoned by the party’s leadership if at all they mean well for the country. It not an argument that the car conductors (car loaders), who also engaged in pickpocketing, hijacking, snatching, etc. were indeed public nuisance and could not be tolerated by many citizens.
WE EXPECT THE CDC YOUTH CHAIRMAN of be conversant of the fact that loitering the streets of Monrovia is against public ordinance. We also expect the CDC youth chairman to recognize the fact that taking these street hooligans off the streets has brought some relief and a sense of security to pedestrians.
WE DO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT THESE zogos are, too, victims of circumstances but we all agree that that does not mean victimizing a whole lot of people. If Koijee’s major qualm was the rehabilitation of these criminals, it would have been a healthy debate that we would be happy to participate in.
KOIJEE SHOULD RATHER ENGAGE the Police as a leader of the youth league of what is known to country’s largest grassroots political party to find amicable means by which they would be assimilated into society, if they so deserve. All including the CDC must be part of the solution to our problems, and that cannot be done by wildly accusing the Police.
INSPECTOR GENERAL OF THE LIBERIAN National Police recognizes gaps and shortcomings and admitted in an interview with FrontPage late September. “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,” Inspector General Coleman said. He also said the Police was concerned about rehabilitation for some the young men and women on the streets doing drugs.
“WE ARE CONCERNED ABOUT IT. We are not just trying to move them from the street, we are going beyond that. We have been trying to talk to other partners to see what other programs can be developed to incorporate them and try to rehabilitate them and put them back into society.
“BUT FOR NOW, WE HAVE to keep the street free that people can walk, people can take taxi freely at night and during the day and create a safe zone,” he told FrontPage Africa.
HOLDING LIBERIA ABOVE all else, we urge the leadership of the CDC to do due diligence by engaging the Police to have a fair understanding of the operations of the Police. We remind Mr. Koijeee and his followers that the politics is a noble act and those who participate in it must do so with nobility.