Foya District, Lofa County – There was grieving across Foya District in Lofa County Thursday as residents marked the 45th birthday of their late lawmaker, Eugene Fallah Kparkar.
Kparkar, a former student activist and a graduate of the University of Liberia, died on November 10, 2016 in India while undergoing advanced treatment.
Church service was been organized to remember the former lawmaker and pray for his soul.
“We can’t sit and allow this day pass without commemorating the birthday of someone who loved and cared for us dearly, the late Eugene Fallah Kparkar,” Pastor Timothy T. Kamara of the Evangelical Pentecostal Church said.
Kamara said Kpakar distinguished himself as a character worthy of trust adding that his absence from the district has left a great vacuum despite the district having a new lawmaker.
Most people were cladded in white and black while others tied black bands to their vehicles and motorbikes to signify their mood.
A cross section of the public on the streets of Foya told FrontPageAfrica though the event coincided with their Independence Day celebrations they were eager to partake in the events.
The Chairman of Liberty Party and Lofa County Senator, Steve Zargo, expressed sadness over the death of Kpakar, saying that the deceased was one of the most accommodating, generous and refined politicians Lofa has produced.
“Politics has never been the same without the jocular banter of the deceased,” he said. District One and Lofa County and indeed the nation at large, is missing the wise counseling of Kpakar.”
“For Kpakar, politics was never a do or die affair, but a vehicle for service to the people,’’ he added.
We will never forget Kpakar
A resident of Foya, Felix Nyuma, said Kpakar greeted almost every person in Foya town upon arrival during weekends with a smile they will never forget.
“The thing that I noticed is he would just always smile. He would always smile for you. And it did bother him sometimes when he didn’t recognize somebody, but like we told him, he knew so many people, you couldn’t recognize everyone,” Nyuma said.
Nyuma said Kpakar was always looking out for everyone.
“He’s somebody that we admired a lot. He was so calm so such a sweet guy,” he said.
Isaac Borbor, another resident of Foya, has a special connection to ray.
“I have a picture of him crowning my mother-in-law during a Mother Day program at our church. So I went through all of my pictures and brought that up and decided to show it here today. It shows you how I cherished Kpakar,” Borbor said.
Daniel Chowoe, another Foya resident, said Kpakar reached out to many people, whether it was through work or even at church.
“I had long heard his name growing up in our church as a person of faith, as a person who my parents often referred to when they needed to share with me a role model,” he said.
Johnson S. T. Ndupellar, Public Relations Officer to Lofa County Superintendent, said he also went to the same church.
“I knew him when all of us went to church. I knew him when I was a Sunday school teacher,” he said.
They reconnected when he moved to Monrovia to attend, and now he said he can never forget what Kpakar did for him while in Monrovia.
“But in a way, sometimes you think he earned his reward,” he said.
The occasion was solemn and attended by past and present government officials, chiefs and citizens from all walks of life.
The mood was one of extraordinary sadness. So many are those who have been grieving the passing of the late leader that productivity is said to have slightly fallen at most parts of the district since his demise.