IT’S NO SECRET THAT the cracks within the walls of the University of Liberia campus-based “ever-vibrant mighty Student Unification Party (SUP)” have become visible. The fissures are almost like wedges that have been driven among and between party members, who are supposed to be students or “Light in Darkness” (Lux en Tenebris), of the state-owned higher learning institution, which the students have dubbed “The microcosm of the larger Liberian society.”
WHAT HAS HAPPENED to this “SUP” that the student community on the University of Liberia and other campuses looked up to in its early days back in the 1970s and throughout the 1980s? Every student wanted to taste this “SUP” that was also once the bastion of hope for the larger Liberian student community.
THE “SUP” WAS SO WELL cooked back in those days with some of the brilliant minds and fearless “militants,” who are making and have gone on to make very meaningful contributions to the larger Liberian society.
THOSE “STUDENTS” OR SUP stalwarts, who included men like Ezekiel Pajibo, Augustine Kpehe Ngafuan, Samuel Kofi Woods, Jerome Verdier, Alaric Tokpa, James Fromayan, Urias Teh Pour, Cllr. Tiawon Gongloe, D. Henry Smith, Weewee Diaba, Henry Kesselee, Alphonso “Socrates” Nimene, and many others, all stood the tests of their times and didn’t break to cheap political bickering whether from outside influences or from within their own ranks.
WE HAVE LISTED THESE men and many others whose names are imprinted on the pages of SUP history to bring today’s generation of “militants” up to speed.
ALL OF THOSE MEN were the “salt” of SUP and the larger student community. They didn’t lose their tastes. They stood up to the regimes of the day and didn’t allow their personal differences to interfere with the general good of the party, yea Liberia.
LET US REMIND YOU today’s supists of some of the challenges that your forebears withstood in today’s editorial. Hopefully, you (SUP) will return to your “first love” and stop the infighting.
EZEKIEL PAJIBO FOR EXAMPLE, as a student leader in the 1980s, he ran into problems many times with the military government of former President Samuel K. Doe. Doe went as far as jailing and sentencing him and a few others of your senior comrades, his fellow students, to death by firing squad. Pajibo later fled into exile where he spent 18 years before returning home to serve as Executive Director of the Center for Democratic Empowerment, (CEDE), a center for social and political advocacy and research founded by Dr. Amos C. Sawyer.
URIAS TEH POUR was one of those of your former Chairmen, whose tenures were perilous. You know that some of those men named above were banished to the notorious Belle Yalleh prison, deep in the Belle forest of Lower Lofa County now Gbarpolu County. Some of them were also imprisoned at the Post Stockade along with former President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, who was a political prisoner at the time.
URIAS AND FEW OTHERS had to be smuggled out of Liberia when dictator, rebel leader and former President Charles Taylor turned the heat on them. Mr. Taylor’s rebel fighters began to hunt these men. Through the instrumentality of the late Catholic Archbishop Michael K. Francis, they fled Liberia into exile. However, those who left on the ground didn’t sell the party’s advocacy to the regime. The “salt” was still tasty and it did all to preserve our society by constantly and consistently keeping the regime’s feet to the fire.
THE PAGES OF YOUR party’s history are replete with the bravery and gallantry of your forebears holding together and not stooping to conquer. They fought and died together holding those regimes’ feet to the fire for the common good of all Liberians and not their personal egos.
SUP HAS ALWAYS STEPPED to the place when the society ceases to speak to the regime of the day. Because your party considers the University of Liberia, to be the “macrocosm of the larger Liberian society,” traditionally SUP’s politics have transcended far behind the width and length of all the campuses of the University of Liberia.
BUT TODAY’S GENERATION of supists seems to have lost their unique tastiness to infighting and outside influences. They are not looking to have this internal rigmarole resolved as quickly as possible in order to embark upon that single mandate of the SUP that most educated Liberians know—keeping the regime’s feet to the fire.
SUP’S PRESENT INFIGHTING is a campus-concentrated upheaval but this kind has the propensity of impacting the democratic space beyond the walls of the university as a dark cloud hovers the image of a long time pro-democracy institution.
IN CASE OUR READERS have forgotten, the conflict within SUP was ignited about a month ago when Martin K.N. Kollie, secretary general, was controversially suspended. Even though he was reinstated within less than a month of his suspension, the wedge had now become visible.
KOLLIE’S SUSPENSION sparked outrage within the party after some of his fellow supists suspected that the move was a ploy orchestrated by elements within the government to muzzle his political bluntness.
A SEGMENT OF THE party also pointed accusing fingers at Butu Levi, the party’s chair, of having an “unholy marriage” with Monrovia City Mayor Jefferson Koijee and some folks in the opposition community.
THUS BEGINNING the infighting with some aggrieved SUP partisans insisting, too, that Levi be suspended on grounds that he allegedly received bribes to prompt Kollie’s suspension.
HOWEVER, KOLLIE APPEARS to still have support for his controversial leader, Levi, who remains adamant that the proceeding leading to his suspension was unlawfully carried out.
RECLAIMING THE PARTY’S image is now a Herculean task, but first resolving the tension is a massive challenge for the party, as allegations of government’s meddling sends shockwaves to the larger society.
WE THINK THIS IMPASSE within the party can be quickly resolved with the wisdom and guidance of some of those former leaders of SUP, who are still around.
WE WANT TO ASK those former Chairmen, including Mr. Ngafuan, who served this nation as a former Foreign Minister to employ some of his diplomatic skills of conflict resolution in order to resolve the problem besetting the progress of the party.
NOW IS THE TIME for SUP to redeem itself so that it can maintain its tastiness and be the “salt” that it was back in the day.