LAST THURSDAY, the Liberia National Police made great strides in tracking down a cache of military-grade weapons loaded onto to container and shipped to Liberia.
THE ARMS AND AMMUNITIONS, according to the Inspector General of Police, Col. Patrick Sudue, were quite sufficient to destabilize Monrovia. He disclosed at a press conference that their preliminary investigation enabled them to arrest the lady who was to receive the container, the custom broker and another man who was caught hiding in the ceiling of the consignee’s home, where additional weapons were found.
HE FURTHER DISCLOSED that the container was shipped by a Liberian residing in Texas, USA identified as Boye Benjamin Baker. Baker is also said to be an employee of American Airlines.
AT THE PRESS CONFERENCE, Col. Sudue disclosed that they could not inspect the entire content of the container for security reasons, but assured the public that every single item was going to be inspected the following day – Friday.
SADLY, it’s been an entire weekend and there has been no update from the police on the scary discovery.
LIBERIANS ARE STILL lingering with these questions: “Who imported the guns?” “Why did they import it?” “Do they want to bring war in this country again?” “Were additional weapons discovered in the container?” “What is the police saying?”
UNFORTUNATELY, the police is saying absolutely nothing – leaving room for the public to speculate and make wild allegations. While one section of the public believes that the arms were shipped in for the purpose of destabilizing Weah’s government, others argue that the government was fully aware of the shipment as they plan to rig the 2023 elections.
THESE SPECULATIONS have the tendency of truncating the country’s peace and security.
THIS IS WHY it is imperative that the Liberia National Police and the Ministry of Information be more proactive in providing relevant regular updates to the public as it relates to sensitive matters. The failure to do so leaves room for the concoction of misinformation and disinformation which are often ploys of political actors to achieve political gains – even at the detriment of the State.
WE ARE NOT naïve not to know that some information relating investigation cannot be divulge to the public in order not to jeopardize the investigation, but it remains imperative to inform the public on the progress of the investigation so as to cast out some of those unhealthy speculations.
LIBERIANS DESERVE to feel safe in their own home. Receiving the tipoff and successfully intercepting the weapons is not sufficient assurance that the police is on top of its game. What is needed more at this time is a thorough investigation by the police and regular update to the public on the progress of the investigation.