Rodney D. Sieh, [email protected]
Monrovia – The fight for influence and access to President George Weah continues to exacerbate even after the President summoned one half of his feuding inner circle to a meeting at his home Saturday.
FrontPageAfrica Has learned that the President, following a rain of attacks and accusations on his influential Finance Minister Samuel Tweah in the National Security Agency- backed Freedom FM radio Friday, Summoned both Minister Tweah and Minister of State for Presidential Affairs, Nathaniel McGill To his home for a meeting.
Although sources say a lot of inroads were made, nothing definite was settled regarding the other half of the circle – Finance Advisor Emmanuel Shaw, Archie Bernard, Charles Bright and Bill Twehway.
Raining Accusations From Freedom FM
The issue of the recent Freedom FM onslaught was reportedly brought up during the meeting with Minister McGill tasked with addressing the growing damage the station, owned by Mr. Sam Siryon, Deputy head of the National Security Agency(NSA) is bringing to Mr. Weah’s government.
What was not delved into in details however, according to multiple sources, was the apparent backstabbing of key members of the President’s circle on each other.
Messrs. Shaw, Bernard, Twehway, Bright and Siryon are reportedly lobbying the President to part ways with McGill and Tweah.
Inner circle infighting is nothing new to Liberia. Former President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is often taken to task for failing to groom a successor, leaving many within her circle to quietly go to war with each other. However, in the current dispensation, the timing, going on three years into the reign of President Weah is seen as too early for such glaring missteps to be in full view of the public glare.
Twehway, the self-proclaimed Gbekugbeh Jr., aptly named to showcase his influence on the presidency is said to be keen on replacing Tweah and McGill as the main head of the inner circle with the most access to the President
Shaw, Bernard and Bright are reportedly frightened that McGill and Tweah are stifling most of their interests.
Shaw reportedly has close ties with Loita Capital Partners International, a division of the Loita Group with headquarters in Mauritius, which in January forged a partnership with the Liberian Bank for Development & Investment.
As part of the partnership, Loita aided the opening in Monrovia the investment banking unit of the LBDI, undertaken with the support of the Central Bank of Liberia, the Government of Liberia and the National Investment Commission (NIC).
Loita recently created a discount facility for the National Social Security and Welfare Corporation (NASSCORP), which was, inter alia, to refinance the Jahmale Diagnostic Medical Centre in Paynesville.
Loita, according to its website, has also been instrumental in advising on, structuring and placing the US$52 million facilities for the Liberian Bankers Association, which benefits the Commercial Banking Sector of Liberia through Afrexim Bank.
Escalating Tension in Public Glare
“Why are they attacking Minister Tweah.. “This is dead wrong. War is a bad thing. When we start to fight it will be nasty.”
Mr. David Kolleh, Assistant Minister of Information, Culture Affairs & Tourism
Various messages viewed by FPA from several chat rooms managed by the ruling party Saturday point to growing resentment against Minister Tweah and McGill from forces backed by Twehway, Shaw and Bernard.
Ironically, the tension is making its way to the public glare on social media. “Why are they attacking Minister Tweah”, raged David Kolleh, assistant Minister of Information, Culture Affairs & Tourism, on his Facebook page Saturday. “This is dead wrong. War is a bad thing. When we start to fight it will be nasty.”
Mr. Aloysious Howe, a supporter of Minister Tweah, posting on President Weah’s aide, Sekou Kalasco Damaro page Saturday asserted that the damning attacks are a sign that the ruling party is creating its own monster.
Howe wrote:
“You know, in CDC, we are very good at creating our own monsters, we keep doing it again, again, and again without learning from our mistakes. A Freedom FM radio station attacks a minister in a CDC government over issues that can’t be substantiated and some CDCians clap for them and even want to give them a gold medal for a job well done out of mere hatred for a Noble Statesman.
I wonder what some of you will do when this very Freedom FM radio station wakes up one morning and start to rain insults on President Weah. I guess that will be the time some of you will start to flood social media with post and even dig deep into whoever might have given them the opportunity to interview the president, you would rain insults on them and curse them just like your did when Costa was given the platform to have a handshake with the President.
I do remember vividly; this is exactly what we did with Henry Costa who has turned to be a Monster today, we celebrated and paraded him in the public glare thinking that he was our own, some of us even use our chest and arms as shield to resist him being arrested by the then UP government because we were of the conviction that he was one of us but look at where we are today, the very snake we fed grew up to become a python and is today hunting to eat us.
You are at liberty to do what you wanna do as a self-proclaimed partisan of the Blue Revolution (CDC) but one thing I know for sure is that only a disloyal and chameleon CDCian will support and defend Freedom FM against Samuel D. Tweah.”
Howe described the attacks on the minister as an assassination attempt strictly on the orders of Siryon.
This is not the first time the station has taken on officials of government. When President Weah’s feud with his Vice President Jewel Howard-Taylor was at its peak, the station used its platform to go after the VP and many within the party quietly celebrated.
The station has also taken aim at Justice Ministers Frank Musah Dean and others.
Now, as the station takes on prominent figures within closed proximity to the president, many are wondering how much of an impact the ongoing controversy will have on President Weah’s own political survival, especially with the Senatorial Mid Term elections looming and the 2023 presidential elections on the horizon.
Light Looks Dim for a Resolution
On any given day, the station appears to be making damning indictments on the president’s senior officials and putting them against each other. Besides the station, close aides to the presidency are turning to social media to call for dismissals of some high-profile officials. The volume of attacks is even more blatant in nearly a dozen social media chatrooms run by the ruling party.
Inner circle infighting is nothing new to Liberia. Former President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is often taken to task for failing to groom a successor, leaving many within her circle to quietly go to war with each other. However, in the current dispensation, the timing, going on three years into the reign of President Weah is seen as too early for such glaring missteps to be in full view of the public glare.
While Saturday’s meeting hosted by the President is seen as a small step to addressing the fights within his circle, the absence of the other players could like see the tension escalate in the coming days.
Minister McGill reportedly confronted Siryon about the attacks by his radio station but the deputy NSA boss, according to sources claims he is not aware of the attacks coming from his platform. Siryon did not return several calls seeking comment Saturday.
For now, President Weah’s government appears to be at war with itself with many concerned about the imminent fallout if nothing serious is done to resolve an impasse growing leaps and bounds by the day with very little sign of light at the end of the eroding tunnel.
