MONROVIA – Montserrado County District #10 Representative Yekeh Yarkpawolo Kolubah Sunday, January 20, went rambling with President George Manneh Weah, accusing the Liberian leader of being “a tyrant and a dictator.”
Report by Alaskai Moore Johnson, [email protected]
According to Rep. Kolubah, they had gathered on the Ford-Madden Christian Academy campus on Smythe Road, Old Road, when they were about to kick-off a program that he had organized for the kids in the district, a group of young people he said were “Cdicians” came and disrupted the program.
“On the Old Road today, I was having a program for the children in my district; while we were gearing up for the program, we saw some Cdicians, who can be recognized and identified by me. They came in and it was only by the help of my security that I was protected,” he stated.
According to him, people were wounded from the stones that were allegedly thrown by the rioters, who came and disrupted his program.
“I called the Director of Police on nine different occasions, in the presence of Hon. Thomas Gosuah and they refused to come. Only for the Director of Police to tell me that the President had given him instruction not to arrest anyone on the scene because those who had come to disrupt are all Cdicians.”
Speaking further at a press conference he had hastily organized in the office of a police officer, Unit 106, he stated that he has got video evidence in which one of those who had gone to disrupt his program said Monrovia City Mayor Jefferson Koijee allegedly told him “not to calm down.”
Copy of the 20-second video, which is in the procession of this newspaper, the bare-chested man is being urged to calm down but he refuses.
Speaker: “Mr. Vah, you just have to calm down; you just have to calm down small. The law will take its course.”
Vah: “I can’t calm down; my chief told me not to calm down; my chief Koijee told me not to calm down. I want see Yekeh laying down.” Probably another of the rioter, who only has his voice in the same recording and not his face said, too: “Yekeh can send our brothers to free jail for things that they have not done and nothing can come out of it.”
Speaking further, Rep. Kolubah, who is an open known critic of the President stated: “Only to find out that this President has decided that this police force will be President Weah’s police and not the Liberian people’s police. Because if they were the Liberian people’s police, properties were vandalized but the police chose not to arrest anyone because of what the Director of Police Patrick Sudue told me that the President told him that he should only arrest my security and not any other person.
“We said it to the Liberian people that this President is a dictator. This President is a strong dictator. This President doesn’t mean well for the Liberian people; he is only here to enrich himself. He is only here to loot the Liberian people’s resources,” the Montserrdo County District #10 Representative went on blasting the President.
Showing that he is prepared for the on-coming fight, he emphasized that as of Tuesday, he is going to be attired as a militant.
“As of Tuesday, you will see me in my militant. I am going to be in my militant; I am going to be in my militant as I enter the Capitol Building as I go to Chambers. I will tell the Liberian people that this President is a dictator; this President is a looter and this looter must find his way to exit this place,” he stated shouting at the top of his voice.
Rep. Kolubah was also furious that his personal security, who is assigned to him at the Capitol Building, was the only person arrested and detained by the police, he assisted on orders from President Weah.
The lawmaker is angry that when the police officers came to restore sanity to the area, the rioters were still around and he could identify them but the officers were not interested in arresting any of them.
According to him, the bare-chested man in the video was still around but the officers, one of whom sustained wound to his head from a flying missile (stone), didn’t care to arrest any of the rioters.
“The President gave the instruction that they should not make any arrest of those who came to kill me. But they only arrested my personal security. The police can’t show any complainant.”
He also accused the Liberian National Police of being a partisan police force; adding: “This Liberian National Police is no more credible because the President has taken it to be one private security for himself. Ask the police where the complainant against my personal security is.
He disclosed that he had spent US$15,000 for the foodstuffs and other materials for the program and the food had to go to waste.
This newspaper went on the Ford-Madden Academy campus and took pictures of food that had been packaged for the kids but couldn’t be eaten by the children as they had to flee helter-skelter when stones and rocks began to fall in the compound. The workers of school gathered all the rocks and stones that they claimed had been thrown into their compound by the rioters.
Rep. Kolubah also accused the President of being a brutalizer; saying: “Today, the man that is here is worse than Charles Taylor. He is a dictator and he can brutalize people. He sends people to brutalize people.”
As he spoke, he disclosed that he had just received information that the President plans on sending people to his house. He shouted: “Let me let him know, let me sound this as a warning: I am not going to leave my house. I will protect my people. I don’t need the police because the police will kill me instead of protecting me.
“Is this the President that sworn to protect the people? Children had been manhandled by your security. These people were sent by Ambassador Weah,” he stated among others.
Earlier reports told this newspaper that the place where the party was being held was not spacious enough to contain them thereby leading to the children fainting was incorrect.
We verified that the children began frightened and ran for cover when stones began landing in the compound. The police even shot teargas just to get hold of the situation. Some of the kids had to be rushed to the St. Joseph’s Catholic Hospital when things calmed.
The police couldn’t be reached for comment as all efforts to reach Police spokesman Moses Carter didn’t materialize.
However, the Spokesperson for the President’s Office, Mr. Isaac Solo Kelgbeh told the FrontPageAfrica that the President was too busy doing the Liberian people’s work than to go after Yekeh Kolubah.
“Yekeh Kolubah is looking for relevance and attention from the President. He has realized that the President doesn’t have time for all of the negative things he says against him.
“Yekeh can go ahead and continue to say what he wants to say. The President won’t go after him or anyone. The President is just too busy with the Liberian people’s work than to go after Yekeh, who wants to sow a seed of discord.”
Kelgbeh accused the lawmaker of having nothing positive to offer his constituent before the larger Liberian society; adding: “Yekeh can’t establish that the President was behind what happened today.”