Monrovia – Youth and Political activist Laraamand Nyonton has called for a national boycott of Liberia’s 173rd Independence Day celebration in protest of the wrongful handling of the country by the CDC-led government.
Liberia, Africa’s oldest democracy is poised to celebrate its 173rd Independence Day on July 26, 2020. Usually, the event is marred by fanfare and is climaxed with series of programs held in Monrovia and the rest of the counties.
However, Amb. Nyonton, a youthful political activist and a former official of the ruling Coalition for Democratic Change says there is nothing to celebrate as President George Weah and his officials continue to ‘illegally amass wealth’ while majority of the citizens live in abject poverty.
“We call for a national boycott of Liberia’s 173 Independence celebrations. We call on all struggling Liberians – struggling students, struggling youth, struggling market women, struggling teachers and farmers, struggling civil servants, struggling health workers, struggling Liberian business owners – who are in fact in their majority, disproportionally to the number of well-off Liberians milking from our nation’s resources to boycott the 173rd Independence Celebrations,” Amb. Nyonton rallied.
He continues: “We cannot afford to celebrate 173 years of Independence in a nation where the President cares only about himself and not the people. When the Declaration of Independence was written, it was about “We, the people,” and not “I, along with the people.”
“The fact that Ellen Johnson Sirleaf failed in the fight against corruption and declared corruption as a national vampire, doesn’t mean it is justified when the President of the Republic and his senior and junior officials are openly involved in a massive wealth acquisition spree. What is true about our examination of the last two and the half years under Weah, is that, life has only changed dramatically for Nathaniel McGill, Samuel Tweh, Jeff Koijee, and high-up guardians of their revolution, but it has never changed for the ordinary masses of our people.”
Nyonton, a former representative candidate in the 2017 Presidential and Legislative elections, addressing a press conference on Monday, July 20, 2020 said since the inception of the CDC-led government, nothing has changed and those that are currently managing the affairs of the state and its resources must take greater responsibilities for the collective pains, sufferings and destitution of the Liberian people.
Speaking further, he said “It has not changed for those in the Markets; neither has it changed for our young brothers in the ghettos. It has never changed for those casual workers who are placed every single day at a life’s threatening position for the sake of survival; neither has it changed for struggling civil servants who shoulder the burdens of the daily operations of government.”
“We call for a national boycott of Liberia’s 173 Independence celebrations. We call on all struggling Liberians – struggling students, struggling youth, struggling market women, struggling teachers and farmers, struggling civil servants, struggling health workers, struggling Liberian business owners – who are in fact in their majority, disproportionally to the number of well-off Liberians milking from our nation’s resources to boycott the 173rd Independence Celebrations.”
Laraamand Nyonton, Youth and Political Activist
He condemned the government for ‘institutionalizing’ Corruption, adding “We cannot afford to celebrate 173 years of Independence in a nation where corruption has now been given an official bureaucratic status – the Bureau of Corruption. This is the only Bureau that is huge enough to bag the three separate but distinct Branches of the Liberian Government”
He decried that while there is much public outcry about allegations of corruption in the Weah Government, there is a ‘fraudster’ in the name of A. Ndubusi Nwabudike, who is comfortably sitting at one of Liberia’s premium anti-grafts institutions, the Liberia Anti-Corruption Commission, while a young bright legal scholar willfully serves as a Deputy to him. We cannot celebrate our young scholar submitting to the dictates of fraud masters, he said.
Citing more reasons to snub this year’s Independence Day Celebration, he pointed out that Liberians cannot afford to celebrate 173 years of Independence in a nation where “our girls have been raped by choice,” facing the horror of fears, intimidation, indignity, and abuses by powerful men in society.
And while there is much public outcry on sexual and gender-based violence, including rape, he noted the Ministry of Gender and Children’s Protection, headed by a woman, remains either silent or complacent.