As a very young person, I have never been more disappointed in Liberia more than what I have been feeling in the last few weeks since I arrived home from school Why? Our leaders!!! Imagine taking 18k a month in a country were over 52% of your people are living on less than $2 a day while 60% continues to live on a dollar a day. Imagine going to bed comfortably as a leader of the people while many of your people are still homeless, while thousands are getting sick from malaria due to poor living conditions. Imagine riding a $45 or $100k car when vast majority of the hospitals in this country lack transportation, or even common medical supply.
By Satta F Sheriff, [email protected], Contributing Writer
Public transportation in Liberia sucks, it is so limited and expensive; in fact, we are still fighting for cars every day even in the middle of a health pandemic; still, our leaders don’t care. Imagine telling your citizens to prepare for lockdown, to buy “not perishable food” for lockdown when the Liberia institute of Statistic and Geo-information Services have already reported that more than 70% of households in Liberia are currently experiencing food shortage during the COVID-19 pandemic. The audacity! Imagine calling yourself a leader of the people. How dare you? How dare you call yourself leader of the same people you are stealing from every day, the same people you continue to fail. Shame on you for being selfish, disrespectful, and greedy to the Liberian people. You have made this country poor and broken because of your poor leadership, lack of accountability, and Justice. You failed to ensure justice for victims of Sexual abuse because many of you are secretly exploiting our girls and openly being a rape apologists. Shame on you!
What we have happening in this Country is a real disaster. It isn’t just an economic or health crisis, everything is broken including me! I am just tired of being hopeful when many of our leaders are showing 0% seriousness or taking their responsibility seriously. We have no good healthcare system, no good governance system, no good road, electricity, or technology; in fact, we still lack basic resources for our hospitals. Many of us are still living in extreme poverty. The Justice and accountability system in this country sucks. We are creating a mess in the name of politics. Many of our lawmakers only care about themselves. Look at the number of young people that are dying. There’s news everyday about car and motorbike accidents. It’s so depressing and sad! We can’t even keep our common streets lights on, regularly. As a young person, our leaders have forced me to have a hate and love feeling for Liberia.
Wait, I am not just talking about the government, but also “we the people” we are also very problematic in this country, we play a huge role in what is happening to this country. Some of us talk trash about Liberia and fail to invest in this country. We only value foreigners, we disrespect and hate to follow the law. We treat politicians like gods and fail to hold them accountable because of personal affiliation and selfish reasons. With all that is currently happening in this country, if you think Liberia is moving forward, you are a big hypocrite. Shame on you too! How dare you? Can’t you see what’s happening? Everyday there are reports about rape, babies are being ganged rape, woman especially young boys and girls are being sexually abused, this country has refused to protect and ensure our safety. I don’t only blame the President; I also blame our selfish lawmakers too. I blame those that are defending the 15k that they decided to take away from our taxes. The ones who are taking 18k a month while vast majority of the population live in poverty. The same lawmakers who decided to use the 3rd lane to avoid traffic instead of taking real legislative action to build better roads and ensure the ministry of transport take practical action to reduce traffic. I am disappointed and ashamed of every lawmaker who have defended their recent egocentric action.
There is still time to change your ways. You can still rewrite your wrongs. You can still be the change in a system that preaches about change but fails to change anything for the better.
If you are concern about why I wrote this, well, I want a future for Liberia, but most importantly a future for my generation and the ones after me. I want a better Liberia. I want to boast about Liberia’s development to my international friends. I want our leaders to start taking decisions that will impact the future of this country. I want to turn my radio on without hearing about Rape, or the death of young people from diseases that are preventable and curable. I want people in the Legislature to use their brains and think about we the common people. This country is really hard, people are suffering! We are hungry for change. Things must change!