Monrovia – Oscar Cooper is not a household name compared to Alexander Cummings, Joseph Boakai, Charles Brumskine and Benoni Urey in Liberian politics, but he dismissed any of these candidates being a threat to his quest to becoming Liberia’s next President.
Report by Lennart Dodoo, [email protected]
He also does not see himself the spoiler in the elections.
Being the Senator of Margibi County with strong ties with Bong County, Senator Cooper’s presidential ambition may dent the chances of the Boakai-Nuquay ticket which is building a stronghold in the Kpelleh belt.
Responding to suspicions of him being in the race to reduce the chances the Boakai-Nuquay ticket, he chuckled, saying in typical Liberian English: “I spoiling something?
Is it somebody’s pa [father’s] farm?
What am I spoiling, it’s for you? The Constitution gives everyone the right in Liberia to contest – even the ‘pekin’ down there can contest so I spoiling? Da you farm, da you soup?”
Senator Cooper made the assertions over the weekend in a joint interview with FrontPageAfrica and Power TV at his residence in Kakata, Margibi County.
Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. J. Emmanuel Nuquay and also the vice standard bearer of the collaborated ticket between his Peoples Unification Party (PUP) and the ruling Unity Party is optimistic of sweeping votes from Margibi County than any other party in the race.
But the presence of Senator Cooper who has built himself a constituency in the region will double the work Vice President Boakai and his Speaker Nuquay have to do to stand strong in Margibi and Bong Counties.
Margibi County has become a big player since it surpassed Grand Bassa into fifth place as the county with the most amounts of registered voters with 144,604.
‘Unfair’ Selection For Debate
Senator Cooper wondered why he wasn’t selected to participate in the August 17, presidential debate which he believes he is more qualified to participate than the candidates invited.
Senator Cooper: “They had a debate the other day. I don’t know what the requirement is to be at Paynesville Town Hall.”
“I’m a sitting Senator of the fifth largest vote rich county in this country – a Senator that got 45 percent vote in my county. I got more vote in my county than President Sirleaf.
“How can you leave me and my independent organization out of debate when all those guys there have never been elected?
He argued that Vice President Boakai did not participate in the 2005 and 2011 elections on his own as he went under President Sirleaf. “Brumskine?
He never won anything. Mill Jones, he’s never been elected before. I have been elected,” he averred.
He also criticized Cummings for not being in Liberia for over 35 years to understand the plights of Liberians.
Senator Cooper believes Mr. Cummings does not deserve the right to contest the presidency, noting that it was an error on the part of the National Elections Commission (NEC) to have qualified both Cummings and MacDella Cooper who is also contesting on the ticket of the Liberia Restoration Party.
TRC, Taylor Connections
Senator Cooper boasted of being a man of his own before coming into contact with former President Charles G. Taylor.
For him, his connections with the former President who is now serving a 50-year jail term for war crimes and crimes against humanity, will not in any way affect his ambition of becoming President, too.
He is one of several named in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission report
Contrary to his claims of spotlessness, Cooper is one of several persons enlisted by the United Nations Security Council for travel ban.
He is also one of several actors of the country’s war recommended by the now defunct Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to be banned from holding public office for 30 years.
A 2009 Global Witness Report titled ‘Taylor Made: The Pivotal Role of Liberia’s Forests and Flag of Convenience in Regional Conflict’ named Oscar Cooper and his brother Maurice Cooper as joint owners of Inland Logging Company (ILC).
The company’s logging activities go back to the early 1990s during the war, when they extracted and exported logs from ‘greater Liberia’; the parts of Liberia then occupied by Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL).
The ILC, according to the report, had a private militia in Sinoe County, which harassed and intimidated the locals regularly.
The ILC managed the port of Greenville under the direct supervision of Oscar and Maurice, the report said.
Claiming innocence to the claims in the TRC report, Senator Cooper called for his day in court, even upon assuming the presidency, and will also be willing and prepared to bear whatever punishment he may have to face if found guilty of the allegations.
“You have to give me my day in court, I don’t mind. You have to prove. I’m willing to go to court, I’m willing to stand with my lawyer and I’m willing to defend myself.
