Monrovia – Despite incessant calls from several spectrum of the government of Liberia and its partners including civil society organizations and the International Community for violence free elections in Liberia, there continues to be report of violence and violence-related acts as the clock ticks towards October 8, 2017.
Report by Gerald C. Koinyeneh, [email protected]
The latest community were violence is brewing is the Slipway Community in District #8, Montserrado County, currently represented by Rep. Acarous Gray, who is opting for re-election.
Residents of the community, speaking to FrontPage Africa (FPA) on Tuesday, August 15 accused Hon. Gray of taking siege of their Town Hall, and at the same time removing materials belonging to the community.
According to the residents, Rep. Gray’s decision followed a tussle between his supporters and one of his political contenders, Theophilus David’s.
They explained that the incident was sparked when a Gray supporter torn down Mr. David’s campaign poster from the Town Hall; and Mr. David supporter is doing the reciprocal.
When contacted via phone by FPA on the allegations, the Coalition for Democratic Change strongman refused to respond. Our reporter sent several text messages but Gray didn’t respond to any of them.
Marching in the community with placards and chanting anti-Gray slogan, the residents accused their lawmaker of using the facility, which they said was renovated by the District Development Fund as his personal property; something they described as abuse of power and illegal possession of public property.
“Rep.. Gray has not been very cordial to us. Even if you give out gift to people you cannot take it back. “
“That is tantamount to vandalism. You cannot use our own district development fund and embark on a renovation and after that claim it,” said Joe Willie, an elder of Slipway Community.
“As we are speaking, the Honorable has taken the generator and is planning to take all the machines and vandalize the facility.
This is unlawful, unacceptable, and in all clear terms we want to be emphatic about it that we will challenge him, and if anybody want to obstruct this, we are going to challenge them to NEC and in a court of competent jurisprudence,” Elder Willie vowed.
“He occupies our community town hall. He firstly said it was a library, but now he wants to turn it as his district office,” added Emmanuel S. Liberty, who claimed to be a former Youth coordinator for the Movement of Honorable Acarous Gray.
Kemah T. Jackson intoned, “Mr. Gray wants to take our Town Hall as his private property.
He is a lawmaker and is capable of having enough money to erect such property. This property is not his library or his district office. This is unacceptable.”
Meanwhile the Community Chairman, Isaac Walker, giving account of the incident said the saga was scheduled to be amicably resolved in a mass meeting on Tuesday, August 15, 2017, but the law maker failed to attend.
“To my dismay, he called me today that he won’t be attending the meeting because he is going for session, and he doesn’t want to sit under the gavel of Michael David.
Secondly he is willing to turn the Town Hall over to the community but will do it after the CDC launching,” Walker explained.
Mr. Walker noted that he was not aware of the removal of any materials by Representative Gray, but he will launch an investigation to ascertain the fact.
He averred that the facility belongs to the community and as such Mr. Gray should do the right thing to hand it over to the community in order to avoid any acts of violence during this crucial electioneering period.
“He brought some equipment for the meeting which was commendable, but if the citizens said they want their facility, you should give it to them. “
“The voice of the people is the voice of God.”
“if the community people who elected me mandated me to tell Rep. Gray to leave the town Hall, I have no other options, but to have him booted out of the Town hall. Because we don’t want chaos, we want peace and total harmony among every Liberian,” Walker averred.