Thank you Rodney Sieh and FrontPageAfrica for a well-researched article and for raising the red alarm about the potential of fraud in the upcoming October 10, 2017 Liberian elections. And all of the signals for a rigged elections and violence are clear for all to see.

I have always said that Liberia is Africa’s first failed experiment at democracy and exported the anti-democracy virus to the rest of the continent.

How else could one justify planting the first seed of democracy when 95 percent of the population was excluded in 1847? 

And Liberians have been paying the price and will continue to pay the price in blood and tears until we get it right.

Apparently, we seem not to learn any lessons from the 14-year deadly civil war; and those who confessed to planning the war and who hijacked the political system are even more now anti-democratic than previous regimes.

In the 1929 presidential election of Congua-only candidates pitting Charles Dunbar Burgess King against one Mr. Faulkner, there were 15,000 registered Congua only voters as natives were excluded.

But when the election results were announced, Mr. King “won” with 234,000 votes, all time vote-fraud record that is recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records. 

Liberia’s longest serving dictator, William VS Tubman and his Congua-only True Whig Party were notorious in silencing any opposition even when Tubman had to kill one of their own, David Coleman.

Samuel Doe, the first native who righteously seized power from the Congua in 1980 was infected with the anti-democracy virus he inherited from the Americo-Liberians/Congua and perfected it in the first multi-party 1986 presidential elections.

Then came the civil war from 1989 to 2003. But in the 1997 elections, rebel Charles Taylor held the nation hostage with guns pointed to the headed of voters and the slogan was: ” he killed my pa, he killed my ma but I will vote for him.” And Taylor “won” with over 70 percent of the votes.

You fast forward to both the 2005 and 2011 rigged elections and the dismal performance and corrupt leadership of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. No wonder Ellen is begging for immunity/clemency from prosecution and her cleaver manipulation of the October elections and to install her handpicked stooge.

And as FrontPageAfrica clearly stated but forget to mention Ellen’s confession in America on how the 2005 votes were rigged in her favor.

At the historic black Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, New York City, Ellen unashamedly narrated how Liberian mothers would deny food to their voting children unless they traded up their voter registration cards for food. Thus, most mothers voted more than once for the absent children.

Then the November 2011 letter by former National Elections Commission Chairman James Fromoyan to CDC on how his NEC had switched the votes by giving CDC’s winning votes to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, only for Fromoyan to lie that he did not read the letter he had signed and sent to CDC.

And here we are on the verge of holding yet other presidential elections with all the recipes for fraud and controversies by both the NEC and the Supreme Court of Liberia by the Court’s double-talk on the Code of Conduct law.

The Court barred Selena Mappy Polson and Abu Kamara from contesting but allowed Harrison Karnwea and by extension Mills Jones, Alex Cummings, Jeremiah Sulunteh and opened the floodgates for others.

Senator Varney Sherman and the lawmakers need to pass a law that definitively terminates Ellen Sirleaf and her VP’s term on the third Monday in January regardless of the outcome in the elections.

Additionally, the NEC and the Supreme Court need to resolve the matter of Amos Siebo, the former aide to President Sirleaf who was arrested for turning his home into a virtual printing press of voter registration cards.

Mr. Siebo was working then in President Sirleaf’s Office, ironically with the title of “Presidential Deliverables.” How did Seibo get hold of NEC computers, printers, cameras, voter registration forms and other related materials to end up in his home?

And the NEC Chairman Jerome Korkoya created another controversy when he told the Senate that anyone with a voter registration card will be allowed to vote regardless, a recipe for fraud. The NEC says officially there are 2,183,683 registered voters.

We applaud the Supreme Court of Kenya for its supremely decision in the rigged Kenyan elections.

But can the Supreme Court of Liberia already embroiled in controversial election cases rise to the occasion and call a spade a spade?

I am afraid not based on its flip-flop rulings in the Code of Conduct law. Otherwise, I smell trouble in October…and thank God Ellen will be there herself juggle the mess.

Jerry Wehtee Wion,
Journalist and Political Commentator
Washington, DC.

The Supreme Court of Liberia and its 3 wise men and 2 wise women opened the floodgates to the 2017 elections. No more excuses of “I could have won and got elected President” if the Supreme Court did not prevent me from contesting.” 

But that is not good enough an excuse for the Supreme Court to abuse its authority by first ruling the Code of Conduct law as constitutional and then ruling in a similar case unconstitutional.

But this too is Liberia where we take one next step forward and two steps backward. Only in Liberia.

Now we have 22–not 2–but 22 Liberians running for the presidency for such a small country?

Because government da de gravy train. God saved Liberia. And now there are nearly 1000 Liberians competing for 73 House of Representatives jobs? 

All because the Ellen regime turned the government into an elephant meat, a free for all chopping time.

This is why we are witnessing this frenzy in the 2017 races because everyone wants some elephant meat.

See why some candidates were predicting they will, be on the ballot and not even the biblical King Pontius Pilate would stop them?

In Liberia, politics is driven by “Brown Envelops” in seeking the political kingdom of government.

True or not, and before overturning its own previous ruling on the constitutionality of the Code of Conduct law, reports surfaced that Chief Justice Francis Kporkpor had disguised himself and played yet another biblical character: Nicademus.

The popular Henry Costa Radio Talk Show did broadcast that the Chief Justice of Liberia had camouflaged himself and went incognito to see King Jesus, oops, sorry, make that President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf at her seafront mansion in the middle of the night about letting all Liberian Presidential and legislative hopefuls enter into the political kingdom of running a corrupt government.

CJ Kporkpor reportedly was unmasked by some sharp-eyes ESP Presidential guards who noticed him.

“Aren’t you Chief Justice Francis Kporkpor of the Supreme Court of Liberia, and you and your wise Justices are to rule soon on the Code of Conduct case involving Harrison Karnwea and Jeremiah Sulunteh?” the guard politely asked him. 

An embarrassed CJ Kporkpor, the great jurist might have pondered his King Solomon-like reply and murmured and played yet another biblical figure, Peter: “No, I don’t know the CJ but they say we look alike. The President sent for me,” CJ Kporkpor may have as well said in his heart. 

The Henry Costa Radio show said the ESP guard who recognized the CJ said the great lawyer left the President’s home after 2 .a.m. and the poor guard was reportedly fired for doing his job. Days later the Supreme Court ruled that the elections was free for all and that opened the floodgates where we now have over 1000 Liberian applying for 75 government jobs.

So I let them run that we don’t have to put up with crybabies. And this too is Liberia.  

Jerry Wehtee Wion,
Journalist and Political Commentator
Washington, DC. USA

The Editor,

It is very disingenuous and a callous slap-in-face and an insult to the poor, suffering and still dying Liberian people when a president who campaigned on and declared “war on corruption,” is shielding her corrupt friends who are perpetuating corruption, suffering, pain and hurt, and the unnecessary deaths of Liberians–12 years into her presidency.

Even when the world is trying to help Liberians, we continue to refuse to help ourselves because of the corruption.

And those who are visiting these abuses on our people are doing so in the name government and democracy. We have given them and official licenses to commit these crimes with impunity.

How can the corrupt police and prosecute themselves when all institutions of government are staffed with the same crooks: administrators, police, courts/judges? It becomes business as usual.

But that a woman who took her criticisms of her predecessors even before the US Congress has turned out to run the most corrupt government, and then publicly admits that she has failed to curtail the menace is one reason hospitals are demanding money before treating dying patients.

Is this who we are after a brutal war?

During Ebola, corruption peaked to a new level. People were enriching themselves as international monetary kept pouring into Liberia and the people were dying.

Over a billion dollars and over 100 Medical emergency vehicles or Ambulances were given to Liberia to fix our broken healthcare system.

The vehicles have vanished and the money gone. It seems to be more of a mess now than even before Ebola.

And when the Ellen-led regime has less than six months to be replaced, it is free for all and grab-and-go, the 12-year party and honeymoon is about over.

“Liberia is not a poor country but a country run poorly,” President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said of her predecessors William Tolbert, Samuel Doe, Gyude Bryant and Charles Taylor. “

“I guess our people are living better than before.”

It is suffice to say that in nearly 12 years since she became President of Liberia in January 2006, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has not had her blood pressure checked at any government-funded healthcare center in Liberia.

She jet-travels to America each year for the best care anywhere in the world made possible by American tax payers.

President Sirleaf’s older sister Jenny Bernard is Head and Coordinator, Liberia National Healthcare Program.

Big sister Jenny is also Chairman of the Board of Directors of JFK Hospital.

Jenny spends more time at her Long Island, New York mansion with her husband Estrada Bernard who is also Legal and Security Adviser to President Sirleaf.

Government is sweet for some people.

And now again President Sirleaf is promising yet another “investigation” into why the JFK Hospital is refusing to treat patients unless payment is made upfront.

And if this is the first time for President Sirleaf to hear about the hospital’s pay-to-play policy in 12 years, then God help our country.

In April this year, me, Liberian Lawyer Fredrick Jayweh of Denver, Colorado, Mr. Tony Leeway of Minnesota, Mr. Aaron Manneh of Newark, New Jersey and others raised $1100.00 towards the medical bills of a dozen first time poor Liberian baby mothers who were detained at the hospital after giving birth because they had no money to pay for their individual hospital bills that totaled LD$133,000.00 as reported by FrontPageAfrica.

Lawyer Jayweh was in Liberia this month and visited JFK Hospital as a follow-up to the $1100 meant to pay the young mothers’ bills.

His ordeal of frustration, bureaucracy, red tape and to trace and confirm the payment of the money is worth another commentary.

May the soul of the promising 20-year old Princess Yates–who was refused medical care at JFK unless payment was made and later died as a result–rest in peace; and May God comfort her grieving parents Oretha and Prince Yates. This too is Liberia.

And to President Sirleaf: Thank you President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf for winning your “war on corruption, Liberia’s number one enemy.”

We need to amend the constitution for you President Sirleaf to serve for life.

Liberians will truly miss your great leadership that gives us good hospitals, doctors and first rate care, good schools, good roads, reduces unemployment from 85% in 2006 to 84% in 2017, where papas/fathers are coming home from work with shopping bags full of goodies for the kids and family as we were promised in 2006.

Enjoy your retirement our beloved Harvard University “economist” for this economic buoyancy through Ellenomics.

Jerry Wehtee Wion,
jerrywwion@gmail.com
Washington, D.C., USA

 President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf needs to lead by example. And you know this won’t bypass me without telling you what is on my mind.

With all the real estate assets Ellen “declared” last month, missing from her disclosures was how much did she pay in taxes for the hundreds of acres of land she listed and houses as hers?

Now, let us compare both assets: the assets she declared before taking office did not come near, not even close to the assets she has declared 12 years later.

How did she acquire all the extra assets while President?

In 2005, she listed her debt to include US$120,000.00 owed to Lebanese people. 12 years later she is a multi-millionaire. Only in Liberia.

Equally so, how much tax did Ellen pay each year from 2006 to the present on her income–salary of US$72,000.00-plus yearly perks including her Nobel Peace Prize money?

But we want to know how much did she pay for all the properties she listed including the 500 acres of land in Bong County?

So why cry now about little tax revenue when you wasted 12 years in office but was conspicuously silent?

Thus, there is more the reason to audit Ellen. 

And then the over US$30 million wasted on fixing the Executive Mansion that is still not fixed and is unoccupied and the money that disappeared into corruption.

And whatever became of her “war on corruption, Liberia’s number one enemy?”

“Puah-puah, says the Kru and Grebo people, meaning that talk is cheap. 

Hence, why we need assurances from our presidential candidates that they will act on all the dormant GAC audits and Presidential Task Forces findings and a promise to revisit all the bogus US$20 billion of so-called foreign “investment agreements” that sucked away our natural resources with nothing in return.

Then there is the need to audit our once promising offshore oil bust, and the now bankrupt National Oil Company of Liberia, NOCAL; thanks to Ellen’s son, Robert Sirleaf who ran the company into bankruptcy.

Ellen refuses to audit her Golden Boy son and to even audit NOCAL, but she is crying about low revenue intake.

Some Harvard economics? No, it is rather “Ellenomics” or voodoo economics.

More to come because we are going untangle your web of corruption for the last 12 years.

If Mr. Joseph Boakai wins, bet you Mr. John Morlu, the no nonsense former Auditor General of the General Auditing Commission of Liberia will resurface to continue where he left off. Nightmare postulation for many.

Jerry Wehtee Wion,
Journalist and Political Commentator
Washington, DC, USA

Now That you have picked your vice presidential running mate in House Speaker Emmanuel Nuquay and we who support you will have to live with that decision, good or bad. 

I have a problem with Mr. Nuquay but I can understand the logic of picking him: to help deliver the Kpelleh vote, by far the largest ethnic group in Liberia found in five counties: Bong, Grand Bassa, Nimba, Margibi, and Lofa.

But is that reasoning enough when Nuquay represents perhaps the most corrupt institution of government, the National Legislature?

I am sure you Mr. Boakai will take a page from American President Harry Trumam’s political playbook when he said: “the buck stops here,” meaning, the President, as captain of the ship takes full responsibility for the administration’s decisions.

This is why the corruption blame game rests squarely at the feet of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and not so much you, her Vice President.

If you are elected, then it becomes Boakai’s show.

Because I have been a proponent of the Native versus Congua debate in this election, I can live with the Nuquay pick, but I am not the one to waste my time defending the absurdity of his office as Speaker and the wealth apportioned in the national budget for his comfort in the midst of grinding poverty facing Liberians.

Except for the last two budgets, the “office budgets” for both the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the Senate Pro Temp average $1 million each over the years.

Then the insanity of this giveaway is that we the taxpayers pay them to live in their own homes, pay for their electric generators, pay for their travels, pay for their cars, pay for their gasoline and even pay for oil change and car tune ups.

The government is sweet for some. I can’t defend such lifestyles of the rich at the expense of the poor. That is the stuff political campaigns are fought on. You have just fed raw red meat to the opposition.

Now, Team Boakai will save face by campaigning on cutting such waste in the outrageous salaries and benefits across the board in all three branches of government.

Do yourself the favor by promising to cut your own presidential salary of $72,000.00 and the other benefits of that office, and that of your VP, cut the salaries of all lawmakers from the $175,000.00 yearly for each to maybe $36,000.00 a year; cut the fat salaries of Justices of the Supreme Court reportedly at $90,000.00 each to $30,000.00 yearly; and please cut the fat $360,000.00 yearly salary for the NOCAL head and the $108,000.00 yearly pay for each NOCAL Board member. 

Then cut also the fat salaries of some cabinet ministers to a uniformed monthly salary for all cabinet members; cut also the outrageous salaries of the Liberia Telecommunication Chair and Board members, then at LPRC and all the pork in this bloated fat government.

In other words, lead by example. Cut your own salary to $60,000.00 yearly and the VP to $45,000.00 yearly. Those who want o get rich should go in the private sector.

Then we want to know how you are going to fight the cancer of corruption in government? This is why many were hoping you would pick the no-nonsense corruption critic Cllr, Kofi Woods. Let voters know some of your potential cabinet picks for Justice Minister, Police Chief, Finance Minister, Health Minister and Education Minister. 

And what do you plan to do with the over 100 General Auditing Commission audits and Presidential Task Forces findings that President Sirleaf has refused to act on? What is your position on the TRC Report and the need for a future Liberia War and Economic Crimes Court?

Let some of your future cabinet ministers be part of the “face” of your campaign to send a strong message you are going to take no prisoners in the war on corruption. This election is all yours to win but it is not going to be handed to you, You must earn it, or else.

Please recruit the likes of Kofi Woods, Tiawon Gongloe, the fearless former Auditor General John Morlu, John Stewart, Jerome Verdier, Dr. Antoinette Sayeh and others. Who is going to be your campaign manager?

People want to know, Now that you have selected your VP, it is time to craft your campaign manifesto or platform, your vision on how you will govern. 

Please don’t disappoint we native people who support you. Your public relations team has its work cut out for them.

Congratulations again, and now the work begins to sell your ideas for a better future for all Liberians and not just the powerful few.

Jerry Wehtee Wion, Journalist and Political Commentator
Washington, DC, USA

Coming to America, again? She is already here. What is more important to Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf?

Travelling to the United States of America to speak at a high school graduation, or staying at home to host the visiting US Secretary of Health and Human Services Thomas Price to truly lay out a vision to improve the broken Liberia healthcare system?

No wonder President Sirleaf has not had her blood pressure checked at any Liberian government funded medical center since she took office in 2006.

Well, we know that coming to America can mean many things for the world’s most travelled head of state, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of the failed state, Liberia.

It also means pocketing a huge travel allowance, getting the best healthcare treatment in America that she can’t find in Liberia and the huge cost to the Liberian taxpayers and picking up her much needed medication.

Since Liberia is close to bankruptcy, you would think Ellen would forego the trip and instead ask her ambassador to the United States to deliver her already prepared statement to the graduating high school students. But Ellen will be Ellen.

Ellen is trying to smooth over her strained ties to the new American President Donald Trump. Ellen had told the global broadcast giant, BBC that she was “disappointed in the choice of American voters who elected Donald Trump president and not Hilary Clinton,” her friend.

She is going to urge her highly paid US lobbyists on K Street in Washington to try and mend fences with The Donald to try to make the US her retirement home as she leaves office next January.

It is rumored in high US officialdom that hanging over Ellen’s head are possibly indictments for corruption, human rights abuses and war crimes charges. A source says President Trump who doesn’t take “brown envelope” may likely turn Ellen over for prosecution if she is indicted.

Africa may not be a better option to run away from the far reaches of the International Criminal Court that gave Ellen’s predecessor, Charles Taylor a 50-year or life sentence for war crimes Taylor committed in Sierra Leone. 50,000 people were killed in the Sierra Leone civil war, whereas 250,000 Liberian lives were lost in the 14-year Liberian genocidal holocaust.

In December last year, the two Americans who prosecuted Taylor, Alan White and Steve Rapp, said they have not given up in their determination to have a Liberia War and Economic Crimes Court and would lobby the Trump administration for support.

They problem is, both men said, President Sirleaf’s government has refused to request for such court, a key requirement. Now, all hopes lie with the next President of Liberia who succeeds Ellen in the October presidential elections.

Some presidential candidates are on record against setting up a Liberia War and Economic Crimes Court.

But others are for such court which is one of the polarizing campaign issues. Many Liberians want such a court to address impunity and deter future warmongers.

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf who publicly admitted raising money for the bloody and deadly Liberian civil war on American soil–a clear violation of US laws–is strongly against the establishment of the court as she was recommended along with others for prosecution.

Now with about seven months to her retirement, Ellen is reportedly shopping around for her new host.

Because in Liberia, protests are expected to follow her around after her retirement. And, President Trump is leaving the US for his first official foreign visit to Europe and Israel later this week.

Jerry Wehtee Wion,
Journalist and Political Commentator
Washington, DC, USA

The Editor,

Could it be said that “the chickens are coming home to roost” in the CDC?” I hope not but this is becoming a problematic trend for Senator George Weah and the CDC.

When the CDC should be experiencing an influx, it is now an exodus of its heavyweights. Why?

Elections are just five months away. I will stop here for now for me who was a drum major in the 2005 and 2011 elections for a native George Manneh Weah.

I have been trumpeting a Joseph Nyumah Boakai–George Manneh Weah all-native Dream Team presidential ticket in my political commentaries on FrontPageAfrica and on radio talk shows here in America but my suggestion fell on deaf ears. Instead, Weah opted for a NPFL-NPP alliance. Now things are beginning to fall apart.

I am a strong advocate for native unity but this caĺl is far above the paygrade for many natives to digest, especially when you take into consideration the calculated, strategic maneuvering of the congau to maintain their grip on power.

How else would one describe President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s lip-service and lukewarm support for her loyal native Vice President Joseph Nyumah Boakai when she is openly supporting her fellow congau Charles Walker Brumskine?

Ellen can deny all she wants that she is not supporting Brumskine but we natives know better. When native politicians are leaving her ruling Unity Party in droves and many are saying–like the Mandingo Musa Bility–that Ellen endorsed their carpet-crossing to Brumskine’s Liberty Party, and then this crucial election has become Natives versus Congau.

But money will not vote; instead, people will vote and our people and Mr, Boakai will do to Brumskine what George Weah did to Ellen’s son Robert in the 2014 senatorial contest. Brumskine has swallowed what has become the “Ellen-curse” to swamp his campaign. The poor voters are not stupid anymore; they will “eat” Brumskine’s money and then vote for Boakai.

This old dirty politricks of congua manipulation of natives by dangling bones/money in front of natives to sell their soul to the devil has reached its political deathbed in this election. So we gladly bid farewell to native sellouts: the Harrison Karnweas, the Jeremiah Suluntehs, Musa Bilitys and others who abandoned native Joseph Boakai for congua Charles Walker Brumskine, Alexander Cummings and Mills Jones.

This reality of these native political “Judases” has not lost on our people as made public in pronouncements of endorsements by the Kpelleh people of Bong County and our Gio and Mano kinsmen of vote-rich Nimba County when they referred to Joseph Boakai as “an indigenous true son of the soil.”

In-fact, our poor Gio and Mano sisters and mothers made history when they raised money for Mr. Boakai’s presidential campaign, a first ever in Liberia.

So, as the nation awaits the biggest political decision by Mr. Joseph Boakai for his VP pick, he is not burdened like the Congau who must pick a native as VP.

We urge Mr, Boakai to pick a native who has grassroots support to help him win in a first-round knockout on October 10, 2017 to put Liberia on an irreversible course in our ugly history: natives for self-governance.

Back to the CDC debacle: “So shall you make your bed, so shall you lie in it.” Why would George Weah and the CDC that rose to popularity without ties to other political parties now find themselves in such entanglements that may mean the decline of that powerful grassroots movement?

Just imagine a Boakai-Weah ticket as I had been preaching? But good luck to Weah and the CDC. And this is why I support Joseph Nyumah Boakai, We natives have suffered far too long in our own country under the Congau to remain divided.

Out of 24 “presidents”, there has been only one native president, Samuel Doe when natives constitute 95% of the population. Enough is enough.

Jerry Wehtee Wion,
Washington, D.C., USA

Mr. Boakai,

Perhaps, your biggest political gamble and decision of your career is the naming of your vice presidential running mate, and all of your political adversaries are awaiting that announcement by you. They are already with their political butcher knives to x-ray your choice. They see and smell blood. Don’t give them any raw red meat.

Without dwelling on any particular individual this time–unlike my last commentary where I suggested Lawyer Tiawon Gongloe–I want to indulge your sagacity to a few suggestions.

I have not hidden my choice for President of Liberia in this contest and I have stated my reasoning many times. I see myself first and foremost as a progressive nationalist. I have seen and lived firsthand the ugliness of our history. At your age, you need no lecture.

Political correctness is the new song of politicians but that is not my burden to bear. History and the facts bear me out. Many of us watch you from far and near. You are above the rest: you are a statesman, diplomat, a fatherly figure, calm and calculated, meek and lowly, humble and respectful, kind, and an obedient public servant. They can NEVER paint you with the brush of corruption, the cancer that afflicts most Liberian politicians. You are everybody’s “Uncle Joe.”

Therefore Uncle Joe, pick your VP running mate who will help you cross the finish line in the October 10, 2017 pivotal presidential elections. No doubt, you are the front-runner in this race and all eyes are on you. Who you pick to run with you is your first major political test.

As your surrogate in the trenches fighting for you, I should not have the extra burden to defend the “ifs, buts, whys” about any possible political skeletons that your adversaries will dig up on your VP choice. And bet you the Liberian people will find “something” on your choice. So don’t feed the hungry lions any raw meat.

In politics, winning is the first goal. Win first and everything else shall fall into place. You need a VP with a strong base of support that will appeal to voters: women, youths, someone they can relate to, someone who is not tinted by corruption and has no role in our civil war.

The rest can play meaningful roles in your cabinet. But you NEED a VP who can help you WIN. If not, then why run in the first place. People remember winners and soon forget losers.

And back to our history. First, it is sheer hypocrisy and illusion for anyone to dismiss our long ugly history of the Native-Congua divide and the exclusion and marginalization of the tribal majority by the tiny minority Congua for over 100 years. The burden of guilt lives with the oppressor.

The oppressed never forgets the past. It is called HISTORY.

This is why the major Congua candidates always seek out a native to be their VP running mate. Unlike pre-1980, there can never be two Congua on the same ticket as president and vice president. It will be a political suicide. But interestingly, a Congua seldom wants to be VP to a native. But Mr. Joseph Nyuma Boakai doesn’t have that extra political burden to bear.

Finally, why should I spend precious time to defend the questionable character of your VP pick? There are individuals who don’t need defending. Their names and records are an open book to Liberians….and, rule number one: can he/she help you cross the finish line? The choice is yours to make only. I still root for you….

Jerry Wehtee Wion,
Journalist and Political Commentator
Washington, DC, USA

Unless my math is wrong, I counted far less than 15 political parties in this “endorsement” statement of the embattled Chairman of National Elections Commission (NEC), Jerome Korkoyah’s nationality status.

But conspicuously absent from the endorsement are the ruling Unity Party, Liberty Party, the Alternative National Congress, the Movement for Economic Empowerment, strongman firebrand Prince Johnson’s political party and other parties. Supposedly, there are about 25 registered political parties in Liberia.

The Liberian African News Service, LANS has reliably learned of a possible pending lawsuit on this already polarized but significant issue of Korkoyah’s US citizenship status. A Liberian lawyer confided to LANS that the case will be filed, not only against Mr. Korkoyah but to include others, to the Supreme Court of Liberia, as will be the political campaigns that violate the Code of Conduct Law.

Thus, the Supreme Court of Liberia will be the final arbiter of this important constitutional matter, and no amount of party endorsements will settle the crisis. Liberian immigration authorities must be subpoenaed and are in a better position to tell if Mr. Korkoyah did use US passport at any time to enter and leave Liberia.

If so, Korkoyah then willfully committed perjury. And retroactively, the same law could be applied to Robert Sirleaf who many believe is a US citizen and held a US $360,000.00 job as head of the bankrupt National Oil Company of Liberia, NOCAL.

In this connection, we have announced the formation of “Citizens United for Electoral Integrity,” a nonpartisan grassroots movement that supports and will fund such lawsuits on the citizenship status of individuals holding or seeking public office in Liberia and the Code of Conduct Law which the Supreme Court ruled on this year as constitutional in the case: Liberia versus Selena Mappy-Polson.

Another issue that should attract the attention of the Korkoyah supporters is the outcome in the pending investigation of how NEC voting materials–voter registration forms, cameras, computers, etc,—ended up in the home of Mr. Amos Seibo, who was at the time a top aide to President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Mr. Seibo had turned his house into a virtual manufacturing plant for NEC voting materials.

Mr. Korkoyah and his supporters need to press him on how NEC materials left the NEC Headquarters to end up in Mr. Seibo’s house. It is suffice to say that there may be other “Amos Siebos” out there yet to be discovered who are busy doing their thing to commit vote fraud. Why has it taken this long for Korkoyah and the NEC to tell voters how Seibo got hold of key voting materials?

Otherwise, a see trouble ahead where others will contend that a non-Liberian should not head the NEC and therefore reject the outcome.

If those who are claiming that Korkoyah is a US citizen and they have the evidence, then sue him and the NEC to the Supreme Court of Liberia. If convicted, then he must pay back every dollar he got in salary and benefit and then send him to jail. The law is the law.

Jerry Wehtee Wion,
Journalist and Political Commentator
Washington, DC, USA

This is a catch 50/50 situation facing our people. But the great Deal Maker Trump can reach a deal with Liberia. Just keep reading.

The Liberian refugees didn’t ask to come to America, but were forced to leave Liberia because of the few power-hungry politicians who lived in America only to study/plan the destruction of their own country through war.

They’ve gained political power through the barrel of the gun and only to enrich themselves while our people wallow in grinding poverty and misery.

The Liberian civil war ended in 2003, and now 14 years later in 2017 and our leaders–despite the billions of dollars that went to Liberia from the United States, the European Union and other nations–sought to give corruption a new meaning, thinking that other people’s money would keep pouring into Liberia forever. Well, they—our leaders—should have known better.

President Ellen Johnson in particular, the confessed architect and mastermind of the 14-year Liberian genocidal holocaust touted her Harvard University credentials as an “economist” who would deliver Liberians to the promised land of a utopian democratic Liberia with economic buoyancy.

“Liberia is not a poor country but a country run poorly,” she drowned her gullible opponents and war weary and traumatized population during her run for the presidency in 2005. A new messiah was coming, we were made to believe. Where is the beef now?

The tens of thousands of Liberians, Guineans and Sierra Leoneans who lost their homes, villages and everything in the war and were given a second chance in America have now reached The Rubicon in President Donald Trump and his “America First” new nationalist zeal. And caught in the middle are TPS refugees.

Just imagine the life they will have to encounter if they were made to return home. Many have lost everything from families to homes back home and must start a new life in a country where unemployment is at a record high of 85% nationally. There are no jobs, no housing program and not even electricity and drinking water.

But President Sirleaf and her praise-singers are fond of counting her “remarkable achievements” that are only visible to the Ellennites and Ellennazis.

Not helping matter was President Sirleaf’s undiplomatic putdown and tongue-lashing of President Donald Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton.

President Sirleaf, instead of first congratulating President-elect Trump, she went on the BBC to bemoan the 66 million American voters who elected Mr. Trump.

President Sirleaf said she was “disappointed” in the choice of the American voters who didn’t vote for her friend Hillary Clinton. Whatever became of diplomacy?

And The Donald doesn’t forget easily.

Now the American President alone must determine the fate of thousands of Liberians living in America and the nightmare of returning then to Liberia.

I smell political chaos if they must return to Liberia. But many Liberians on TPS were smart enough to transition from TPS to “Green Card” holders or legal residents and some eventually became US citizens.

The man who wrote – “The Art of the Deal. What President Donald Trump and the Liberian government must agree on to avert the forced return of these TPS Liberians is an agreement to have the US government audit post-war Liberia on how the billions of US dollars given to Liberia was spent.

It is called accountability, and Liberian officials caught in corruption be prosecuted. This should be a good deal for both countries, especially for President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf who once “declared war on corruption as enemy number one in Liberia.”

President Trump will then discover that many corrupt Liberian officials bought fabulous homes in America with US tax dollars meant to help rebuild Liberia.That will be helping Liberia to fight President Sirleaf’s long lost war on corruption.

The US State Department Annual Human Rights Report on Liberia has detailed corruption in the post-war Liberian government from 2003 to the present.

Plus, there are over 100 Liberian government-sanctioned General Auditing Commission audits where individuals implicated in corruption have not been indicted and prosecuted.

To quote President Sirleaf again, “Liberia is not a poor country but a country run poorly.”

Prosecute the corrupt officials, freeze their assets and bank accounts in both Liberia and here in the United States and use the money to settle the repatriated refugees.

That is a win-win formula for Liberia, the United States and the Liberians on TPS.

But will President Donald Trump buy such argument? Get ready next month for his tweets on the fate of the Liberian TPS refugees.

Does President Trump know that Liberia is Africa first failed experiment at genuine democracy on the Continent after 170 years of “independence” since July 26, 1847?

Jerry Wehtee Wion,
Journalist and Political Commentator
Washington, DC, USA