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George
Weah and James Kollie's feud is also our business
Monday,
March 06, 2006
By Tewroh-Wehtoe Sungbeh
It will not
be a bad idea at all if George Manneh Weah could come
forward and fully explain in (simple English) to the
Liberian people, his fans and loyal supporters the
allegations of corruption levied at him by James
Kollie Jr., co-founder and former Secretary-General of
the Congress for Democratic Change political party,
which Weah supposedly heads as its “first
partisan.”
After all, it is smart politics and a public
relations bonanza for a public servant whose future is
in politics, and whose eyes are on the prize to come
clean, be straight with his or her people, and be on
the good side of the public if he or she wants to be promoted to a much higher political office one
day.
That is the ideal path I thought Weah, who once
ran for the presidency and perhaps has his sight on
another run in 2012, would take whenever there’s any
sign of trouble or rumors of impropriety in his public
life.
By moving quickly to explain his innocence, he
could quell the rumors of corruption
swirling around him and and at least inject confidence in his
leadership, heal the rift in his party, ease the
anxieties of his partisans and an anxious public, and
take charge by showing what a true leader can be in
times of crisis.
George Weah
Edwin M. Snowe
What will not be smart politics on the part of
George Weah is for him to be George Weah - the
incompetent, reticent, and tongue-tied political
neophyte and former international football star who
entered the presidential race only because of his
celebrity status and past football exploits; a guy who
never believed in himself or his vision for the
country he wanted to govern.
George Weah entered a dangerous territory when
he and his party members lied by playing the
[selective] amnesia defense claiming not to know
“one James F. Kollie,” a put-down attempt to
discredit the fellow who tote the party line before
and after the national elections; until the job of
protecting Mr. Weah got to be too much to bear, and the
load became too heavy to carry.
The tasks of blindly protecting George Weah at
this time got too burdensome for Kollie, who, I am
sure moaned bitterly in private to Weah and others
within the party to address his grievance, but got no
result.
And when some of his colleagues who are aware
of the problems within the party began to kowtow to
Weah instead of addressing the issues head-on, Kollie
took his complaint to the public, which is the right
thing to do.
I would have done exactly what James Kollie did
had I been a member of the Congress for Democratic
Change, because members of political parties are not
in the business of idol or leader worshipping, but are
there to put forward good and debatable ideals and
visions to win elections and get the best results for
their people. That kind of spineless behavior should
never be accepted in the new Liberia that is shaping
up before our eyes today.
And because of the way the last presidential
election was contested, with George Weah at the
forefront presenting himself as a democratic-minded
leader while his supporters took to the streets for
days threatening to cause mayhem if he wasn’t
declared the president of Liberia, gave some of us
good reasons to look at the gentleman differently,
than what he has been billed to be over the years.
However, the same George Weah who once
screamed, yelled or hollowed publicly when he thought
he was being denied the presidency by the acknowledged
flaws of the National Elections Commission during the
electoral process daringly declared himself president
of Liberia, but strangely relinquished his party’s
political rights when the Congress for Democratic
Change, by design, did not contest the office of
Speaker of the House of Representatives, by virtue of
the CDC’s majority seats in the lower chambers.
The allegations that George Weah was allegedly
bribed $3 million by the government of Nigeria to drop
his claim of a rigged election in November, Weah’s
strange support of Independent candidate, Edwin Snowe
to be Speaker of the House instead of supporting his
own CDC partisans for the job since his party is in
the majority are serious charges worthy of an
independent investigation.
According to James F. Kollie’s February 20,
2006 letter of resignation to party Chairman Samuel D.
Tweah Jr., Edwin Snowe promised to build a complex to
house the headquarters of CDC, a payback for Weah’s
support in what seems to be a criminal violation of
the election law of the land.
Now if the Sirleaf administration were serious
about transparency and wants to do the right thing,
her Justice Ministry would look into this matter and
hire an independent counsel to see whether Mr. Weah
violated any law.
But I strongly doubt if anything concrete will
come out of this in terms of an investigation to dig
deep into this very slimy matter.
Because this could be problematic for the
president and Frances Johnson Morris, her Minister of
Justice-designate and former chairlady of the National
Elections Commission, who presided over the November 8
elections and was at loggerheads with Weah because of
charges of electoral fraud.
Frances Johnson Morris would later acknowledge
problems during the controversial ballot count that
put then-candidate Ellen Johnson Sirleaf over the top.
Even though this is an internal crisis between
partisans of the Congress for Democratic Change (CDC),
it has national ramifications because of the allegations
of alleged criminal violations of Liberia’s election
law, which could affect future elections if Weah and
Snowe were to get away with this one.
Rebuilding Liberia is also about investigating
criminal activities, and enforcing the laws of the
land.
No one, not even the president, George Weah or
Edwin Snowe should get away with murder.
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