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Valuing
Honest and Emotionally Intelligent Leader Such as Dr. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf
Saturday,
June 12, 2010
By
Harry
Papa Mason
The
pre-Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf era saw a loop of disingenuous male-dominated Liberian
leaders, whose leadership style was periodically consistent and anchored on
witch-hunt and gross abuse of power. This leadership style continued until the
election of a woman, President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, who has departed from that
“social truth” of witch hunt and abuse of power to a globally acceptable
“social truth” of adherence to good governance, human rights, economic
management and accountability.
As a
result, I am very inherently biased for honest, educated, emotionally
intelligent leaders such as Dr. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, who has distinguished
herself as the most democratic, accountable, and transparent leader Liberia has
ever produced in its 30 years of checkered history of violence and instability,
since the 1980 coup. Moreover, compared to her predecessors, President Johnson-Sirleaf
is widely credited for enabling and enhancing a transformative Liberian
political culture that has over the past four years seen some credible results
in the areas of governance, human rights, economic management and
accountability, and collective leadership participation.
Dr.
Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf rightly defined Liberia’s perennial political
instability to “economic deprivation” caused by a persistent culture of bad
national governance which, according to her, has adversely impacted a “general
mindset of dishonesty” among Liberians. Additionally, Planning Minister Amara
Konneh described such dishonesty in economics phrase as “inefficient
allocation of resources” perpetrated by preceding administrations before and
after the birth of the Liberian civil war.
In
our situation, where in our Liberian political culture before President Johnson-Sirleaf
would a sitting Liberian President honestly and publicly admit that Liberia’s
manifold problems are a result of “economic deprivation,” and a “general
mindset of dishonesty” among Liberians themselves?
In
brief, the most historic technological disasters caused by dishonesty of the top
leadership of NASA were the tragedies of the Challenger
and Columbia in 1986 and 2003,
respectively. These tragedies occurred as a result of top leadership’s
departure from NASA’s stated belief that “any
employee was empowered to stop an operation at the mere glimmer of a problem”,
was not the practice at all. Top management deliberately elected to cut out the
inputs of the engineers in the decision-making process for planned and scheduled
launches that caused the disasters of these two spacecrafts. Academic and
professional institutions in the United States correlate such dishonesty with
groupthink – everybody should espouse the same idea without opposition. Had
top management attentively listened to the engineers who identified faults on
the Challenger’s O-ring
and Columbia’s foam
insulator perhaps such disasters would have been prevented.
Moreover,
to further harvest a speck of that evidence of a “general mindset of
dishonesty” among Liberians, CDC Secretary General Leen Eugene Nagbe, recently
and deliberately misinformed the Liberian public and the world about the recent
whereabouts of CDC Standard Bearer George Oppong Weah during the arrest of his
(Mr. Weah’s) close friend James Bestman, for alleged drug trafficking and
money laundering in the United States. At the time FBI agents arrested Mr. James
Bestman, Mr. Nagbe authoritatively disclosed, “Mr. Weah was in Minnesota attending the CDC convention”,
and Mr. Weah was nowhere near the premises of Bestman’s home when the arrest
took place (FrontPageAfrica.com).
Further, mounting speculations of Mr. Weah’s presence with Mr. James
Bestman when FBI agents arrested him (Mr. Bestman) marred the CDC-USA convention
climate in Minnesota. As a result
of Nagbe’s intentional misinformation regarding the exact location of
Mr. George Oppong Weah during the arrest of Mr. James Bestman, Mr. Weah was
compelled to differ with Mr. Nagbe by admitting, “Regrettably, upon my arrival at his [Mr. James Bestman’s] residence, I
witnessed Mr. Bestman being served a warrant outside of his home. I would like
to emphatically state that there was no raid or entry into Mr. Bestman’s home,
and neither was I arrested, held in custody, or interrogated. I have no
knowledge of the details or reasons behind the warrant”
(LiberianForum.com).
In this case, honesty is an attribute of a
healthy socialization. Why should leaders like Ambassador George Oppong Weah be
compelled by circumstances to tell the truth?
Is this not a very high-alert red flag for our country, Liberia when
current leaders should assert themselves beyond reproach, and rid themselves of
the “general mindset of dishonesty” to set the tone for a responsible
governance leadership?
In short, both leaders of CDC – Ambassador George Oppong Weah and Mr. Leen
Eugene Nagbe were visibly caught in the
act of dishonesty, by initially concealing relevant information about the exact
location of CDC Standard Bearer George Oppong Weah during the arrest of Mr.
Weah’s close friend, James Bestman for alleged drugs trafficking and money
laundering in the United States. I therefore and warmly express my gratitude to
FrontPageAfrica.com for such a rapidly investigative report on the arrest of Mr.
James Bestman, where Ambassador George Oppong Weah was visibly present.
Admittedly, a
productive and successful leadership is always anchored on honesty - doing what is right, and admitting to what is wrong, even when
no one is watching over you. Liberia’s 30-year checkered history came
about as a result of what President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf defined as an
“economic deprivation” perpetrated by bad national governance that harmfully
impacted a “general mindset of dishonesty” among Liberians.
For
instance, the 1980 coup leaders headed by the late Dr. Samuel K. Doe, dethroned
and replaced the Tolbert administration for “rampant corruption, treason and
violation of human rights,” and promised to restore human rights, economic
management and accountability for all. In contrast, the coup leaders were very
disorganized and grossly mismanaged the country’s resources, and violated
human rights at the highest level compared to their dethroned predecessor Dr.
William R. Tolbert, Jr. The 1980
coup ignited a loop of instability in Liberia that became a fertile opportunity
for a disingenuous takeover by Charles Taylor, of the National Patriotic Front
of Liberia (NPFL), who systematically ravaged the nation and its people between
1989 and 2003.
During
the period of warfare in Liberia the country was geographically divided between
the self-declared NPFL-NPRAG government (National Patriotic Reconstruction
Assembly Government) in Gbarnga, and a number of interim administrations in
Monrovia. The most notable dishonesty of Dr. Amos C. Sawyer’s Interim
Government of National Unity (IGNU) in Monrovia was an exit sale of government
property to few privileged government officials. The Truth and Reconciliation
Commission (TRC) perhaps lost sight of this most important information, as it is
not contained anywhere in the final TRC Report.
As a
historic friend of the United States, Liberia should seemingly be an ethical
prototype of the United States, where the rule of law and accountability are not
compromised and serve as a fortress of uninterrupted national stability.
However, Liberia has been very unfortunate to live in a recurrent state of
dishonesty, which is a major epidemic rooted in all fabrics of the nation,
perhaps fueled by insatiable greed for wealth and sexual promiscuity among the
country’s male-dominated leaders.
Fortunately,
a new twist in national leadership has come as a surprise to have elected the
first female President of Liberia, Madam Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, who has
honestly, authentically, and evidently departed from the old leadership style of
witch-hunt,
intimidation, human rights abuss, gross fiscal mismanagement, gross sexual
exploitation of adolescent girls, intentional
downplaying of girl’s education, intentional exclusion of women participation
in executive, middle, and top leadership positions, and other countless
vices that have kept the country backward for more than 160 years.
As
depressed as Liberia has been for more than 30 years since the so-called
redemptive coup, a dawn of a new era surprisingly emerged with President Ellen
Johnson-Sirleaf who, many thought was “the same old wine in a new bottle”.
But this rationalization does not hold based on evidence of real change she has
initiated. In comparison, her government is more civil, transparent,
all-inclusive and decentralized, embodying the mass participation of citizens in
decision-making as evidenced by the County Development Agendas (CDAs).
Evidently,
the transformative and collective leadership style of Madam Johnson-Sirleaf is
in direct opposition to the Mephistophelian nature of past leadership style
perpetrated by her predecessors. Despite
being confronted with difficulty to implement a new “social truth” of
collective leadership championing village-town-clan-chiefdom-county
participation, accountability and transparency, Madam Johnson-Sirleaf has fought
hard for a new day to cherish evidence-based leadership and globalization that
cannot afford Liberia to stay in its slumber anymore.
The
most important opportunity we have available now is to re-socialize or
reengineer our Liberian society with the virtues of honesty and hard work. Let
us pray for the continued political wisdom and good health of President Ellen
Johnson-Sirleaf, whose second term will leave or put in place a workable
democratic institution in which accountability, transparency, human rights, and
collective governance will reign, and be vestiges for succeeding
administrations.
Harry Papa Mason
resides in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, United States, with his family, and can
be reached at hapamajr@gmail.com or at 763-443-8774.
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