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Shutting
up is Un-Liberian
Monday,
June 19, 2006
By Tewroh-Wehtoe Sungbeh
Ellen Johnson
Sirleaf is a very popular president. I really don't
know how long that popularity will last but the
admiration most Liberians have for her can be seen in
the eyes and faces of those who get to meet her, and
what they think of the lady who’s now leader of
their fractured country.
President
Sirleaf’s bright and intelligent and is good at
speaking directly to the hearts of those who pity our
condition and wants to help in times like these when
Liberia needs all the help to feed its people and
rebuild its crumbling infrastructure.
It is that
thing about suffering and a broken nation that got
many to have hope in Ellen, believing that she’s the
modern day “miracle lady” who’s capable of
bringing back the good ol' days when Liberians had
spending money to travel or shop anywhere in the
country, or in the nation’s capital at one of those
boutiques on Benson, Carey, Randall and Broad Streets.
Liberians
also believe their president is capable of bringing
back the glorious days when they had the spending
money to threat themselves, their families or a friend
to a movie, a football game, or have the
spending money to eat a sumptuous dinner on any given
day with a cold Liberian Club Beer waiting by for
consumption.
There’s no
way one can place an exact figure on the president’s
popularity because a poll hasn’t been taken yet, but
her meetings with Liberians and foreign leaders abroad
are well attended and impressive with many feeling an
air of optimism for the country once they get to meet
and hear Ms. Sirleaf make her case.
While the popularity of this Liberian president
may be good for her image and the soul of the country,
it has got some to believe she’s above criticism.
And when she’s ever criticized, one is always
reminded of been too negative and not been a team
player especially at this fragile time when she is trying her very best to get
the country working again.
I’ve heard
the old, tired and ubiquitous comments from the
president’s supporters admonishing Liberians to
“give the lady time; give the lady chance; or leave the lady alone” because she has been in
office for just 5 months, depending on the time one
engages those people with this particular discussion.
What these people cannot understand is that a
president’s length of employment doesn’t mean that
legitimate and hot-button issues should not be
discussed; and because the president has been in
office for such a short time is not enough reason
those issues should be thrown under the rug at the
convenience of a president who’s comfortable doing
things her way that affects the lives of an entire
nation.
However, not
everything the president is doing is wrong, that, I
want to make clear. She must be commended for her
efforts to restore electricity, first to parts of the
capital, then later to the entire city of Monrovia.
Hopefully, all of Liberia will be up and lighting
before she leaves office in 2012.
President
Sirleaf must also be commended for her focus on
weeding out corruption and bringing a sense of public
trusts, transparency and fiscal responsibility to her
government.
As a result
of her efforts $26.2m has been generated in revenues
since she came to office, which is 19 percent higher
than projected, and three times more than the same
period last year, according to a report from the
Ministry of Finance covering the first three months
– January to March.
Liberians want to see
their new president succeed because whenever she succeeds, there’s a possibility
the nation and its people might also succeed because
she’s a great spokeswoman for the country.
While the election of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is the
best thing to have ever happened to our country since the
days of the moderate William R. Tolbert, Jr., who was
heading in the right direction with his policies of
inclusion and political participation when he was
tragically assassinated, Liberians today just cannot
give Ms. Sirleaf a blank check as if she's an
imperial president who's untouchable. Liberians cannot
afford to sit by quietly on the sidelines either and
be spectators on issues of the day.
Because
it
is good politics when an administration encourages a
healthy discussion of the issues from its citizens and
from all angles without fear of harassment,
intimidation, imprisonment or death, democracy, as fragile as it is can be will flourish
only when the people are empowered to join the
process.
Aware that criticism comes with the territory,
I want to believe our president is not thin-skinned,
and is probably prepared to tolerate dissent and do
all she can to defend individual liberties and protect
the rights of Liberians who don’t agree with her
government.
So when the president is traveling all around
the globe “changing the image of Liberia” as she
once said, Liberians have the right to ask tough
questions to see the results of the changes she's
talking about, and how
those changes are affecting their lives and their
pocketbooks; how her trips are been paid for, how many
government employees, her relatives and friends
travels with her at the expense of a cash-strapped
government, and whether she reimburses the government
for her friends and families after such a trip abroad.
When a
president is not around to use her office to help
mediate land dispute between Liberians, (Gios, Manos
and the Mandingoes) in Nimba
County, which could upset the little peace and
stability in the country, then Liberians have the
right to ask serious questions because it is also
their country.
When a
president is making no effort during her young
administration to address the serious erosion crisis
destroying all of coastal Liberia: Grand Bassa, Sinoe,
Montserrado, Grand Cape Mount and Maryland Counties,
then Liberians have the right to also ask why?
During her
Atlanta visit in May, President Sirleaf made a
startling revelation that her government was in the
process of relocating the marketers to the environment
of the old VOA headquarters.
How did she
reach that decision? Did the president ever have a
town hall meeting with the marketers to have their
input on this issue? Did she consult with a broad
spectrum of those marketers whose daily lives depend
on petty trading to make a living, or was her decision
unilateral?
Did the
president consult with marketing and transportation
specialists and planners to evaluate the impact of the
crowd, the distance some of the marketers have to
travel daily to reach that area? Did the president
study the accessibility of adequate commercial
vehicles and the traffic such an ambitious program
will have on the area?
The Sirleaf administration is laying off a
whole lot of civil service workers in an attempt to
“restructure and retrain” them for future
employment.
I have not
seen or read anything that discusses a compensation
package that will upkeep them while they are waiting
to be retrained. So those people will be thrown in the
streets to ‘catch hell?’
In the main
time, journalists are being threatened and roughed up
by the president’s overzealous security officers as
those journalists go about their business working to
keep us informed about events in Liberia.
If President
Sirleaf is serious about protecting our liberties and
the right of a free press, she must act quickly by
doing more than offering an apology about an issue
that’s happening on her watch, because a threat to
one journalist is a threat to Liberians everywhere.
Shutting up
is just not the Liberian way.
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