Will the real Sinoe County Association please stand?  

Saturday, July 16, 2005

By Tewroh-Wehtoe Sungbeh

    Around this time every year (between July and September), Liberian ethnic, schools and county associations meet in cities all across the United States to discuss how they can help revive and rebuild their part of that troubled country.

     It is the disunity and that kind of selective distribution of resources that got some to wonder why not develop all of Liberia? Why are these Liberians meeting annually in the interests of their little enclaves and not Liberia, especially when the entire country needs all of the developmental help it can get to get off the ground?

     With much enthusiasm and reasons to meet, however, the association’s members, many of whom often preach a non-political agenda glowed in the spotlight year after year as they celebrate their success, at a time when the mainstream Liberian local and national organizations struggles to raise funds or even hold on to their members who are abandoning them in record numbers.  

Pres. Klahn-Gbolloh Jarbah                     Former Pres. Zackery T. Major

     In the spotlight this month, July, is the Sinoe County Association in the Americas, an organization that once embodied what an association should be like: friendliness, reason for being, financial accountability and a spirit of unity, has now resembled an organization whose world has fallen apart, and is only clinging on to life through the stubbornness of the faithful few who are holding on to its fragmented pieces for the sake of county pride.

     Once upon a time, there was only one national Sinoe County Association. But now there are two organizations striving to outlive and outsmart the other, both of whom are claiming legitimacy, when it supposed to be only one national Sinoe County Association, which is the legitimate representative of the people of that region residing in the United States.

    The duly elected officers and, as some would say legitimate Sinoe County Association in the Americas held it national convention in Philadelphia, Pa, July 7-10, while the breakaway group, according to others met in Atlanta, Georgia around the same time to discuss one place, and only one place, Sinoe County.

     The Sinoe County Association did not meet during their annual convention to discuss ways of settling their differences peacefully in order to be a strong and unified one. As usual, they met to raise funds, meet old friends and have fun.

     I would think that, well, with all that is going on, leaders of the two “warring” groups, together with some of their elders would find ways of putting an immediate end to the insanity. They did the opposite, held their conventions and went back to their respective cities boasting of which group raised the most money, and which group had the most in attendance.

     The problems within the Sinoe County Association in the Americas unraveled in July 2004, after the national elections in Detroit that brought Klahn-Gboloh Jarbah to power as president, succeeding Zackery Taylor Major.

     Some of us are still trying to put the pieces together, and are still wondering how can a group that seemed so promising fall apart before our eyes right after its national elections, when they supposed to be celebrating Mr. Jarbah’s victory and its record-breaking fundraising activities?

     Will the two groups ever come together as they have always been in the past, I asked? I posed that question to Zac Taylor Major, immediate past president of the Sinoe County Association.

     Mr. Major refused to answer any question from me, and arrogantly demanded that I apologized to him because I didn’t consult him before publishing my October 7, 2004 article, "Sinoe County Club Lacks Accountability - Tempers Flare" which he claimed misconstrued the facts. Mr. Major, however, refused to pinpoint the inaccuracies and where in the article did it occurred.

      “ Go back to the article and make the corrections, and tell your readers that you made a mistake, then come back to me before I can ever sit down and talk to you,” he said.

     Victoria Gbojueh, Chairlady of the Board of Directors, who together with Mr. Major are in the eyes of the storm because of their key roles in the case sounded optimistic. “Yes we will get back together one day. Empires have fallen, governments have fallen, and kings have fallen. We are in a transitional period, and we will get back together."

     Like the Chairlady of the Board of Directors, Sam Slewion, President of the Delaware Chapter also sounded upbeat about the two groups coming back together. “It is the hope of every peace-loving Sinoean to reunite the two groups,” he noted.

     Achilles Nimely, President of the Charlotte Chapter in North Carolina said this: “Klahn-Gbolloh was impeached because of many reasons. He dissolved the Board, and the way he spent our money unilaterally raised eyebrows. Jarbah is a dictator.”

     Interim President Elijah Tarpeh. “We are optimistic we will get back together. The impeached president and his disgruntled friends decided to break away. Klahn-Gbolloh Jarbah has poor people skills. He never got along with anybody.

     We have two goals: Education and health care. We want to take care of the 37 clinics around the county, and the Francis J. Grant Hospital in the city, ” Tarpeh added.

     “It is not all Jarbah’s fault, as some individuals want us to believe. It is about money.” A prominent Sinoean who wants to remain anonymous said quietly.

       Yes indeed, the conflict is about money and the transfer of power, as reported by The Liberian Dialogue, (www.theliberiandialogue.org) in its October 7, 2004 article, (see archives) which exposed what seemed to be the outright stubbornness of Mr. Major, who, with the blessings of his long-serving Chairlady of the Board of Directors, Victoria Gbojueh refused to accept the administration of the incoming President Klan-Gbolloh Jarbah or work with him for a smooth transition.

     It has also been reported by many members of the association that Mr. Major and Ms. Gbojueh even refused to turn over the association’s working documents and money in excess of over US $30,000 (thirty thousand dollars), for Mr. Jarbah and his team to do the work they were elected to do.

      Is President Jarbah an undemocratic leader and hard to get along with? I asked another key member.

      “It is absolutely ludicrous for them to even say that about Jarbah,” said Morris Koffa, environmental activist and co-founder of the Washington D.C. chapter of the Sinoe County Association.

     When he was asked whether the two groups would ever come back together as one, Mr. Koffa replied. “There is a possibility, and it will certainly be in the interests of the suffering people of Sinoe County for the two groups to resolve the situation.

     Zac Major has betrayed the people of Sinoe County. What happened to the over $33,000 collected? What happened to the $14,000 raised in Washington DC? What happened to the money raised at the Detroit convention? Victoria Gbojueh is an obstacle to the entire operations of the association. Those guys do not believe in accountability,” Koffa forcefully said.

     When President Klahn-Gbolloh Jarbah was asked the same question about unity, he said. “We still love them. They are still our brothers and sisters. From a leadership perspective I want to see it happen.

     As hopeful as I am, the job will be much harder. I am not the one to answer that question. The people of Sinoe County will decide that. However, our convention was peaceful and well attended.

     I was elected in Detroit, Michigan in 2004. It was legal and constitutional. The rebel group meeting in Georgia broke away. Over $32,000 of our money is still in limbo. As I talk to you now, the legal process is taking place to get our money back.”

     Klahn-Gbolloh Jarbah’s two-year term will be over in July 2006, when the entire group or his group convenes during its national convention in Houston, Texas.

     Mr. Jarbah, in my honest observation came to power with the intent of doing what leaders do after winning elections – to use the bully pulpit and help improve the lives of their people.

     While Klahn-Gbolloh Jarbah, I am sure would prefer to have had a smooth working relationship with members of his association in order to implement his programs, his tenure, unfortunately, has been mired in personality conflict, which is not helping his county and his people back home.

     Now the question is, since it appears that the brouhaha within the association is Klahn-Gbolloh Jarbah’s fault and nothing else as the other group want us to believe, are they ready to come back home and be one – a unified Sinoe County Association in the Americas when Jarbah's term expires in July 2006? Only time will tell.