I Will Say it Again: George Manneh Weah and His CDC Political Party Are Not Ready For Major League Liberian Politics Of Two Soccer Legends

Thursday, August 27, 2009

   Because he doesn’t say much at all makes it interesting, and of course “newsworthy” when he finally decides to say something worthy of our collective attention. It is called acting like a potential presidential candidate, and when you are George Manneh Weah, you just believe you are ready for the job by positioning yourself for the 2011 race that will pit you either against the incumbent or against hordes of other presidential candidates like we saw in 2005.           

Tewroh-Wehtoe Sungbeh

     George Manneh Weah, the football hero and standard bearer of the Congress for Democratic Change (CDC), finally came out of his hideout someplace, somewhere to criticize the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf administration for not being committed enough to fighting corruption, and also took issue with the recent appointment of Frances Johnson Morris, the controversial former chairman of the Elections Commission who denied Weah the presidency in favor of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in 2005, as head of the newly-created Anti-Corruption Commission, but did not say how he Weah would eliminate corruption that has become such a national crisis when he is elected president.

     “The president wants to deal with corruption but she is not accepting to deal with those people that are corrupt. So where somebody is corrupt and the president takes the person from one position to another, the problem is going to exist,” Weah reportedly said.

     I will leave whatever Weah reportedly said in the above-comments to be deciphered by Weah for clarity and meaning, however, Weah went on to reveal during that same VOA interview that he has since returned to school after the 2005 national elections, as if by him going back to school is a stamp of approval that qualifies him to be President of Liberia.

                                                    George Manneh Weah                                          

     “Since our election, I came back to the States and enrolled in Duval University, presently a sophomore student and interacting with my party and making sure that CDC becomes a beautiful party for the Liberian people and trying to maintain peace and stability in our country,” George Manneh Weah reportedly said again.

     Ha ha ha ha ha, and funny, funny because how “beautiful” can the CDC political party be in Liberian politics? Is Liberian politics now being reduced to a national beauty queen contest where citizens can now go and vote for the next “beautiful” Miss CDC political party or George Weah? Is this guy serious, and what is he drinking or smoking?

     George Weah also joined his partisans during the Congress for Democratic Change (CDC) political party’s 2009 two-day summit held at the University of Maryland, to “reassess, exchange ideas and deliberate” (the words of his USA-based Chairman Matthew Nimpson), which made some of us to eagerly look forward to this year’s party summit for answers as to which ideas the CDC wanted to deliberate this time around.

     According to media reports everywhere, the party summit whose theme was “Reflection and the Way Forward” had a closed-door session that discussed issues I want to believe only “First Partisan” Weah wanted to hear so as not to bruise his bloated ego, since his eyes are perpetually set on the presidency, even though it is known around political and non-political circles that George Manneh Weah is not ready to be President of Liberia.

     However, what came out of the open-door session (at least the ones I heard and read) did not say anything about George Weah discussing foreign policy, aids, infant mortality, education and how he Weah and his Congress for Democratic Change intends to address chronic bread and butter issues like creating jobs and increasing monthly wages, strengthening the educational system and making education affordable for all Liberians; healthcare and making healthcare affordable and accessible to all Liberians, strengthening the agricultural sectors so that Liberian kids and adults will not go to bed or to school hungry, and tackling the chronic sanitation and environmental problems that continues to plague the Liberian nation.

     Instead, part of the convention or summit in 2009 dwelled mainly on memorializing the 30^th anniversary of the 1979 rice riot that took the lives of many Liberians, the 20^th anniversary of the Liberian civil war, memorializing government officials killed during the 1980 overthrow of the Tolbert Administration, and an incessant focus on the 2011 elections, as if the individuals have never been memorialized since those national tragedies shocked the nation and its people decades ago.

     Not that I am being insensitive to the killings and human rights violations that occurred during both the Tolbert and Doe administrations, when innocent Liberians were executed because of a change in government or because those Liberians gathered to exercise their right to free speech, a right guaranteed them under the Liberian Constitution.

     From my understanding, the senseless killings of those Liberians however, have been discussed and scrutinized countless times by serious people; and the victims have been written about by both Liberians and foreign scholars and non-scholars, and memorialized by loved ones and different groups.

     So where is the CDC going with this? Is the CDC a political party or a protest organization that wants to agitate and take us back to the days of the protest movement when university students took to the streets to protest government policies? Is the CDC ready to put forth real and serious ideas and policies that could help in nation-building at this crucial time in the history of the Liberian nation?

     With issues all over the place crying for the laser-like attention of the current political leadership and those vying for the highest office of the land, one would think putting those chronic issues on the table and on the front burner during the national convention of a political party for debate and deliberations, and discussing ways to find practical solutions would be of utmost importance and a priority for the Congress for Democratic Change, but is the other way around.         

     With their simplistic and disastrous approach to politics and the zero attention paid to the mind boggling national issues on the ground and overseas, the Congress for Democratic Change (CDC), and George Manneh Weah has shown over and over that they are not ready for major league politics.

     As such, George Weah and his Congress for Democratic Change (CDC) shouldn’t continue to waste the time of the Liberian people by pretending to be a serious candidate or a serious political party whose annual gathering lacked any substance, and resembles a meet and greet tourist-like gathering of old and lost friends whose only claim to fame is the celebrity of their rich and famous “First Partisan,” who used some of his millions to organize and fund a political party, and is using some of those millions trying to buy the Liberian presidency.

     Politics is about ideas and finding practical solutions to difficult problems that confronts an entire population. It is about contrasting one’s position or the position of a political party from that of the other side, and working hard to implement those results that could possibly change the lives of countless people.

     So far, George Manneh Weah and his Congress for Democratic Change are not about finding solutions to Liberia's problems, has not demonstrated that they are quite ready for Liberian politics, and have not shown why they are different from President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and her Unity Party. 

     So why should the Liberian people promote this man from a comfortable life of a retired football star to the highest office of the land, the nation's presidency?