Thursday, 16 January 2020

Liberians Must Reject Rabble Rousers - And Unite Instead To Transform Their Much-Troubled Nation

As Pan-Africanists, some of us want those who currently govern Nkrumah's Ghana to take an active interest in what is currently going on in Liberia - and work towards helping to bring tensions there under control. The last thing that the West African sub-region needs is for Liberian society to descend into chaos, yet again. God forbid.

We also understand clearly that whiles nation-building in Africa is an enormous task, it is also incredibly easy for clever and ambitious self-seekers, to destroy societies struggling to transition to the stable conditions needed to attract risk-taking impact-investors, with longterm-vision, prepared to do business in nations  with troubled-pasts, such as Liberia and Sierra Leone.

What such societies need above all is peace - and to focus on uniting as a people with a common destiny to fight the real enemies of our continent: poverty, ignorance, and the diseases that ravage whole communities. 

Liberians need to learn from the magnanimity former South African President, Madeba Nelson Mandela,  showed South Africa's whites, when he became South Africa's first elected Black African  leader - and put the past firmly behind them and unite to move forward together as one people with a common destiny. They must look to the future - and be guided by its promise today.

Furthermore, In today's Africa, no tribe is inferior or superior to another - and that is a message that needs drumming into the heads of all Liberians. It is absurd for so called Americo-Liberians to put on airs and think that they are superior to other Liberians. Ridiculous. All Liberians, whatever their ethnic heritage, are equal and full citizens of the Republic of Liberia (aka the Lone Star Republic).

The troubling thing about the current  situation in Liberia, is that there is something egregiously unconscionable about those who stir up the hornet's  nest in nations in which millions daily  struggle to make  ends meet, and then turn round to escape to the comfort of luxury-homes-in-exile in places such as the United States of America, when the heat is turned on them. That is cowardice. Liberians must reject such self-righteous adventurers-with-secret-agendas. Full stop.

Liberians must be wary and wise. Rome was not built in  a day. The question they must ponder over is: What do those who seek to create needless tension in their country have to offer them in terms of radical policy plans to transform their lives -  and leverage those policies to turn their  country into a prosperous and equitable society?

As someone who cares about the plight of a  resilient  and long-suffering people, whose nation is blessed with an abundance of natural resources, my prayer is that Liberians remain calm, reject the stealth-attempt to destabilise their nation in the name of fighting corruption, and think instead, of how to creatively leverage the many resources God blessed their land with, so generously, to enable them create a prosperous and all-inclusive society, which they can all benefit from, and be justly proud of.

As it happens, as we speak, some of us are actually working hard, to help implement this project in Liberia: www.ecocoboard.net. We are also, as Pan-Africanist friends of Liberia, talking to a group of patriotic Liberians to introduce cutting-edge technology that will give truly affordable clean power, which never goes off, to Liberians across the whole of the landmass of that potentially super-rich nation.

That is what Liberia needs, not rabble rousers, perpetually dreaming of leading their nation,  willy-nilly  -   instead of working hard wherever in the world they are exiled, to bring investors to the Liberia that  they are today  busy destabilising: for their own selfish ends. If President Weah is indeed  corrupt there are legal and administrative   mechanisms in place to probe him. 

That should be the path for sensible and responsible people in Liberia to take. And, in any case, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists  (ICIJ), can work with the more responsible sections of the  Liberian media, to investigate those claims being made by some of  those who are unwittingly setting the clock back for Liberia and it's hapless, long-suffering people. Enough is enough. Liberians must reject rabble rousers - and unite instead to transform their much-troubled nation. Haaba.

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