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Liberia
Needs ‘Men With Ears’
Author: S.
Kpanbayeazee Duworko, II
Posted:
April 6, 2004
In 1986
when the international wires announced that
the Liberian government was contemplating offering
sanctuary to Haitian dictator Baby Doc Duvalier, the
world community turned its spotlight on ‘The Love of
Liberty.’ African watchers (including Liberians - I
being one) could not fathom why the Liberian
government of the day wanted to welcome the much-hated
Baby Doc on Liberian soil.
One African
watcher who tacitly criticized the
Liberian government for such contemplation was
Liberian broadcaster Charlotte Mae Phelps. Her
criticism was contained in the article A Good Run Is
Better Than A Brave Stand in the now disbanded
Footprints Magazine. This is what she wrote of Baby
Doc, “If it is true that he has run away with four
hundred million dollars plus, political crimes would
seem to pay off…. It’s easy to understand now why some
men kill to come to power and kill even more to stay
in power.”
Phelps further
referred to Baby Doc and his likes
(CAR’s Bokassa, Uganda’s Amin and Obete, Iran’s Shah
Plavate, Philippines’ Marcos, Sudan’s Numeiri and
Nicaragua’s Samoza) as “robber lords,” adding, “This
has been a decade of ROBBERS ON THE RUN.” In the end,
Baby Doc did not come to Liberia because the late
President Samuel Doe took a good run, fearing that a
brave stand to welcome Baby Doc would have ignited a
wave of opposition from Liberians.
Once more
the spotlight is on Liberia. Again this
time in the decade of 2000, ROBBERS ARE ON THE RUN.
However, this time around the robbers are all
Liberians. And what are they on the run for? The
presidency, of course- the highest position in the
land- is being contested.
Of late,
these Liberian robbers also know as TATS
(thieves and thugs), have been ‘speechmaking’ and
‘fanfaring’ about their ardent desire to contest the
2005 presidency. These TATS are really
shameless/spineless as they go about denouncing and
debunking former President Charles Taylor for
dictatorship and debauchery! Today they all have ‘the
resolve’ to accuse the former President of mismanaging
the nation’s resources and mistreating his own kith
and kin!
Wow, that
must be the biggest joke of this century!
When did these TATS graduate from thievery and
thuggery? Did they graduate last August 11 when the
former President went into involuntary exile? Or did
they graduate last October 14 when the current
Liberian government came into being?
Weren’t
they the ones who revered the former President
as ‘The Papay’ who couldn’t do anything evil? Weren’t
they the ones who said the former President was chosen
by God and called him such names as ‘The Beloved
Leader,’ and ‘The Dear Leader?’ Weren’t they
the ones
who advised The Papay, urging him to ‘deal drastically
with his opponents?’ Weren’t they the ones who globe
trotted and procured arms for The
Papay to prosecute his dream of a ‘West African
Empire’ in which he would have been crowned ‘The
Emperor?’
To now summersault
360 degrees, exonerating yourselves
from the erstwhile Chief Executive in whose behalf you
were executing the dream of a West African Empire
reminds us of Saddam Hussein’s captured men who now
vilify him (Saddam) as ‘Beelzebub.’ This act of
somersaulting and exonerating yourselves from your
former benevolent dictator ‘mindbuggles’ us, the rest
of us against whom you once launched your tirades for
and in his behalf.
You TATS
must be fantasizing, thinking that Liberians
have forgotten how like your former boss, you starved
and stripped them of their genuine financial
resources, becoming the ‘noveau riche.’ You TATS,
you ‘smoking cigar devils,’ Liberians have not
forgotten you vandalized the sanctity of their women,
turning thousands of teenage girls into prostitutes.
Hence, how
can we entrust this country into your hands
again? You will not just be remote controlled from
Calabar (Nigeria) where The Papay is involuntarily
exiled, but also you will be brave to put our mothers
to the poles and order your resurrected Gestapo styled
Anti Terrorist Unit soldiers to shoot them to teach us
a lesson for telling your benefactor “Go, Papay, go;
go with your big, big lies!”
You TATS,
you are in deeds and words like Uloko and
his peers in Ifeoma Okoye’s Men Without Ears. In the
novel, Uloko and his peers live lavishly from the
chronic corruption and indecent actions that they
carry. What is worst is that because of his outright
drive for wealth at all cost, Nloko even negates the
advise of his own father who concludes that Nloko is
now part of “the people in the land of men without
ears.”
Indeed,
indeed, these TATS and the former Chief
Executive were truly ‘men without ears’ when they
officially ruled this country for the last six years.
They shunned all pieces of advice and the cries of the
downtrodden Liberians.
It is too
late, TATS. You are asking us to do the
impossible - to cheer you to win the race. We are
like Chigo who tells his brother, “Uloko, you are
asking me to do the impossible.” You TATS, you are
like Uloko who is likened to a rat when Okoye writes,
“The rat that joins the lizard for a frolic in the
rain will remember only when it is too late that he
will not dry himself as easily as the lizard.” So how
can you TATS easily dry yourselves after you joined
The Papay and partied in the ocean of wealth through
misrule?
The best
you TATS can do for yourselves is to take a
good withdrawal now from the presidential race. This
will help you from depleting your ‘knocked out’
(stolen) money and may assist you not to be like
Uloko, whose brave run and stay in corruption led him
first to hypertension, second to coma and third to
death.
For the
past twenty-five years, Liberia was ruled by
‘men without ears,’ men who wrecked the country and
made Liberians to be part of Frantz Fanon’s The
Wretched of the Earth. This time around, Liberia needs
‘men with ears,’ not ‘men without ears!’ This
time
around, Liberia needs ‘men with ears,’ not ‘men
without ears!’ Liberia needs men who will lift them
up from wretchedness to richness, so that when the
roll of well-to-do people is called, they will all
answer present and thank the Good Old Lord for ‘taking
them a mighty long way!’
Author:
S. Kpanbayeazee Duworko, II
Contact:
duworko2@yahoo.com
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