Published: June 23, 2025
‘Liberians easily forget’ and ‘accept mediocrity’ are accusations levied against us. It always seems like we fail to learn from history. Koffa has resigned; Koon is legitimately elected and all is forgotten.
The level of lawlessness, violence and waste of our public resources, especially finances, over the last few months as the President and his henchmen sought to realign our legislative leadership in favour of a bunch of yes-men and sycophants, and set the historic precedence of disregard for our constitution, the plight of Liberians and the undermining of the legitimacy of the Supreme Court of Liberia are all expected to be forgotten and we can pretend that all is well.
But all is not well. What we have are officials of government dismissing the authority of the Supreme Court and the President, who took the oath to protect the constitution, making troubling statements like ‘working with quorum’. What we now have is a major problem in our democracy. We have the problem of an ineffective first branch, filled with a bunch of dishonest, desperate souls who care more about enriching themselves to the detriment of the Liberian people.
The level of violence that we are witnessing in our country is not new. As students of Liberian history, we know what the consequences of violence against the Liberian people have resulted to. A breakdown in law and order and chaos.
Many in Liberia believe that violence is when someone is beaten up or when there are gunshots flying over heads. But violence is not merely beatings, shootings, chopping of limps or torturing. What is going on in Liberia is violence against the citizens by a lawless group of individuals who believe that they can get away with it because whenever there is a call for ordinary Liberians to protest, some fear monger and say, ‘oh it could lead to violence’. Yet, when a commissioner of the Liberia Telecommunication Authority (LTA) allegedly takes home US$3,500 for his/her generator, when others are sleeping in fear and darkness, that is violence.
When over 8,000 children die each year before their first birthday whilst members of the House of Representatives collect over US$10,000 in salary and petrol allowances, that is violence. When thousands of our young girls are being used as prostitutes and sex slaves whilst President Boakai and his cronies loot our country, that is violence against those young girls and women. When Legislators are being arrested for posts made on social media, that is violence against our democracy.
I know that I have painted a daunting picture of the situation in our country so far. But it had to be done to draw attention to the problems. Yet, as John Fitzgerald Kennedy once said, ‘our problems are man-made, therefore, they can be solved by man’. Yet, what we see in Liberia is not an effort to solve the problem but make it worse.
The so-called rescue mission is now a rescue mission for the political elites who were broke whilst out of government jobs.
When President Boakai had the chance in the spirit of unification day to bring people together to discuss an equitable way forward, he chose division by sending politically driven text messages to some leaders in the society as a token and not a serious attempt to unify the country.
As Robert Francis Kenndy once said and we are witnessing in Liberia, ‘the inadequacy of human compassion, the defectiveness of our sensibility towards the sufferings of our fellow, mark the limit of our ability to use knowledge for the well-being of our fellow human beings’.
Yet, as Robert Francis Kennedy also said, ‘no one committed to participating in public life can sit on the sidelines when so much is at stake’. Furthermore, as Alhaji G.V. Kromah once said ‘Liberia is a bus. The president is the driver. We as Liberians are the passengers. We cannot sit in the bus and allow the president to drive at high-speed around a corner on a cliff, knowing that we will all crash and die’.
Liberians must speak out to prevent our country from declining further. To clarify, using another quote by Robert Kennedy, I say these things ‘not to oppose any man but merely to propose new policies.’
The legislature is the first and should be the most powerful branch of government as it is the branch with the power of appropriation, setting of laws and oversight over the other two branches. It is also the branch, whose lower house is the direct representative of the Liberian people. However, with legislators relinquishing their powers and duties to the Liberian people in the interest of enriching themselves to the violent detriment of the Liberian people, all Liberians, especially the better of us must now coalesce to develop new policies to hold power accountable in Liberia and stop the violence against our people before it disintegrate into chaos as we saw in the 80s and 90s.
I believe that all of Liberia’s problems can be traced back to the legislature. Hence, fixing it to function for the people is the place to start.
One of my favourite movies is Rush Hour 2. I want to use the scene on the plane back to Los Angeles from Hong Kong when detective James Carter told Inspector Lee that the primary rule for solving any crime was to ‘follow the rich white man’, in other words, follow the money. I believe that for us to realign the first branch of government to function in the interest of the Liberian people and democracy, we must take money out of the legislature.
I am not calling for the removal of their appropriation powers. I am calling for new thinking on how we can change their motivations. The high levels of salaries and allowances that are paid to legislators are attracting the worse and most corrupt of Liberia into the legislature. By making becoming a legislator less financially attractive, I believe that most people who would want to become legislators would go in there for the duty and not the thousands of dollars in salaries and allowances.
So, for Liberia to progressively move forward, we need to change the motivations of our legislators from entering the legislature to enrich themselves to the detriment of the Liberian people, to entering with a clear sense of duty. We do this by removing the high salaries and perks to make becoming a legislator less financially attractive.
You might have noticed that this opinion is not filled with details on my proposal. It was deliberately written to be provocative and get you thinking. The detailed proposal will come soon in another opinion.
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