On Thursday, 24 August, at a ceremony marking the 68th observance of National Flag Day, President George Weah, enjoined Liberians to reflect on those things that will unite them, rather than dwell on those ones that have the propensity to divide them.
The Liberian leader pleaded with his citizens to work collectively aimed at harnessing their efforts in the search for peace and prosperity for the country that is currently experiencing heightened economic turbulence and political bickering over the governance process under his seven-month rule.
The president’s call to Liberians cautioning against employing truculent posture toward the governance process of the country is somewhat applaudable, but would be totally unachievable if he and a horde of his officials who have cladded themselves into an iron suit of insensitivity to the plights of the suffering masses to the point that many of such officials are taunting and hushing up the Liberian people, who mostly are feeling the pinch of a rather turbulent economic climate, while the president and his officials swim in opulence within just a short period of their rule.
Across the country, all that can be seen in a relatively short period, is officials of President Weah’s government, including himself, attired glamorously in expensive suits and buzzing in luxury, with many of them purchasing exotic properties, constructing and/or reconstructing fabulous structures, while the majority of their subjects dabble in the pool of excruciating and dehumanizing hardship.
Added to the president’s call for Liberians to reflect on positive things and eschew negativity, was a previous nationwide call for his citizens to bear patience while he and his officials find a remedy to the broken economy of the country – But Mr. President there can be no bearing of patience by the people, as you the governors are amassing wealth overnight, while they starve – Mr. President, to put it rather bluntly, “a hungry man is an angry man!”
Moreover, a group of people who look up to their government, a populist one as such, for economic redemption and social freedom, no matter what, would never be made to rescind to the backbench and slummed down into the valley of silence, when officials of the administration keep attempting to shut them down, without firstly addressing key national concerns that would engender solutions for the betterment of all.
What you and your officials need to do firstly, Mr. President, is to get to work or if you have started, then do so more vigorously, so that the output from your work can start to bring relief to the people, and in the same vein, stop taunting the citizens while they go through tough times wallowing in lack, and you and many others in officialdom dance in plenty.
Additionally, there is a serious need, Mr. President, that you mandate your officials, to refrain from responding and reacting to just any and every criticism from the public, but to take such critiques of the administration into good stride and forge ahead with the people’s work for which you were voted into office.
In that way, Mr. President, when your fellow Liberians begin to know that they can freely express those things that are not in their view, going right with the governance process, and they are not tagged as “enemies of the state”, and are not beckoned at to shut up, then and only then, will you and your administration begin to regain the public trust, and be rest assured of their unbridled cooperation.
