By Jimmy Vartikeh Sambola
jvartikehsambola@gmail.com
Monrovia Liberia: From all indications, the 2017 marriage of convenience that is said to have unequally yoked Nimba County Senator Prince Y. Johnson and his Movement for Democracy and Reconstruction (MDR) unto the Congress for Democratic Change (CDC) is now off the table, going by what the former Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPFL) rebel leader has himself declared.
According to Senator Johnson, popularly known as “PYJ”, the MDR in November 2017 signed an agreement with the Congress for Democratic Change to sort of mortgage Liberia’s second vote-rich county’s support for prospective jobs during the elections that saw Weah’s Congress for Democratic Change also forming an alliance with Senator Jewel Howard-Taylor’s National Patriotic Party (NPP) and former House Speaker Alex Jeneka Tyler’s Liberia People’s Democratic Party (LPDP) to win Unity Party’s Joseph Nyuma Boikai in a second round poll.
In a press statement issued yesterday Saturday, PYJ disclosed that in the 2017 agreement with Weah and his Congress for Democratic Change, the MDR specifically requested then-Senator George Manneh and his CDC to allot top Ministerial posts, including Managing Directors and some ambassadorial positions to Nimba County, or that sons and daughters from Nimba County be appointed to occupy these top positions through recommendations from the MDR.
“Since the CDC-led government came to power in 2018, we are yet to see sons and daughters from our beloved Nimba County in those top senior positions we agreed upon and signed a document as evidence.
“The citizens of Nimba have for the past five years been knocking at my door for the president to appoint them, and we have used all diplomatic means and have consistently engaged this CDC-led government, but nothing is working in order to get redress and make our people who struggled during the campaign period happy!
“Once again, my fellow citizens of Nimba and supporters in Liberia and around the World, we like to take this time to inform you that the agreement we signed with the CDC has come to an end! So, for and on behalf of the great people of Nimba and all partisans of the MDR Political Party, we are now constrained to make this pronouncement that we are “HALTING OUR POLITICAL SUPPORT” to the Coalition!
“As a former general in the army, we believe in agreement and don’t like to betray what we have agreed upon, so we ask you to remain calm until we can later inform you about where to go,” stated the former INPFL rebel general who has boastfully maintained that he will remain Senator of Nimba County for life because he “redeemed Nimbaians” from the onslaught of former President Samuel Kanyon Doe.
Bitter Reactions
As the 2023 presidential and legislative elections draw nearer, many are of the view that Senator Johnson is again fighting for personal gains, and to reposition himself as Nimba’s political kingpin in order to benefit from President Weah who is desperately seeking a second term.
According to an insider from the ruling camp, Senator Johnson should not even pretend to advocate for the cause of Nimbaians, as he allegedly received millions of United States dollars in 2017 for the Nimba vote.
“This guy is shameless. When did he realize that Nimba sons and daughters are not benefiting from jobs that were agreed upon in 2017? Prince Johnson is only doing this to buy sympathy from the people of Nimba County; but in the end, he will again go for the physical cash. He sold the people of Nimba County out in 2017 to get money for himself, so he should shut up,” the top ruling party source who also hails from Nimba County disclosed.
As for Augustine Glinwon, 31, a Nimbaian from Saclepea, PYJ should realize that gone are those days when the people of Nimba fell for his “dusty” war-time stories.
“We are fighting to develop our beloved Nimba through hard work and industry. We are not begging for government jobs. We want the government to provide those resources that we justly deserve. But let him wait small. We will give our General a surprise package in a few months’ time,” Glinwon said.
US Government Caveat
Meanwhile, US Ambassador to Liberia, Michael McCarthy has resounded a warning to persons that engage in certain transactions with Liberian government officials affected by the US Treasury Department’s Global Magnitsky designations placed against former Minister of State for Presidential Affairs Nathaniel McGill; former Managing Director of the National Port Authority Bill Twehway; former Solicitor General Syrenius Cephus; as well as Senators Prince Y. Johnson of Nimba County and Varney Sherman of Grand Cape Mount County.
“I think it’s important to draw our attention back to the Treasury Department’s statement, specifically its notification that persons that engage in certain transactions with these sanctioned individuals ‘may themselves be exposed to sanctions or subject to an enforcement action. Furthermore, unless an exception applies, any foreign financial institution that knowingly facilitates a significant transaction for any of the individuals or entities could be subject to U.S. sanctions,” Ambassador McCarthy warned recently when he held a press conference on the occasion of the U.S. Acting Assistant Secretary of Global Public Affairs Elizabeth Trudeau’s visit to Liberia,
Notably, Senator Prince Y. Johnson is on record for opposing the establishment of war and economic crimes in Liberia that would end the culture of impunity. Unlike neighboring Sierra Leone which fought an equally devastating civil conflict in which a sitting Liberian president was indicted for fueling the war in that country, Sierra Leone has long ago put behind its war past by holding accountable the greatest duty bearers of its civil carnage.
As for Liberians, their only hope for salvation against war and economic crimes impunity remains heavily dependent on foreign powers that are exerting all efforts to bring closure to impunity and prevent reoccurrence of the self-inflicted wickedness that befell Africa’s first Republic a few decades ago.
