Central Monrovia, December 24, 2022: On this same day, 33 years ago, insurgents operating under the banner of the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) invaded Liberia to start a 14-year uncivil war that left West Africa’s once safest haven for democracy completely disheveled. Although the country and its people have never fully recovered from the collateral damage of that war which ended in 2003 through the intervention of the international community, with specific push from the country’s traditional friend, the United States of America, Liberians have been fighting tooth and nail to put behind them the ugly past that dogged their lives for decades. Until today.
Reports filtering from Central Monrovia speak of a sad reminder of the ravages of the war that pinned Liberians into a caged existence, with the lucky few fleeing into exile, and the remnants being blessed to resettle into the Diaspora, from the war that turned teenagers into drug-infested zombies, rampaging the countryside, killing at the whims of the country’s multifarious warring factions.
According to yet-to-be corroborated accounts, Monrovia turned upside-down today when some “zogos” (mainly unrehabilitated youths from the war era) decided to rampage shops and stores in Central Monrovia because they did not get their Christmas from the Chief of Protocol to President George Manneh Weah, Finda Bundoo, after she reportedly failed to show up at the Antoinette Tumban Stadium on the United Nations Drive.
Video documentary evidence in the possession of PUNCH indicate that the marauding zogos who decided to leave the ATS and loot Monrovia’s CBD got overpowered by bike riders, and in the aftermath of the ugly melee, two zogos were killed.
The dastardly incident left many businesses closed, with PSU officers reportedly now patrolling the city’s CBD areas to restore calm.
Many Liberian petty business owners who spoke with PUNCH in the wake of the ugly incident expressed fear that the country is gradually sliding into chaos, where the protection of lives and properties cannot be guaranteed under the Liberian constitution.
“What is this? We were running from this same thing in 1990. Why is this government playing tic-tac-toe with our lives?” a concerned market woman lamented.
All efforts to contact Police spokesman Moses Carter proved futile as he failed to answer his phone calls.
This story will be updated as more information crops up.
