By: Jarwinken Wiah |
There is no question majority of us Liberians don’t recognize and understand that most of the distressing consequences the entire country faces stem from immoral governance decisions of our political leaders.
We just celebrated 171 years on July 26, 2018 and have nothing tangible to match our age in terms of livelihood improvement with matching needs for majority of Liberians.
Evidently, making ends meet is beyond the reach of the majority and meeting daily survival for them is at the mercy of nature. This has become acceptable norm for majority of Liberians for more than a century and half. Can we do better?
Facing with these consequences, we embrace them with denial and complacency. We live in enslaved and blind loyalty to individual leaders rather than the state.
The strength of our democratic institutions upon which the idea of this country was formed are usurped by our self-centered political leaders. Don’t you think we can change for the better?
Equal administration of justice and rule of law are replaced with impunity in favor of those in political power and their allies in the business community and other well connected influential individuals in the society. Accountability and transparency are elusive.
We continue to miss out on our founding purpose which, recognized the importance of everyone’s unchallengeable equal human’s dignity. It calls for equal treatment for all regardless of one’s status in the society.
This means one’s political leadership, ethnicity, religion, country or region of origin, sex, race, region country does not put anyone above the rule of law. It does not put one’s individual interest above the interest of the state.
Our failure to abide by these founding principles are our nightmare. They are the reason for our unending poverty. They were the reason of our civil wars. These are clear and simple. Why don’t we recognize and change for better Liberia?
It is obvious circumventing these founding principles, which recognize and protect individual liberties as specifically outlined in article one of the 1986 Liberian Constitution regarding the role of citizens and government are our bigger challenge.
We can start with respecting article one of the Constitution, which says the purpose for anyone to serve in government is to serve for the security and satisfaction of the people for whom one is elected or appointed.
It says the failure for anyone to serve to the contrary, the people have the right to remove him or her even before his or her term of office expires.
Every political job including the presidency, senators, representatives, judges, ministers, directors, mayors, superintendents, clerks, police, army, sweepers among others belong to the Liberian people.
This means everyone in government is working for the Liberian people. They Liberian people are the boss collectively for government officials.
The question we must ask ourselves is what will we say if we had White people occupying these positions and govern exactly in the same way our people are?
Who is managing our gold and diamond fields and how much do they worth? Where does the revenue go? Who is managing our forests and how much do our logs worth? Where does the revenue go? Who is managing our Maritime program and how much do we make? Where does the revenue go? How much do we generate from the Freeport of Monrovia?
Liberia Petroleum Refinery (LPRC)? Roberts International Airport (RIA)? Liberia Revenue Authority (LRA)? Telecommunications Corporation? Commerce and Industry? Taxes including the 25% exchange from all remittances through western union and MoneyGram? Where do the revenues go?
The fact is these unanswered questions do start with this current administration so when we are going to stop the denial and complacency.
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