Written by: Daniel Trokon Bestman, Contributing Writer
Liberia stands at the threshold of a very crucial election in history. An epoch that shall accelerate a post-conflict society to the status of a robustly peaceful one. Since the core of its politicking has been dramatised on the theatre of harsh rhetorics and piercing truths bowed to the conscience of the social contract, a bullied generation sits paranoid and feels traumatized regarding the trend of change. Importantly, to pit Weah’s kleptocracy with Boakai’s insincerity is to validate the 2017 elections which presented Mr. George Weah and Mr. Joseph Boakai as the two top candidates for the run-off election.
However, in the delight of political pundits and commentators, the electorates in whose hands the democratic gavel is been weighed, wailed in the pool of dilemma as the 2023 General and Presidential elections draws closer — which way to go or support. This then informs the author to ask this pungent rhetorical question, Who do we follow? The Weah’s kleptocracy or the Boakai’s insincerity.
During the 2017 electoral campaign, the CDC led by Mr. Weah presented a mantra tagged CHANGE FOR HOPE as an optimistic manifesto to the interest of the Pro Poor Agenda For Peace and Development that would later bring the mantra from theory to practical. In essence, there has been many revelations of low gradings regarding transperancy and accountability issues. Statistical embezzlement, mysterious disappearance, increasing hardships, deformed education system, social and political inequalities, kangaroo justice, yellow journalism, and partisans’ security network are the many moral and financial crimes which convicts the Weah led government as kleptomaniac and incompetent bureaucrats.
More so, the many allegations of financial malfeasances ranging from missing billions, mop up exercise, undefendable infusion to the owning of more than thirty condominiums asserts the confusion of the voting public regarding the seismic rise in the wealth of the ex-soccer legend. Integral to the discourse is the desperation of rage in the eyes of an allegedly failed president for re-election but the people are troubled, if we will reject Mr. Weah for wide scale corruption and trafficking of Liberian citizens both locally and internationally, then who do we follow?
As the 1927 Nobel Laureate for Physics, Weiner Hessinberg would put it “It is impossible simultaneously to specify the exact position of an object and its momentum”, we are reminded of the stupor of incapacitation which hangs over the candidacy of the Unity Party Standard Bearer and the inability to conclude that Mr. Joseph Boakai health issue should see him abandon his rescue mission for Liberia.
If truly, the Unity Party will have to apologize to posterity for such deliberate deception in their reconquest of power during the upcoming election, we ought to infer as to whether the Unity Party has gone replete of candidates with the credible and honest characteristics he represents to the outside world. Again, the quest for power has it way of growing the arrogance of convicted men against the preference of their ego.
According to Alexis de Tocqueville, “Leadership goes with morality and morality goes with faith”, therefore if the mark of a visionary leader is sincerity, then there is a bold-faced truth to be told in the camera of the THINK, LOVE AND BUILD LIBERIA crusaders who are the base of dependency of Mr. Joseph Boakai ascendancy. Importantly, Mr. Boakai honest admittance of using a pacemaker on a popular talkshow conveyed in material essence a crisis with health.
With cogency to the people’s confidence, the electorates feel threatened were they to elect Mr. Boakai and minutes after he is preyed by stroke thereby gambling the confidence reposed in him to a running mate who wouldn’t reach their persuasion potential. If truly, Liberia will be proud celebrating Mr. Boakai as a victor in the upcoming elections, the experienced old man like Lenrie Peters intoned in the poem THE PANIC OF GROWING OLDER, will have to commit himself to people of Liberia by telling them the sincere facts surrounding his health. We electorates are currently in a state of dilemma, who to follow. Whether to follow Mr. Weah as he and his officials unleash more financial damages in their kleptocracy or follow Mr. Boakai who has refused to put ego aside to cater to his health problem — who do we follow? The Weah’s kleptocracy or the Boakai’s insincerity.
Finally, as we are approximately two-hundred sixty-three days away from the upcoming elections, the emotional sentiments among electorates are peaking to its critical point of dilemma, where supporters of the two popular political parties — the UP and CDC are soliloquizing about the identity that should be chosen by the majority of the people.
We are poised to understand as to whether there’s another mechanism in store for the CDC as a tool to clean the huge mess created or the UP will reciprocate the culture of impunity as done by the CDC without bringing to book the double deals of kleptocracy. On the hand, the Boakai’s insincerity must take into account not the exploit of recording this historical trickery to the masses instead utilize the chance will accorded his insincerity by history to unleash his missiles of experience regarding accountable and transparent leadership.
We voters are still confuse in the horrors of the 2023 political dilemma — Who Do We Follow? The Weah’s kleptocracy or the Boakai’s insincerity.
ABOUT AUTHOR: Mr. Bestman is an Educator at the INNOVATION PREPARATORY INTERNATIONAL ACADEMY, Liberia’s premier STREAM High School lecturing Literature-in-English. He also instructs Core Mathematics at the JONES CHRISTIAN ACADEMY. Though he’s an Educator, he is also a Civil Advocate and Activist. He could be reached at dtbestman@gmail.com/0880618248.
