By: Togba-Nah Tipoteh (Retired Undefeated Tennis Champion of Liberia)
Liberia’s great runner, Joseph Fahnbulleh, won the 200-meter race in the 2024 Africa Athletic Championship. He is now the 200-meter Champion of Africa. Fahnbulleh performed well, coming in fourth in the most recent world athletic championship. He could have received thousands of United States dollars by running for the United States of America (USA), but he wants to remain a Liberian even with a billion dollars given to him to run for the USA. What a patriot!
This story about Champion Fahnbulleh is very important because we live in Liberia, where money matters more than patriotism. The Fahnbulleh story shows that money matters to the powers that be but not to the other Liberians. Give money to an unpatriotic Liberia, and you will see that an unpatriotic thing will be done. This is the sense that the powers that be in Liberia do not have. They know the book, but they have no sense.
The great runner Fahnbulleh got sense because he is patriotic and lives by Liberian culture although he lives and goes to school in the USA. The Fahnbulleh story also helps us to learn how to live by Liberian culture and not by the prevailing American culture that generates poverty and its attendant violence. We live in times when poverty has become the pretext for violence that has taken the lives of at least 300,000 Liberians and injured many more thousands. Liberians have gone through this devastating experience, as seen in the coup d’etat and the civil war in Liberia.
Recently, La Cote d’Ivoire won the Africa 2024 Football Cup of Nations. This victory keeps many people wondering about small La Cote d’Ivoire beating big Nigeria. Well, the wanderers should know that determination matters, not preparation alone. La Cote d’Ivoire and Nigeria prepared well but La Cote d’Ivoire was more determined to win than Nigeria. This means that the Ivoireans were more patriotic than the Nigerians, and this determination gave them victory over the Nigerians.
Your Humble Servant knows what he is talking about because he learned to play tennis with a broken leg from playing football and became the Tennis Champion of Liberia for thirty successive years, from 1964 to 1994. He was able to set this record through preparation plus determination. Now, other Liberians and athletes around the world are following the example of the Liberian Champion, Joseph Fahnbulleh. Balika Fahnbulleh. Achaabor Fahnbulleh. Ezuo Fahnbulleh.
