Beware of Political Judases

You know for a second there, I would have let sleeping dogs to lie. But sometimes it is just as well as good to expose the cowards and hypocrites on our political landscape.

Certainly, you will agree with me that our political system is void of ideologies-a belief system or a dogma that defines what a party stands for. An idea that even children unborn or young university students will hold onto as a way of making a decisive choice as it relates to which political party proffers the best idea that would enable our nation achieves its development agenda.

A kind of Republican and Democrat thing though. And Like in neighboring Ghana where the New Patriotic Party or NPP and the National Democratic Congress or NDC are divided by the Nkrumah, and the Danquah-Busia traditions. No, there is none here. Trust me and I dare anyone to point to just one party with such. It is all about the political leader, what he or she thinks. And why wouldn’t it be so, when a political leader here is considered the financier of the club or party.

Again, trust me, they (political parties and politicians) will have you believe that those cut and paste booklets they parade with around here as a platform is an equivalent of a political ideology or a tradition, that long after its founders shall have expired, emerging generation can aspire to.
So, what you have are clubs of likeminded individuals whose sole intend is to gain state power for their selfish gains, period. They only feed on the masses to get state power. This has been reflected repeatedly in how we carve our national budgets which aimed solely at simply putting money in officials’ pockets and not focusing on uplifting the dying masses. That is why there has always been a blame game when it comes to the issue of raising civil servants’ salaries in the budget. Don’t get me wrong, when it comes to the issues of officials’ benefits and perdiems, these go through 4Gs approvals.

Now, come to think of it, it makes much sense to me now, why some of these so-called politicians adopt a Nicodemus style of politics, not wanting to be publicly identified with certain political group, because such public announcement would rob them of opportunities elsewhere.
Again, don’t get me wrong, the heads of these political groups too are afraid to announce publicly the alignment of certain politicians with them, simply because of fear that they (politicians) will come up publicly to denounce such alignment thus putting them in a most embarrassing situation. The 2011 Congress for Democratic Change or CDC and the Liberty Party or LP of Charles Brumskine merger talks and subsequent betrayal is one public disgrace no political party wants to experience here again. So, I quite understand that part.

This brings me to a point. Early this week, the New Dawn newspaper published an article in which it named several government officials who had one way or the other held meetings with our little known political figure, Mr. Alex Cummings, the Johnny Just Come or JJC of the 2017 Presidential and Legislative elections, a replica of Kennedy Sandy of 2011.

Individuals named in that article can in no way deny that they have not met with Mr. Cummings one way or the other and made some promising commitment. What is more shocking is the repeated denial being made on the various airwaves, not by the individuals named in the article but the media trainees who are heading the public relations department of Mr. Cummings.

“We were afraid that the people would have denied the story. So we had to go out there before they embarrass us,” an official who spoke to this writer in confidence on Tuesday said. Certainly, he has a genuine fear in the Liberian political context. Simply because this is the only country where most politicians here behave like leaches whenever they realized that a particular candidate with no experience whatsoever is loaded with cash ready to dish out – Or where some use their so-called popularity as a means of extorting money from power drunk politicians.

But you know, in most cases the one who is giving more in such secret love affairs usually ends up getting the hurt or disgrace. You know when a man denounces a woman or turns her over to her parents, and after that, goes on to re-establish a secret love affair with the same lady, it is only prudent that she insists, that the guy goes back before her parents and inform them of the change in his decision. Otherwise, any pregnancy or any other thing resorting from the sneaking between the two if denied by the guy which is 99.9 percent possible will be more disgraceful then when he first handed her over to her parents.

However, there are good ones too though. The ones who will say enough is enough and publicly announce their support elsewhere. The Musa Bility’s, Sen. Oscar Cooper, Ex-speaker Alex Tyler, and several other men and women who are not afraid to say this was while I joined you in the first place and if it is no longer there, I must find somewhere else where such are made available.

Of course, we all know politics of interest, but equally so, we must realize that men and women who aspire for state or public offices must be people of integrity. If you cannot be trusted when you make a commitment to a particular candidate of your loyalty and support, what make you think you will be loyal to the state and her people?

By Othello B. Garblah