Candidate makes ‘Black Cow sacrifice’

One of the 13-Senatorial candidates for the ensuing Mid-Term Senatorial elections in Bong County is currently placed in a very unstable political state- twisting and turning all about to ensure victory come December 16.

As if she has no more confidence in the Almighty God in whose hands she had earlier placed her re-election bid, incumbent Senator Jewel Howard-Taylor may now be investing her trust in traditional gods, through the Zoes and traditional elders in Suakoko District.

Early in the morning of Saturday, November 1, 2014 in little known Cole Village near Gboimue Town (the home of Ambassador Jeremiah Sulonteh)- a few kilometres from the main town of Gbondoi in Suakoko District, Zoes and traditional elders had already surrounded a black heifer (young female cow), impregnated for about five months or the first time, for all of the necessary rituals befitting a traditional sacrifice, while the incumbent Bong County Senator sat among them and chanted as the Zoes and elders  prayed to the ‘Nganmuahs’ ( ancestors or traditional gods in the Kpelle Language) to ensure victory for the Senator in the election.

A few chiefs, who expressed dissatisfaction about the traditional ceremony, told this paper in Suakoko Town that following all of the ritualistic formalities, the black heifer was slaughtered. According to them, the chief Zoe then dipped his right thumb into the blood of the cow and placed same on the forehead of Senator Taylor.

Further concerns were raised by some of the elders upon noticing that the young black cow was in its first pregnancy, but the matter was later resolved. Prior to the traditional sacrifice, mobile phones were all ordered switched-off so that no one would do a recording of the event.

The decision by Senator Jewel Howard-Taylor to ordered phones switched-off was against the back-drop of a recent recording in which she revealed to her supporters the amount of L$72m she received from the Central Bank of Liberia or CBL, through its Executive Governor, Mr. J. Mills Jones  under the guise of loans for the people of Bong County.

The Senator had told her “Friends of Jewel”  on tape that even when there was a moratorium placed on the bank’s micro-loan scheme until next year due to the Ebola Crisis in the country, she ‘mango-mango’ her way through the Governor to receive addition funds, urging them to pay back with their votes.