By Togba-Nah Tipoteh
With many people from here and abroad looking for jobs and business opportunities in Liberia, it is most important to focus on their respective positions about system change. Are these people bent or not on changing the prevailing system of poverty generation in Liberia? Their displays of rampant populism, opportunism and sycophancy indicate support for the prevailing system of poverty generation.
Witness how we observe the actions of former slave masters and former colonialists when a former French Development Minister insists that what Europe needs from Africa are its raw materials and the purchases of Europe’s manufactured goods by Africans. The manufactured goods from Europe are produced from Africans raw materials. The slave masters did a big job on the African slave sellers and slaves because after over five centuries of slavery and colonialism, the local powers that be are still promoting the poverty generation system. Such is not surprising, looking at the white racism in the United States of America (USA), under the leadership of former USA President Donald Trump, as seen in the attempted coup d’etat of January 6, 2021, at the Capitol Building in Washington D.C., USA.
In Liberia, there were the coup d’etat and the civil war that took the lives of over 300,000 people and injured many more people. The coup makers of several African countries have opted their countries out of the African Union (AU). President Macky Sall of Senegal has postponed the presidential election in Senegal, scheduled for this year, indefinitely. In Liberia again, the wives of the men of the Armed Forces of Liberia (AFL) went on protests for three days to express dissatisfaction with benefits and appointments. The wives blocked highways including the highway to the Roberts International Airport, Liberia’s only international airport.
The government of Liberia (GOL) held discussions with the AFL wives and made several commitments to calm down the mutiny in the AFL. This approach is the business-as-usual approach, as has been the practice for decades. The wrong approach is being used because it is based on the prevailing rule of outlaw rather than the enduring Rule of Law. No wonder, the people of Liberia conclude that Liberia is moving in the wrong direction (Afrobarometer, 2022).
Most fortunately, the awareness raising by the people who love Liberia continues and this helps in minimizing violence, It is only this awareness raising to motivate people to take actions within the Rule of Law that leads to the transformation of the unfair electoral system into the fair electoral system to have persons with good records elected to bring in the system of Justice, the indispensable ingredient for Peace and Progress ins Liberia and in any other Country.
