By Togba-Nah Tipoteh
While we are wishing people a Happy Season during the 2023-2024 Season, we need to learn from the Season how to practice Reason. This learning is most important because talking alone does not solve problems. Our national religious, political, civil society and government leaders with their foreign partners do a lot of talking but do not Walk The Talk of Justice, of Peace and of Democracy. The No Walk The Talk prevailing situation remains the source of the longstanding and widespread poverty that has now become the pretext for violence, which, at times, takes on forms of coup d’etat and civil war, both of which have been experienced by the people of Liberia.
Due to this experience, the people of Liberia say: We Want Peace! No More War!, as posted on the canvas at the Women’s Center opposite the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Presidential Center for Women Empowerment in Sinkor, Monrovia. On account of this experience, the people of Liberia conclude that Liberia is headed in the Wrong Direction (Afrobarometer, 2020). The violence of the coup d’etat and the civil war saw over 300,000 people murdered and many more injured. The violence afterwards saw unsolved disappearances, rock throwing, mock burials and murders. providing more evidence to back the conclusion about Wrong Direction.
With all of this background of violence, how come that Liberia is receiving praises locally and globally for the Presidential and General Election of October 10, 2023? The praises continue to flow because of the awareness raising that led to the minimization of unfairness in the electoral system, the minimization of violence during the Election and the maximization of voting for persons with good records, records of serving the people rather than being served by the people.
The awareness raising is putting Liberia in the Right Direction. Witness the statement of the President of Liberia accepting the election results and congratulating the Unity Party for having the best results of the election. This acceptance and congratulatory statement is receiving praises from local and global sources. The good record making election experience in Liberia is being used to spread the spirit of non-violence to stop he violence in Sierra Leone, Mali, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, La Cote d’Ivore, Burkina Faso, Niger and even in Israel, Lebanon and Ukraine, not forgetting the United States of America (USA) with the former President Trump led attempted coup d’etat of January 6, 2021 and the pending 2024 Presidential Election in the USA.
It is only through this awareness raising within the Rule of Law that the prevailing unfair electoral system is being transformed into the Right Direction, to the enduring fair electoral system. It is only through this transformation that persons with good records can be elected to bring in the system of Justice, the indispensable ingredient for Peace and Progress in Liberia and in any other Country.
