Cameroonian Ambassador to Liberia and Doyen of the Diplomatic Corps here, Beng’yela A. Gang, outlined significant ingredients that he stressed are needed in Liberia to achieving genuine national peace and stability beyond the presence of the rule of law.
Addressing the annual convention of the Liberian National Bar Association over the weekend in Nimba County on the topics: Maintaining peace, post-election through adherence to the rule of law”, Amb. Gang noted that adherence to the rule of law alone is not enough in maintaining peace and stability.
He said the quest for and maintenance of peace is such a complex and mercurial goal that the sole reliance on the rule of law alone might not be quite enough in every circumstance to ensure success or genuine tranquility. Therefore, he proposes constant pursuit of provisions of other virtues and human needs such as mutual tolerance, civic education, patriotism, inclusive development, health, and, employment to accompany the rule of law in any credible endeavor that seeks to achieve genuine national peace.
Ambassador Gang: “It’s the expression of the respect which must be accorded to what we call in Cameroon, “Le vivre ensemble” or a kind of “live and let’s live” when our societies seek peace and social harmony”
We couldn’t have agreed with the Cameroonian envoy any better. Society is made of human beings and their wholesome well-being in terms of health, education, food, security, justice, and employment, just to name a few, is as important as enforcement of the rule of law itself.
In other words, the rule of law does not exist or operate in a vacuum. It thrives along with other human conditions, absence of which may undermine respect for the rule of law.
Ambassador Gang further stressed that these complementary humanistic variables are critical as the enacted, mechanical artifices of the law and the rule of law in ensuring peace.
We believe strongly that for the rule of law to thrive in any society, both the government and the governed must be in harmony, and promote common goals with the former paying keen attention to the wishes and aspirations of the latter, for genuine peace to exist or else, mere enforcement of the rule of law may become counterproductive, as we’ve seen under tyrannical administrations.
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Hence, it behooves a sitting government to provide quality health, education, security, food, security and justice, and employment for its people as top priorities in maintaining the rule of law. If these variables are delivered to the people, they will themselves automatically become custodians of the rule of law without an insensitivity regime hiding behind such cliché to brutalize its citizens.
It is important that the in-coming administration of President-elect, Joseph Nyumah Boakai, takes cue from Ambassador Gang’s observations and recommendations, as it assumes leadership of Liberia by making sure it places the horse before the cart than the other way around, in exercising the rule of law for genuine peaceful co-existence and economic prosperity.
