Editorial: Snowe’s Repeated Mistakes

Montserrado County District #6 Representative Edwin Melvin Snowe has fallen on bending knees for the second time, with apologetic expressions to President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and her son Robert Sirleaf for the wide charges and allegations he made recently against them, ranging from lack of transparency, mismanagement to dishonesty, among others.

He blamed his actions against the presidency to misinformation from Liberians. Snowe said: “People in this country lie; people live on lies; they will come to you and lie to you and the lies will be per the size of your pocket; if you have deep pocket and give them more money, they will lie more; if you don’t give them money, they  will not lie. Had we not listened to some of the lies, maybe some of the press conferences we taught we had in the interest of the country, we wouldn’t have had them.”

His admittance to making public utterances based on falsehood that particularly impinged on the character of high profile individuals clearly points to the depth of poor judgment by some of our public officials, which come with it as it did, shameful embarrassment and confusion.

As a representative of the people , it behooves not only  Snowe, but all others with such responsibility to speak responsibly on public issues so that they can be trusted. But when Snowe begins to lick his own vomit, he leaves his followers vulnerable with their heads bow in disgrace because he has influence over them, and they tend to believe every inch of word from him.

Snowe started his journey to the Capitol in 2005 and secured a seat in the House of Representative as well as becoming Speaker of the House in the first term of Madam Sirleaf. But he lost it all in the midway of the first term when his colleagues expressed a vote of no confidence in his leadership.

He blamed his fall from the leadership to the orchestration of the Executive, accusing Madam Sirleaf of financially sponsoring members of the House to oust him from office. The Executive Mansion denied. Later in the second term of this administration, Snowe came back and noted that he made mistakes, and that if given a second chance he would have conducted himself properly as an official of government.  

We the people are then left wondering what could be next on Snowe’s plate, reflecting that he got himself messed up early this year in a ‘naked woman’ rigmarole at his residence during a bachelor eve, which brought womanhood to disgrace, and is still hunting him even today.

Leadership goes with a high level of maturity and farsightedness, but when the person in the driver’s seat begins to turn the steering so recklessly as we are experiencing, there is reason for concern, and second thought. Anybody who has been bitten by a snake looks twice when he or she sees a piece of string lying on the ground. 

We are placing a check on these issues so that public officials can be cautious and more responsible in their utterances in order to continuously maintain our respect and trust. A hint to the wise…