Editorial-Stop Shifting Blame, Counselor

On Monday, November 21, 2010, we published a frontpage story: Cllr. Tubman Accuses Ellen. In that publication, the Political Leader of the Liberia National Union or LINU, Cllr. Winston C. Tubman accused President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and her ruling Unity Party of undermining his political efforts.

Such allegation suggested that his presidential ambition could be a dream unreachable.

The publication quoted the National Democratic Party or NDPL former standard Bearer as saying that it was President Sirleaf and the UP who thwarted his arrangements with Mr. George Weah, the Political Leader of the Congress for Democratic Change-one that would have seen the two paired on a single ticket for the 2011 Presidential election in Liberia.

The issue of influencing the departure of his former Vice Standard Bearer, now Vice Chairman of the Unity Party Jeremiah Sulonteh, as well as the matter of his expulsion from the Liberia National Union was undermining factors he attributed to the President and her Unity Party.

Also in our publication, Cllr. Winston Tubman could not understand why Mr. Weah chose to do business with Cllr. Charles Brumskine and the Liberty Party, when it was the same Brumskine who rejected him during the 2005 Presidential run-off over him who supported him wholeheartedly.

While we do understand Cllr. Winston Tubman’s claims and frustration, in view of his explanation, we also think that he needs to re-examine himself, in terms of comprehending politics as an “art of the possible.”

Probably, Tubman is making these claims over the alleged amount of money Mr. George Weah may have taken from last year in Accra, Ghana for the deal, only to leave him in the “wilderness.” Cash politics-that’s the big game now being played in contemporary Liberian politics, considering the fact that most Liberian politicians are completely poor or broke.

For the astute Counselor to begin shifting blame, we believe, shows that he needs to come with terms with Liberian politics, even though he says they make him stronger.

But didn’t Cllr. Tubman know, since he resigned his lucrative UN job in Somalia to join politics in Liberia that everything is possible to succeed in politics?

The “old man” must not even be complaining about the “Weah-Brumskine Deal” being cognizant of the fact that he went through the same deal with George Weah in Ghana before and was betrayed despite the huge cash he was alleged to have reportedly spent on his political brother. That’s the nature of Liberian politics.

Other than fruitlessly shifting blames on President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and her Unity Party, Tubman should have been fully knowledgeable about the limited political education of Mr. Weah, as well as his inability to comprehend what politics entails before entering into any political marriage with him.

We are of the fervent belief that if President Sirleaf and her Unity Party were not cognizant of negative political characteristics of Mr. George Weal, they, too, would have engaged him somewhere-may be in Johannesburg, South Africa, Kigali, Rwanda or Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso to give him some cash and get him over.

Though we sincerely pity his unfortunate political situation, but Cllr. Winston Tubman must stop shifting blame on Ellen, re-examine himself and move ahead with his political life.