Frontpage Comment: The Man Edwin Snowe

Montserrado District #6 Representative Edwin Melvin Snowe is one funny character you find very difficult to avoid even if you choose to. Trust me, his name is a household one on the Liberian political landscape, and for controversial reasons too.

Like most Liberian politicians, Snowe knows how to trace his enemies even if they do not exist, and blame others for his nightmares as he seeks motives. Believe me, the guy is smart and is full of innovative ideas but unfortunately most of his schemes have poor finishing notes which end up in confessions and apologies.

Noted for secret recordings, Snowe is one current member of the 53rd National Legislature who can scream so high to the top of his voice, accusing his colleagues of receiving US5000 bribes from President Sirleaf to remove him as speaker and at the end, honestly concedes that he lost his post due to limited education at the time.-What a great lesson to be thought.

Snowe, a young man with big dreams soon made his breaks to prominence in the late 1990s to early 2000, thanks to war crime indictee Charles Taylor who will soon give his daughter’s hand in marriage to Snowe, a Cyril Allen former driver.

Soon Snowe would head the Liberian Football Association and lobby to head the Liberia Petroleum Refining Company or LPRC, where he would face a charge of economic sabotage along with other former government officials for allegedly plundering state resources. But jurors soon cut him loose as he will go on celebrating why the government keeps biting its fingers, leaving many questions unanswered as to how it happened.

The only representative candidate with the biggest billboards around  his district that not one of the 2005 presidential candidates including the two favorites: President Sirleaf and former soccer star George Weah could match, Snowe won the former District #5, now District #6. Snowe has a good fighting spirit, but never completes a fight to the end the reason is his engaging strategies are often misguided at the wrong targets.

For instance, Snowe would soon request his lawyers to file papers against an executive member of the Congress for Democratic Change or CDC for libel. But would choose to drag the New Dawn management and its reporter Nathaniel Daygbor before the Plenary of the Honorable House of Representatives and waste 30 good minutes of the time the lawmakers should have used to do the people’s job.

The next day, Snowe would now understand that he has indeed misfired his shot and therefore would announce his retreat and give some flimsy reasons when the initial bullet have been wrongly fired.

Snowe is good at making political allies but for a season and so 2011 saw him migrating to the ruling Unity Party where he found new home and within a twinkling of an eye declared his membership. But remember what I said that the guy is very smart, he never forgets that in his new home he still have enemies, ones he created years back which has continued to hunt him. And so, he would continue to remind himself, thinking he is informing editors of individuals he believes are behind his miseries.

He is also good at forgetting old friends and make serious allegations against them just to apologize later. For example in 2005, Snowe alleged that former first lady now Senator Jewel Howard Taylor wanted to assassinate him. Snowe created fake email contacts linking the Senator to his alleged ploy. When the interim government launches an investigation into the matter, he later apologized to the former first lady.

Again remember when I said Snowe has a good fighting spirit, in the same 2005, Snowe physically attacked me, when I was then news editor of the New Democrat in front of the Justice Ministry. Justice Ministry officials had invited Snowe for questioning after i wrote about his alleged corrupt practices at the LPRC where he was then Managing Director.

To Be Continued.