“I will shine Ellen’s shoes”

Montserrado County’s ‘largely slum’ District 14 Representative A. Vamuyan Conneh, has vowed to “shine” President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf’s shoes to enable him develop his district in return, as he faces intense pressure from his constituency in the dire minutes to 2017.

“If it causes me to shine Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf’s shoes, I will do that just because I want development … And she is the president; we have to respect her and honor her; we have to honor her as the mother of this nation,” said Rep. Conneh.

He spoke Saturday, 10 October when he met District 14’s Independent Women for Empowerment in Doe Community to make clarity over reports that he had prevented his colleague Representative Saah Joseph from attending to the women’s call in his district during the previous week.

The head for the Independent Women in the district Mrs. Emily Toe-Parley, said they were surprised that Rep. Joseph boycotted the program after they spent $35,000, due to claims that their lawmaker, Rep. Conneh, had ordered his colleague not to enter his district.

The women group decried the conditions faced in the district, as they called on their lawmaker for empowerment, including building trade school, road and hospital, among others. The businessman-turned lawmaker, who joined the main opposition Congress for Democratic Change after winning the district seat as independent candidate in the 2011 polls, raised high hopes in his district for development particularly when he became the House’s Co-chair on Public Works.

“During the time when I took over, I was very, very lucky – let me put it that way, and I became the Co-chair for Public Works. Sometimes people say Mr. Conneh is the Co-chair [where’s] the road? But you know why, if you want something from somebody, you have to come down,” he said.

According to him, he dosen’t care even if he were not reelected in 2017, while accusing youthsof District 14 of allegedly denying the district development because they show that they know too much.

Rep. Connehalso said when he took over, he gave 10 machines in addition to 10 machines given by Robert Sirleaf, son of President Sirleaf, but wondered where the machines in question have gone because they seem not to be in the district.

He accused the head of the council of elders of consuming L$500,000 that he gave when he took over, while also telling the women that they were not serious on grounds that they did not ask him for empowerment for the past four years until today when he is about to run for reelection.

Meanwhile, Rep. Connehhas presented the women LD$25,000 check and urged them to organize a meeting with him when shall have returned from a foreign trip that he is expected to make soon.

By Winston W. Parley -Edited by Jonathan Browne