Lookin’ Inside From Outside – The Hunt for the Liberian Presidency

Leaders are actually God-given individuals. No matter how long it takes for one to assume the leadership of any nation, he or she will be once such person has already been designated by the Almighty.

Again one who would try to force his or her way into any leadership under the misrepresentation of God is always at the drowning point.

Sometimes, God designates leaders who are fully prepared to undertake the task of nation-building, considering his or her past activities which impacted society.

And one primary reason some of these individuals may want to rise to national leadership is to continue their services at the national level, especially when those persons are people-oriented leaders.

Quite frankly, the way people opt for positions of President, Senator and Representative without any public service-orientation is sometimes puzzling and scaring.

Let’s take the Liberian Presidency for example to discuss in this column.

It is unfortunate that every Tom, Dick and Harry can now jump from the blue skies to contest the Presidency of Liberia just because the position is so cheap in Lioberia.

Again, that’s democracy in the white man’s definition. Even at that, let’s look at the United State of America that is considered the mother of democracy. Because of certain criteria, not everybody goes for the Presidency- the highest number may be three or four with a much reduced number of political party (also less than four).

But here, we speak or advocate so much of democracy so much so that we most often become more democrat than the late Thomas Jefferson of the United states.

As a result, we are always at the losing end with complaints of electoral irregularities and other allegations, only because of our ill-preparedness.

And again, following the process, these politicians fail to relate to those to whom they had previous campaigned for the Liberian Presidency.

Since  the general and Presidential elections in 2005, there is no one Liberian politician or Presidential Candidates, other than Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of the Unity party and Bishop George Kiadii of the national Vision Party of Liberia, that can boast of returning to the counties and districts to express gratitude or appreciation for their support.

With the 2011 general and presidential elections eighteen months to go, these same individuals will again be going to probably apologize and solicit another support in their quest for the Liberian Presidency.

This is where they may encounter difficulties, considering the fact that voters in the counties have already begun discussing these issues at public forums, on the local community radio stations and other places.

Ordinary  Liberians are also harboring the belief now that while they may not be voting for rice but rights, they will not equally be voting on the basis of rhetoric, empty promises or sentiments, but deliverables for the past six years.

That, our political leaders can be promised. Support for them will be based on what they’ve been able to do for the people for the past six years and if such achievements are not tangible enough to convince them, of course, the choice will be made in favor of those who have made some achievements to transform the lives of all Liberians and not only Monrovians, if at all such has been possible.

More disgusting is that fact that when the electoral process is ongoing, these very political leaders spend thousands, if not millions of United States dollars on campaign activities.

But after the process, we do not see much of these political leaders, other than issuing press statements and hosting news conferences in Monrovia to either criticize the government of the day without any recommendations or just comment to make their presence felt.

To even keep some of the cash used for campaign to undertake minor projects after election to make their presence felt in some places of the country, that’s what we cannot get over.

But don’t mind them, we know them. By their names and by their characters, we still know them.