Lookin’ Inside From Outside: The Wave of Attacks by Cronies of the UP Gov’t

Recently, President Sirleaf has her very self gone on record for referring to the opposition as having psychiatric problem, and indicated the opposition needs to go and see a psychiatrist; all  because they are playing their role as critics against her administration.

Moreover, in the early days of her Administration when the crime waves in Monrovia were on the rise, the Minister of Justice and Attorney General at the time accused the opposition as being responsible for the crimes in the country.

By those kinds of reasoning, the Attorney General was laying the basis to have political opposition criminally liable. That was very dangerous.  As a matter of fact, what is even more interesting is that when Mrs. Sirleaf was herself in opposition to people in power, she usually arrogantly referred to the power that was as a bunch of “idiots”.

Thus, the tendency for some lieutenants in the Johnson Sirleaf Administration to rain insults on people in the opposition is a direct reflection of their chief patron’s old behavior.

Couple of months ago, a series of poorly written articles by one anonymous Mr. Paye appeared in the Front Page Africa on behalf of “Ma Ellen”. The articles rained heaps of appalling attacks on the person of Ambassador Mayson, and indicated they would resist any attempt to deprive “Ma Ellen” of a second term in office.  That situation was adequately dealt with, and Mr. Paye, the Payee, vanished into oblivion.

This time, another “Paye” has openly surfaced, undisguised, in person of Wilmont J. M. Paye – the National Secretary General of the Unity Party, and an Assistant Minister of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.   Responding to critical commentaries by Ambassador Mayson on some policies of the Unity Party Government, Mr. Wilmont J. M. Paye, another gullible payee, wrote in the New Democrat (Vol. 17, No. 226, Friday, November 25, 2010, page 12) as follows: “Apparently many people are not aware that Mr. Mayson was one of the ring leaders of Liberia’s seemingly undetectable mafia community and the invincible hand behind former President Charles Taylor’s illicit forestry deals with French nationals”.  He also referred to Ambassador Mayson as a former “ear-ring wearer”.  The UP National Secretary General left the substantive issues, and rather focused on a combination of trivialities, lies and reckless speculations, based on hearsay.

Similarly, a once wretched pauper, the Deputy at the Ministry of Information, Cultural Affairs & Tourism (MICAT), earlier an Assistant Minister in the Ministry of Gender & Development (MoGD), Jerelinmick Piah took to the air waves on both local radio and television, in an official policy statement of the MICAT, and launched a barrage of attacks on the person of Tuan Wleh Mayson similar to those of his peer, Wilmot Paye. He also referred to Professor Mayson as a “self-appointed professor”.

Importantly, we also take note that the attack on Professor Tuan Wleh Mayson has been linked to and accompanied by similar bombardment with insulting attacks on Senator Franklin Siakor of Bong County.  Both Mayson and Siakor, grassroots revolutionaries, have made entry into Liberia’s only Social Democratic Party – the New DEAL Movement – the Party that has been on a political and ideological war path

With the disguised remnants of the True Whig Party (TWP) who are seeking sanctuary in various political clusters as new, born-again-democrats.  The TWP   bears the brunt for Liberia’s current underdevelopment and poverty-stricken mess, having ruled and failed the country for more than a Century.

In their twin-attacks on the New DEAL Stalwarts, both Paye, the payee and Piah, the pauper of the Unity Party interchangeably referred to Comrade Franklin Obed Siakor as one who needed to preoccupy himself with making farms, and not think about becoming president of Liberia, because according to them, that would amount to the “desecration of the Presidency” whose sanctity has been restored by “Ma Ellen.”  They referred to Senator Siakor as an inexperienced person “who has no substantial record of any legislative achievements since 2006”, among other garbage.

Within the context of Contemporary Liberian politics as characterized by flamboyant, career and stomach-driven opportunism, who are Wilmot Paye, Jerelinmick Piah and the likes? We will come to that later.

The two fellows in the Unity Party, new recruits, referred to Ambassador Mayson as “one of the ring leaders of Liberia’s seemingly undetectable mafia community” with an “invincible hand behind former President Charles Taylor’s illicit forestry deals with French nationals”.  Where is the evidence to this reckless assertion?  What are the names of the French nationals and companies that Mayson did business with?  Where are they located in France? What is the volume of profits that were generated from those alleged illicit transactions? Moreover, when did the Unity Party get to know that Ambassador Mayson is a Mafia with an “invincible hand behind former President Charles Taylor’s illicit forestry deals with French nationals”? Was it prior to or after his support to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, in her bid for the presidency in 2005?

Moreover, if the Government, through its spokespersons, claims one of the newly emerging presidential phenomena is a mafia, and it has evidence to that effect, what has prevented it from pressing legal charges?  As we emerge from war, and are striving to rebuild, maintain and sustain the peace of Liberia, why would the Unity Party government behave so irresponsibly?  Because it is only an irresponsible government with an irresponsible leadership that behaves so irresponsibly by using tax payers’ resources to make reckless statements and rain insults on peaceful citizens based on street gossips and lies.  Does the Government know that by its behavior, it is inviting violence? Does it not know it is playing with fire?  Why have the Party and Government become so frightened to death by the political presence of Dew Tuan Wleh Mayson?

In 2005, Liberia was cut in two halves: one half was for Ellen Johnson, and the other for the soccer legend.  Dew Tuan Wleh Mayson and other members of the Liberia First Group rallied around and gave Ellen Johnson Sirleaf a robust support. At the time, many Liberians thought she was a better candidate. Moreover, if the National Secretary General of the Unity Party and the Deputy Minister of MICAT claim that Tuan Wleh Mayson is a “mafia” and had illicit dealings with Charles Taylor prior to the 2005 Elections; should we logically conclude that Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s presidency is a direct beneficiary of “mafia” support?  Do these fellows really know what they are talking about?  Do they want to know who the actual “mafia” in Liberia is?    What recklessness! What grandiose display of idiocy!

During the Liberian civil conflict when every well-meaning Liberian of substance was under obligation to get involved in the resolution of the civil crisis, Ambassador Mayson as a career diplomat and a patriotic Liberians were frantically shuttling from one capitol to the other in the sub-region, trying to broker the peace.  Specifically, when Professor Amos Sawyer was President of the first transitional arrangement in Monrovia, Tuan Wleh shuttled between Monrovia and Gbarnga in an effort to bring Charles Taylor of the NPFL, and Amos Sawyer of IGNU, face to face to talk.  There were many other such initiatives undertaken by other fellow Liberians – including the Inter-faith Mediation Council.  Obviously, under those circumstances, different Liberian forces on different divides were variously suspicious of each other.  That’s what civil conflicts entail.

Meanwhile, for a group of ill-informed and inadequately schooled, little scavengers to try to juxtapose or equate Ambassador Mayson’s mediatory initiatives during our conflict to “illicit business deals with Mr. Charles Taylor is totally malicious, to say the least.  Remember, Ambassador Mayson did not just stop at helping to mediate peace in Liberia; Dew Tuan Wleh Mayson was always there for fellow Liberians in refugee camps throughout the Continent.  There are thousands of Liberians that are alive, in and out of Liberia, who can bear testimony to this as evidence.  Therefore, the ploy of the Unity Party to vilify Tuan Wleh Mayson will not work; they will have to find a new machination to destroy this contemporary phenomenon in Liberian politics.

TO BE CONTINUED!