More defection hit UP

With just months to kick-off the 2017 Presidential and Legislative elections activities here, defection has hit the ruling Unity Party or UP amidst allegations of intense internal bickering and backbiting.

The latest to walk out of the corridors of the UP, a party which made history here 11 years ago when it elected the first female president on the continent is Musa Bility. Bility tendered in his letter of resignation from the party on Thursday October 13. He gave no reason for leaving a party, which he helped won two successive elections here in 2005 and 2011 respectively.

Other top stewards to have left the party include former Liberian Foreign Minister Togar G. McIntosh and embattled former Speaker Alex Tyler.  Bility’s resignation comes amidst strained relationships amongst key executives of the ruling party. The division had been worsened since the party’s last July convention in the central Liberian town of Gbarnga, Bong County that saw the crowning of Vice President Joseph Boakai as the new political head.

“I write to inform you of my decision to resign from the Unity Party as of the date of this letter,” Bility said in a two paragraphs letter dated October 13, 2016, addressed to young party chairman Wilmot Paye.

“It was a real pleasure to have worked and served over the years and to have been a proud member of the teams that elected the leadership of this country in two successive elections,” he added.

“You have just made my life difficult!!!” wrote, Montserrado Representative Edwin Snowe, an official of the UP on Bility’s Facebook post concerning his resignation Thursday. Bility, the current head of the country’s Football Association or FA, served as the Chairman of the UP’s Montserrado campaign committee as a major financier in 2011. In 2005, as President of the National Mandingo Caucus, Bility led the caucus following a nationwide consultation to support then candidate Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf.

Bility’s resignation though has not come as a shock to many following media reports here that he was aligning himself with the opposition bloc. But yet it’s viewed as a huge loss to a party seeking its third term simply because he command a large constituency based.

There are speculations, that the young Liberian businessman may well be headed for the opposition Liberty Party of Cllr. Charles W. Brumskine, whom he helped President Sirleaf to defeat in the past two elections.

-Othello B. Garblah