River Gee County Senator Conmany B. Wessehstrongly warns Nimba County Senator and leader of the disbanded rebels Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPFL) to take full responsibility for the killing of President Samuel Kanyon Doe on September 09, 1990, during the civil war in Liberia rather than bragging that the action was taken in defend of the people of Nimba County.
Speaking to the NewDawn in his office at the Capitol in Monrovia, Senator Wesseh calls on his colleague PYJ, dubbed as the political godfather of Nimba, to be man enough and take responsibility for his action instead of shifting blames.
PYJ, former Field Marshall, commanded the dreadful INPFL after he broke away from the main National Patriotic Front of Liberia that invaded the country from Ivory Coast thru Butuo, a border town in Nimba under the leadership of now jailed former President Charles Taylor to topple the Doe regime.
Last week, Senator Johnson bragged that he killed President Doe in revenge of his kinsmen in Nimba whom, according to him, were being murdered in cold blood on a daily basis. He argued the only option for the people to get constitutional and God-given freedom is to fight back.
But the comments did not sail well with Grand Gedeh County Electoral District #1 Representative and cousin of the slain president, Zoe Emmanuel Pennue, who immediately responded that the people of Grand Gedeh would not condone such assertion from the Cuban-trained guerrilla leader, PYJ.
”I hope [it] is not true that he (Johnson) bragged about the killing of former President Doe because [this] is nothing to brag about. I heard the reaction of Representative Zoe Pennue and I think the reaction is timely. I think it is time to end such exchanges that tend to speak on behalf of people when actually individuals should take responsibility for their actions,” Sen. Wesseh says. “The Nimba people did not have a meeting to instruct Sen. Johnson to kill former President Doe; Johnson shouldn’t link Nimba people to the death of Doe.”He notes the statement of Sen. Johnson’s creates a scenario of retaliation for Nimba people, which should not be.
“The war was not for Grand Gedeh, the Krahn people nor was it for the people of Nimba; what Sen. Johnson is trying to do is to tribalize the war and it could create something we don’t expect. We should deal with the war on who did what, where and why, and not on tribe,” the River Gee Senator cautions.
He continues that PYJ and other Liberian warlords should be proud of what they did during the crises. “They should say I did this and take proud in their past; their actions were [not] mandated by their respective counties or tribes.”
Commenting on plan by the current administration to print new banknotes, Sen. Wesseh says printing of new banknotes may be accepted, but the government should provide full understanding as to what policy and mechanisms are being put in place to ensure proper management of the expected new currency.
According to him, the current managerial team at the Central Bank of Liberia lacks public confidence, so new mechanism and policy could help to restore such trust.
Senator Wesseh, a veteran Liberian progressive, reminds that the CBL board of governors and officials are yet to account for the missing LRD16 billion and the US$25 million mop up exercise, respectively.
He says the country’s financial and monetary authorities failed terribly to tell Liberians what actually happened, so the only option they think is printing new currency.
According to Senator Wesseh, issues of the missing billions and US$25 mop up exercise gives room for policymakers and many people to suspect that the confidence of the Central Bank has eroded massively.
He notes the essence of printing of new currency is based on the fact that about 86 percent of the current banknotes is outside the banking system thereby, causing uncontrollable inflation and daily escalation of the exchange rate.
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“But the question is what [are] the new policy and technical mechanisms being put in place to avoid the occurrence of similar mess we are in today. This is my concern; the team lacks trust and confidence and managing our money requires [a] committed team”, he underscores.
Liberia is in a quandary engulfed by unresolved issues of the past and current economic challenges that are taking a serious toll on its population with outcry for reform and justice. By E. J. Nathaniel Daygbor–Editing by Jonathan Browne
