UP smokes peace pipe

Barely weeks after Vice President Joseph Nyumah Boakai, current standard bearer of the governing Unity Party broke silence here, accusing President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of abandoning the party, both leaders appear to have reconciled and are back on course with President Sirleaf calling for forward march of the UP.

Speaking on Thursday, 9 March at the national headquarters of the Unity Party in Cong Town, President Sirleaf, who is ending terms in office by October, called on UP stalwarts and partisans to “Let by gone be by gone” and move ahead in preparing the party for victory.

The occasion also saw the presentation of 15 brand new two-cabin pickups to the party for use by leaders in the political sub-divisions of the country.

With the overture, she immediately struck a popular campaign song during the 2011 Presidential and General elections, blaring “When you’re up, you’re up; when you’re down, you’re down, but when you against Unity Party, you’re upside-down.”

The tune led by President Sirleaf, Vice President Boakai, Representative Edwin Melvin Snowe, Information Minister Lenn Eugene Nagbe and  many other partisans sounded in an atmosphere of total jubilation as though the Unity Party has already been declared winner of the 2017 Presidential election.

According to the President, it is time for all partisans to unite and move the party, which has until now, been dormant, with spit of exodus of several national executive committee members to Cllr. Charles Walker Brumskine’s Liberty Party.

The exodus started late last year and continued into 2017, beginning with President Sirleaf’s campaign manager for Montserrado County, Musa Hassan Bility, followed by Harrison Karnwea, and former Amb. Jeremaih Sulunteh, among others amid widespread speculation that Madam Sirleaf had turned her back to the ruling party to give her support to the candidacy of Cllr. Brumskine.

But the President, apparently in a religious mood or mocking members of the opposition bloc, who might have shared speculations about division within the ruling establishment, quoted the Holy Bible by saying, “By their fruits, we shall know them.”

Commenting, Vice President Boakai and presidential hopeful said, the UP is not at war with anyone, urging partisans not to live under such belief. He called on partisans, supporters and sympathizers to treat President Sirleaf with high respect.

He stressed that President Sirleaf as standard bearer emeritus, merits high level of respect from all UP partisans.

Political observers here have begun reading into what is unfolding in the ruling party, and are asking where does this leave Brumskine?By E. J. Nathaniel Daygbor- Editing by Jonathan Browne