By Kabs Kanu
The irony and paradox of life is that President George Weah is not a tribalist. he is not violent;he has not raped the constitution and the laws of his land ; he does not have political prisoners languishing in prison and is a far,, far better leader than the so-called President of Sierra Leone, Maada Bio.
However, while the monster Maada Bio , the tribalist, the human rights abuser, the tinkler of our constitution and laws of the land, the tribalist extraordinaire, is busy collecting hefty per diems abroad from useless foreign trips and getting away with every conceivable crime in Sierra Lwone, it is President George Weah of Liberia , a better man, a more refined and temperate leader, who has not committed the flagrant and blatant human rights abuses Bio is guilty of, who is facing massive demonstrations at home today.
This shows the unfairness , the irony and the paradox of life. Wicked people get exalted and honored and innocent people suffer for not doing half the depravities that the wicked commit.
IF ANYBODY SHOULD BE FACING MASSIVE DEMONSTRATIONS AT HOME TODAY, IT IS MAADA BIO, the man who has no respect for rules, laws, the constitution, human life and any common decency. The discomfiture that President Weah is undergoing today should have been suffered by President Bio, who has urinated on the constitution and rules of law .
This is not to exonerate President Weah completely. The Liberian economy is in a tailspin and bread-and-butter issues have to be addressed . Liberians need to see a change in their lives, which is not happening. However, where truth is concerned, conditions of living are relatively better in Liberia than in Sierra Leone and President Weah has not violated the constitution and the rule of law with the kind of wicked and reckless impunity Bio is doing things in Sierra Leone. Thus, to the Sierra Leonean mind it is Bio that deserves such demonstrations, not really Weah.
But the reason this is happening is that Liberians are one stage ahead of Sierra Leoneans, not only in bravado and their collective commitment of holding their leaders accountable, but their governance institutions are also working for the people. And this is because a more responsible nation like the U.S, which is more compliant with international best practices in the upholding of the constitution and the law, the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA , are overseeing Liberia’s postwar political transformation.
George Weah would have tried to maneuver his way out the people’s desire to have the demonstration by violent and repressive moves like Bio .But his hands are tied. Big father, Uncle Sam, is watching over everybody’s interests and welfare and the Liberian Supreme Court ruled against the Weah Government when it tried to use the highest court in the land to have the scheduled demonstrations stopped. The Supreme Court ruled that the people of Liberia have a right to demonstrate and banning the protest would violate constitutional provisions mandating demonstrations.
Sadly, Sierra Leone does not have such a Supreme Court. With the exception of the Sierra Leone Bar Association which is neutral and opposed to government violation of the constitution and the rule of law, the Supreme Court is rotten to the core and is in support of the government in power. The Sierra Leone Supreme Court is so rotten that it refused to hear any case against the Bio Government, even elections petitions . Yet the God-damned Supreme Court had the temerity recently to deliver judgement in favour of the government, removing 10 opposition APC parliamentarians and illegally swearing in the so-called winners of the petitions when the constitution demands bye-elections in these cases.
If these demonstrations had taken place in Sierra Leone, they would have led to massive killings of the demonstrators by the Sierra Leone Police, which, under President Bio, has become very oppressive and blind to the rights of the people.
While Liberians have a President who is accountable to the country’s most senior stakeholder, the United States, and the highest court in the land, Sierra Leone has a president who is under no constraint, law, Supreme Court or superpower. He was imposed on the people by Britain and that neocolonialist country seems to be propping up the human rights abuser and turning a blind eye to his atrocities against the people . Whereas America is part of the solution in Liberia, Britain is part of the problem in Sierra Leone.
Sierra Leone, apart from being home to some of the most hypocritical tribes imaginable, is dangerously divided on tribal lines. Since President Bio came to power, he has dismissed thousands of workers on tribal reasons and replaced them with members of his Mende tribe. He has stacked the judiciary , the Police, the army and governance institutions with his tribesmen. Therefore, Sierra Leone will not be able to organize such a massive demonstration legally because the enabling governance and legal institutions would work counter to it, This is the calamity that has befallen the nation of Sierra Leone and the reason that Sierra Leoneans would not stage huge demonstrations of the scale going on in Liberia today. The demonstrators will be killed and nothing will come out of it because the Sierra Leone President is under no law or supreme power.
However, as President Bio continues to push the patience of the people beyond endurance, only God knows how long suffering Sierra Leoneans would continue to endure and remain peaceful and law-abiding in fear of the repressive and violent reactions of the tyrant, Bio.
