MONROVIA – Citizens Movement for Change Political Leader Musa Hassan Bility has challenged Liberia’s habit of treating personal relationships as evidence of political betrayal. Drawing on experiences dating to the 1990 civil crisis, Bility argued that disagreement should never erase friendship, family ties or cultural bonds. His intervention followed questions about whether he had visited President Joseph Nyuma Boakai or Vice President Jeremiah Kpan Koung. Bility denied visiting Boakai but insisted that no political actor could dictate whom he meets or calls a friend. The argument reaches beyond personal defense. It confronts a political culture in which losing power can invite humiliation and winning can become license for revenge. His standard preserves accountability, dignity and political humanity, as THE ANALYST reports.
Opposition politician and Citizens Movement for Change (CMC) founder Musa Hassan Bility has warned that Liberian politics is corroding personal relationships, arguing that political disagreement should never harden into personal hatred or force citizens to choose their friends by party line. He said the country was gradually losing something more important than any election, which is its humanity.
In his weekly “Letter from Saclepea” commentary, Bility observed that Liberians now judge a person’s political loyalty by whom they visit, whose telephone call they answer, and whose family remains close to theirs. He noted that the Citizens Movement for Change was founded partly to change that culture, on the conviction that Liberians can disagree on philosophy, politics, and policy without destroying their families, friendships, or mutual respect.
A Lesson From 1990
Bility recounted that he was introduced to politics in August 1990, during the formation of the Interim Government led by Dr. Amos Sawyer, through the late Clifford L. Flemister and the late Sheik Kafumba Konneh. He said those men taught him one of the earliest lessons of his life, that people can disagree deeply and still preserve the human relationship.
That lesson, he wrote, stayed with him through the civil war, when Liberians who had once lived and eaten together took opposing sides and turned on one another. Bility said the experience convinced him never to take part in the war, however dangerous it became, because politics, grievance, and the struggle for power, once separated from humanity, can consume an entire country.
Friendships Across Party Lines
The CMC founder cited a series of friendships that tested the principle. During the administration of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, he refused demands to abandon his friendship with Edwin Snowe when the then Speaker was at odds with the government, and credited Sirleaf for understanding the distinction between loyalty and friendship.
Bility recalled that his long friendship with George Weah, rooted in football, was cast by some as political support when Weah became President, even though he remained in the opposition and had wanted Counselor Charles Walker Brumskine to lead. He said his later decision to support Alexander Cummings brought similar attacks, yet the two men and their families preserved their relationship, which he offered as a model of how politics should be conducted.
Addressing the immediate trigger for the commentary, Bility confirmed that some opposition figures had questioned whether he recently visited President Joseph Nyuma Boakai and Vice President Jeremiah Kpan Koung. He replied that, while he did not visit Boakai and had no such plan, he would owe no political actor an apology if he ever did, insisting that a visit is not an endorsement, a telephone call is not a coalition, and courtesy is not betrayal.
Make It Safe To Lose
Bility said he remains outside the government and the Unity Party and intends to work democratically to replace the administration, even as he acknowledged sharing a home region and a traditional Nimba title with the Vice President. He argued that such cultural and human bonds do not dissolve because two people belong to different parties.
He located the deeper danger in a politics where losing power is feared as humiliation, persecution, or ruin, which drives incumbents to cling on and tempts winners toward revenge. A healthy democracy, he wrote, must make it safe to lose, allowing the winner to govern without vengeance and the loser to return home with dignity, reorganize, and compete again.
Bility stressed that his argument was not against accountability, saying anyone who violates the law must answer under it through independent institutions, due process, and equal justice, never as an instrument of political revenge. “Political opponents do not have to become enemies,” he concluded, adding that when governments change and today’s winners become tomorrow’s opposition, Liberians will still need one another.