Back to Era of ‘Political Prisoners’ -Boakai’s ‘Abuse of Power’ Draws Bility, Others’ Ire

MONROVIA – For nearly two decades now, President William V.S. Tubman and his True Whig Party’s playbook of cunning, malicious politics which produced seas of tears, blood and chronic bitterness mainly for the opposition populace – traits that spilled over to the military era of Samuel Doe and his National Democratic Party of Liberia, and then on to Charles Taylor’s National Patriotic Party – seemed to have become a thing of Liberia’s ugly autocratic past, to be replaced with a more pragmatic, liberalized politics. Then came an astute student and beneficiary of the old order – Joseph Nyuma Boakai, who critics argue is seemingly taking the country back to the nefarious, toxic politics of those dark days. The first chapter in the copycatted playbook of the barely one-and-a-half year old regime opened last year with a fearless stampede on the rule of law, and a reckless disregard for tenured laws. Last weekend, another chapter began with the dragging to prison of opposition elements, as tears of bitterness swept across the opposition terrain, muffling the voices of a once vocal camp. But rising tall among the seemingly cowed opposition behemoth, Nimba County lawmaker and Citizens Movement for Change (CDC) Political Leader Musa Hassan Bility mustered the courage to speak truth to power regarding the burning governance issues bedeviling the country, and the government’s recent heavy-handed arrest of key opposition politicians in connection with the Capitol Building fire. THE ANALYST reports.         

The long-drawn investigation into the burning of the Capitol Building came to a dramatic head on Friday, June 5 when the Liberia National Police (LNP), under the command of Inspector General Gregory Coleman, rained in former House Speaker Jonathan Fonati Koffa along with other opposition lawmakers, including Representative Jacob Deebee, Representative Dixon Seebo, Representative Abu Kamara, Representative Melvin Cole, Representative Saah Foko and Representative Precilia Cooper on multiple felonious charges in connection with the gutting of the Capitol Building on December 18, 2024. But according to Nimba County District #7 lawmaker and Chairman of the House Rule of Law Caucus Musa Hassan Bility, the entire arrest is a political charade orchestrated by President Joseph Nyuma Boakai to get back at Representative Fonati Koffa for refusing to relinquish the House Speakership to the ruling Unity Party on a “silver platter” when the request was reportedly made a year and half ago.

Why blame Boakai for Abuse of Power?

Expressing his frustrations in a no-holds-barred interview on the Spoon Live Talk Show over the weekend, Representative Bility threw the gauntlet of Fonati and others’ humiliating arrest and detention at the doorsteps of President Boakaii.

“President Boakai is not running the country properly. What he’s doing is wrong. He is deliberately trying to stir conflict. What happened is that, if you are supposed to just call the man, charge him, take him to court, and then the court decides to send him to jail or grant him bail, nobody will hold him responsible. But you use your arrest power, call the man on a Friday, say nothing to him for six hours and wait until the court closes, and then keep him in your holding cell, that’s abuse of power.

“The Unity Party folks know that it’s an abuse of power, and I am not going to speak to the merits and demerits of the case. I said this to my fellow opposition that we are here because this is where we brought ourselves. The government has every right to arrest anybody and charge them. But how you exercise that right is what matters. The only justification I hear folks on this network and other networks saying is because it happened before. Aye man!” Chairman Bility fumed during the interview, to which panelist Ambulai Mamey attempted to interject an anti-thesis to Representative Bility’s assertion.

But Bility never gave Mamey the opportunity to make any rebuttal. “No! You have nothing to correct me with. I am sorry. Mamey, you know nothing about this thing. You are just outside and they instruct you to come and spew misinformation. You know nothing. I know what I know. I know that the President wants Koffa and others in jail. And I know what he’s trying to do is to plunge this country into unnecessary chaos. And it’s not fair. We’ve been there.

“You’ve trampled the law, you’ve destroyed our democratic process, now you have one government made up of all three branches on paper, and you run the government as one branch. That doesn’t satisfy you; now you want to use your authority and misuse it. Your right to arrest people stops where those people’s right to defend themselves begins. What is happening here is wrong. Fonati Koffa could have been charged today and sent to court. Let the judge say I am not freeing you. I was there and there no reason not to send Koffa to court. There was no investigation going, nothing was happening today. Fonati Koffa was kept in that place. I almost cried today over what happened. It had nothing to do with anything else but abuse of power.

“All they needed to do today was, Mr. Koffa, Mr. Seebo, and all those guys, charge them and take them to the court. The grand jury that indicts people on criminal cases is sitting. They just closed three days ago. They could have charged them through the grand jury. And then you come now, you want to take him to the magistrate, and I think you have some difficulties there, let the man go home until you are ready for him. To keep the man in jail, is that what you want? That man is not well. I am telling you people now. Fonati Koffa is sick. I want the country to know that Jonathan Fonati Koffa is not well. He’s sick.

Origin of Pres. Boakai’s beef with Representative Koffa

According to Representative Bility, Fonati Koffah and other opposition lawmakers’ ongoing humiliation at the hands of the Liberia National Police stems from President Boakai’s beef he harbored when he once asked Cllr. Koffa to relinquish the speakership position to the ruling Unity Party, a request that Koffa refused without any equivocation.

“After one and a half years as President, what is clear to me is that this president has no capacity to forget about anything you and he had done before. When he called Fonati and told Fonati that ‘I want you to give me the Speakership’ and Fonati told him, ‘No, I have the vote to win’, from that day, he (President Boakai) never wanted him. Everything else was a façade. When President Boakai has something against you, you have to live with it. There is nothing you can do about it. What he’s doing to Koffa was part of his plan from Day One.

“There are so many things happening in this country. So many stealing and corruption. With this thing that is happening we don’t even know whether the evidence is sufficient, but you want to humiliate somebody who swore you in office; you took oath under this man’s gavel. As a country, what we needed to do is to create a new path. We’ve humiliated leaders here before, and it goes far back in our history. I thought that this would be a new beginning that anybody who does something wrong , the person should be arrested, tried in accordance with the law, but use the law properly. Today the police had the chance to do that but the police would never have pleased the president properly if they had not arrested and humiliated Koffa today,” Representative Bility said with outmost conviction.

Queried as to whether his conviction that President Boakai wants Representative Koffa in jail is based on facts or just sentiments, Bility said he is 100 percent certain with facts that President Boakai is calculative in his approach to silence any opposition for a ruling Unity Party hegemony.

“When Kabineh Janneh was being impeached, I said George Weah wanted Kabineh Janneh impeached. What is happening today is under the approval of the President of the Republic of Liberia. That’s how our government works. Anything of this nature, if the president doesn’t want it, it will never happen. You know how our system works. There is no more system in our country. Everything is now left with paper. The Legislature is gone. The Judiciary has been sufficiently intimidated. What is left now is the Executive to run the country just we they want. So, at the end of the day, I am convinced, and common sense dictates that, at this level, what is happening today can never happen in Liberia without the acquiescence of the president.

“When this started I was Chairman on the House Committee on National Security. I was briefed. I know the evidence the government has. Of course, I have no authority to disclose that evidence. But I know the evidence the government has. They’ve had that evidence for over 100 days. And I can assure you that in the last two months not a single item has been added on that list. Nothing happened today but to arrest Fonati Koffa and make sure he goes to jail. That was the order. But we were told that the magistrate was inclined against sending them to jail, but to grant them bail on personal recognizance. When they realized that, they decided to hold them until 5 o’clock and that would be the beginning of their arrest. It’s abuse of power.

“They are drunk with power. They are being confused with the government they’re running, the opposition is giving them free ride. We had a speaker they let him go, we had power, we let go of it, we deserve what they are doing to us right now is to rub in salt into our wounds. The opposition deserves everything that is happening to us today. This is where we brought ourselves. When members of the opposition joined the government to take power and give it to the government, I have never seen that in my whole life.

“Unity Party is not a party of reasoning. They lie, they destroy, and everything they do is to get power. They will denigrate you, use you, and I know as a matter of fact that Unity Party is blackmailing some members of the opposition. They tried to blackmail me. So, they got lot of people, putting charges on their head and saying that if they did not do this, they will that. We warned opposition leaders in this country that if you allow this speaker to leave there will be consequences that will beyond expectation. Unity Party has not done anything yet. If CDC can give power on silver platter, Unity Party is not going to do that. They are going to support their government by any means necessary, and who ever stands in their way they will move you. That’s Unity Party for you. That’s what they know how to do best,” Bility said.

Opposition Deserve the Dish they’re being served

Regarding the issue of why opposition members did not go and show solidarity when Fonati and others were arrested, Representative Bility said he has a very controversial view on the issue.

“Because all we can do today is to condemn the abuse of power. Police use what is within their right and abuse it, and there’s nothing we can do. We had a lot to do when Fonati was being abused and removed from power. That’s when we should have stood together, knowing that’s what all we had. Remember, the House of Representatives is only branch of government that can impeach the president on a simple majority. The president is aware of that. We had that power, we could have consolidated it. If the CDC or the opposition as a whole didn’t want Koffa, we could have called him to resign but this our seat is not going anywhere. And then we could have removed him and put somebody there. But to liaise with the government, the opposition blundered. They should never have allowed the removal of Fonati Koffa.

“The consequences of our inaction is what we are facing today. We will speak against the abuse of power. We will protest against, but the fact of the matter is that the police and the government do have the right to arrest anyone they want to arrest. But they did not have the right to do what they did at the Capitol. The Minister of Justice did not have the right to misinterpret the Supreme Court. They did not have the right to bust Fonati Koffa’s door open.

Updates

Meanwhile, Representative Fonati Koffa and other opposition lawmakers were on Saturday, June 7 remanded by the Monrovia City Court and sent to the Monrovia Central Prison (South Beach), while Representative Priscilla Cooper was accordingly released to her legal counsel without bond because of reported medical conditions. 

CDC’s acting Chairman Janga Kowo was also manhandled, handcuffed and arrested over what the Police 102 Director deemed as obstruction to peace and security. Up to press time, Chairman Kowo has been released.