THERE ARE TIMES when even the journalist known for being impartial has got to rise up, speak out, join forces with appropriate allies, to put vexing national issues to their proper place. That is when the common interest – the national interest everyone cherishes – comes under deliberate assault by belligerent forces. Such is the matter on hand: assault on democracy for selfish reasons.
FOR US, AND apparently for all patriots, the reported mutiny by some members of the House of Representatives against Speaker Jonathan Fonati Koffa is ill-timed, unwarranted and destructive to democratic gains of the last few years. From the periphery, and from the flippant reasons provided by the House mutineers as per the Resolution being proffered and signed against Koffa, it all seems a normal political or democratic exercise. But anyone who cares to dig a bit deeper into it and soberly assesses the content of the Resolution, would come to the conclusion it is a mere political chicanery, bad politics, unnationalistic.
AS LEVEL-HEADED patriots would see and notice, most of the six counts if not all contained in the circulated Resolution by stampeding House legislators were long dismissed by Koffa and passed on by his colleagues. Koffa maintains his innocence, provided the most convincing elements of his guiltlessness, and many agitators grounded arms. Since then, he has begun crusading for legislative reforms, taking measures to make the National Legislature, mainly the House, cut the corner and depart from the dark abyss of intransparency and bad governance.
SO, IT IS safe to say that the unprovoked, unpopular aggression by mutinying lawmakers has got no concrete basis. If there is, or there should be any driver at all, we agree with some pundits who believe it is the appetite for cash – US$25,000 each signee being dished out or the inordinate fear for accountability and transparency which Koffa is unrelentingly pursuing at the National Legislature—that belies the ill-fated uprising.
ONE REASON WHY many Liberians think the revolting lawmakers are wrong and pursuing a selfish and blind agenda is the “jungle-justice style” that constitutes their modus operandi. The plotters are not interested in the use of the rule of law; they are not interested in open debates of the issues be it in House plenary or other legal forums. All they are interested in is that “Speaker Koffa must move or be removed”. All calls for them to take their grievances in ways that amplify the sanctity of the Legislature or dignify the country’s budding democratic culture, have landed on rocky soil.
AND SUCH A behavior is giving credence to contentions that the House Palace Coup, as others call it, is not about any “sin” that Speaker Koffa has committed. The popular contention is that the coup is nothing but a sinister attempt by its chief engineers to marshal their innocent colleagues help them evade and crush austerity measures that Koffa has put into place to shed piercing light into the opaque, corrupt ecosystem of Liberia’s legislative regime.
ACCORDINGLY, SOME OF the measures by the Speaker include closing leakages in the House’s fiscal operations—leakages that over the years provided space for scoundrels in top position to leech on the coffers of Liberia. And unfortunately, a number of unsuspecting, ignorant lawmakers have fallen to the shenanigans of the principal coup makers.
WHY ARE LIBERIAN leaders, mainly elected leaders, often demonstrate their allergy and abhorrence to reforms—to anything revolutionary action against the archaic status quo? Why do these people who preach change—and many them purported to be change-heroes and change-heroines during their campaigns—are resistant to reforms and the transformation of this country?
FOR US, WE CONDEMN the unwarranted action by the agitating lawmakers, and call on all well-meaning Liberians to condemn it. Change and transformation which Koffa has introduced and is pursuing are the virtues all of them professedly cherish and adore, and for which they lured the electorate to vote them in. To resist Koffa is to resist their promised reform, and to do so is to undermine the growth of democracy and the development of this country – reasons why they were elected.
THUS, WE ASK they reverse to normality. Leave Koffa alone. Allow change to bud. Let democracy live. Let transparency and accountability soar. Embrace the rule of law. Don’t disrupt. Disengage. Don’t try it. Liberians—your constituents are looking—eyes wide open. And you know what constituents are capable of doing to elected politicians who abandon their own slogans of change, their promised of development, transparency and accountability.
BE WARNED.