Former LP stalwart Blames Leadership for Split in Party – Calls for genuine reconciliation to move forward

A Former Lawmaker under the platform of the Liberty Party, Mr. Gabriel Buchanan Smith has attributed the current rift within the party which has resulted into the existence of two opposing factions, each being loyal to Musa Hassan Bility or Senator Nyonblee Karngar-Lawrence to the quality of leadership of the party and has called for genuine reconciliation among the partisans so as to turn a new leaf and move forward.

“The split, internal wrangling and conflict within the LP we see today is the outcome of the quality of leadership that the party currently has. As humans, we can all make errors but what makes you a real leader is your ability to recognize your errors, your wrong, muster the courage and say sorry I am wrong find means to solve the issues. We hope our leaders can take the step”, he said.

Mr. Smith who formerly represented District #3, Grand Bassa County made this known when he spoke briefly in an interview with newsmen at the Liberty Party Montserrado County headquarters Oldroad, Monrovia when a faction of Senator Nyonblee Karnga-Lawrence organized a befitting program yesterday to celebrate the life of the founding father of the party, Cllr. Charles Walker Brumskine.

According to Mr. Smith, he observed that the current leaders are not playing the attribute of leaders. Though he did not mention a particular individual, but said whether in management, in administration whatever role the leadership is playing determines what the institution becomes. “I am embarrassed and worried by the internal wrangling, division and conflict that is in the party”, he said.

Even though Mr. Smith has terminated his membership with the LP but said when the late Cllr. Brumskine was the political leader of the party, he captained its boat as a political institution and the party sailed through storm and sea. He continued that because of leadership skills and ability of the late Cllr. Brumskine, the boat was managed, saved and secured.

Accentuating further he said, “Unfortunately today, what is happening to the Liberty Party, I see it as an effect of the leadership that we have now. I hope that our leaders can in time recognize where they themselves had made some errors and deviated from the dream that was laid out by the founding father of the LP.”

The former stalwart of Liberty Party who made it clear that his presence at the LP Montserrado headquarters was to celebrate Cllr Brumskine because of his impact on him and as founding father of the Liberty Party, describing the late Cllr. Brumskine was a man of principle who believed in the value of democracy and respect for the rule of law.

While speaking further on the importance of the occasion, Mr. Smith emphasized that he hoped that memorializing the birth and life of Cllr. Brumskine can bring the party together to the place of realizing why disinformation is in the party, and muster the courage and go back to the founding document where one of its key pillars is reconciliation and seek to reconcile themselves as an institution.

He indicated, “Brumskine was a respecter of the law, he laid that foundation here for all of us to respect the law and the court by going to the court after the 2017 presidential and general elections and we all saw what he did. Cllr.  Brumskine demonstrated that even in his political life, he did not suggest that he was an angel, he always had a way of reconciling”.