MEMO TO THE PRESIDENT: Subject: Be Not an Architect or an Accomplice in Fomenting the Chaos, Division you have spoken against

Your Excellency!

Once again, we are pleased to communicate with you, as our president and leader, on yet another vexing problem of national and international concern: the reaction you issued in a statement Friday to the Supreme Court ruling upholding the legitimacy of Speaker Jonathan Koffa’s leadership and reaffirming the unconstitutional ouster of the Speaker by the so-called majority bloc. There are ripples, backlashes, both silent and spoken, regarding the stance you took on the verdict as expressed in the statement.

Mr. president, we are particularly amazed by the manner and form you spoke of division, chaos and constitutional crises created by the continued legal and political stand the public has watched at the House of Representatives of the 55^th National Legislature. We think the concern expressed by you is widely shared. What we are not sure of about is whether you, as the Chief Executive of nation, you are not part and parcel of the division, chaos and constitutional crises you spoke about.

Here is what you said in the statement if we are to remind: “Over the past months, we have watched with growing concern as the division in the House of Representatives remained unresolved, undermining public confidence in one of our most vital democratic institutions. Tragically, we have also witnessed the torching of the Capitol Building, a national symbol of our democracy, by arsonists intent on sowing chaos and discord. Today, we received a report of acts of vandalism intended to desecrate the dignity of our public institutions and buildings. The Police are investigating.”

You added very forcefully: “Let me be clear: under my leadership, the government of Liberia will not be held hostage by narrow interests or acts of lawlessness…We are a country governed by laws, not by mobs or self-serving ambition. Those who undermine peace, violate the law, or seek to disrupt national harmony will face the full force of the law and justice.”

So, Mr. President, who is it that is undermining peace and violating the law, and disrupting national harmony? Who is it that constitutes the mobs and pursing self-serving ambition. If we are a country governed by laws and not by mobs, then who is it that is dismissing the enforcement of the law, rejecting the verdict of the country’s High Court   towards “political justice”?

Your Excellency, the big law book of the country says the Supreme Court is the “final arbiter of justice”. Do you accept that? Does your position and reaction to the High Court judgment last week consistent with the wolf-crying that people are undermining the peace and violating the law? Aren’t you the one, by your reaction to the High Court judgement, emboldening the “majority bloc” thus affirming the “rule of mob”?

Because, Mr. President, the elementary understanding of “rule of mob” as opposed to the “rule of law” is where a majority of people or person(s) of enormous strength eschew, sidestep and run away from the law to unleash raw power or “jungle justice” against the weak or the minority to settle a dispute or disagreement.

It is unfortunate that in the same breath that you were exalting “rule of law”, you paradoxically ordained “the rule of mob”, by not only declaring support to a group of lawmakers who used “mob justice” to oust a duly elected Speaker of the House but also in the same breath mocking and thrashing the ruling of ‘the final arbiter of justice’ – the Supreme Court.

So we ask again: Mr. President, in a civilized, democratic and “rule of law” country such as ours, is it you, the president, that bears the power and responsibility to serve “the final arbiter of justice” or the Supreme Court? In a “country of law”, how are those who set the law aside, ignore and override court ruling and the justice process called? Are they not called “mobs”? Are they not the ones “sowing chaos and discord”. Are they not the ones engaging into “acts of vandalism intended to desecrate the dignity of our public institutions and buildings”?

We are afraid to say, Mr. President, that “the Emperor is naked”. Your support to the “quorum” group – you don’t want to say “majority bloc” mobbing the victims of injustice – is unacceptable and the root of the stalemate prevailing. For mocking and desecrating the Supreme Court, usurping the place of the ‘final arbiter of justice’ which you are not, make you a bona fide accomplice if not the architect of what you spoke of in your statement: that “the division in the House of Representatives, undermining public confidence in one of our most vital democratic institutions…sowing chaos and discord…of acts of vandalism intended to desecrate the dignity of our public institutions and buildings.”

How can you not be when all you are seen doing and saying in the instant legislative saga is an abrogation of due process, an evasion of rule of law, the trampling upon civility, and the providing of fertility for mob justice?

Pause, and step back for a while, Mr. President. And see and hear from yourself unemotionally. And listen to reason!     

Thanks you for your attention.