The George Manneh Weah regime bumped into a weird political new normal where critics and opponents resort to vituperation and verbal obscenities in the full glare of the public. While successive erstwhile ruling governments of the country faced fierce agitations from the civil society and the opposition in a largely sensible discourse that at times was informed by research and mature propaganda, the country’s contemporary opposition elements parade with extreme anger and bitterness which they manifest in crude profanities that sent public ears scurrying for cover and rescue. One person that is apparently most notorious amongst the opposition persons who often parade with cusses and vulgarities under the hail of journalists’ live cameras is Montserrado District #10 Representative Yekeh Kolubah. Yesterday, the lawmaker was yet again at his worst, spewing insults and cusses at officers of the Liberia National Police over a traffic snag. Some Liberians who followed the yesterday outburst voiced their disenchantments about the Kolubah outburst, as The Analyst reports.
Roaming live social media cameras blazed yesterday in the Sinkor corridor with stunning, unsightly words that came out of the mouth of a Liberian member of the National Legislature, Hon. Yekeh Kolubah. The incident, according to eyewitnesses and live Facebook footages, was a result of what many described as traffic violation by a vehicle which the Representative claimed was his.
Eyewitnesses said the drive of the unplated vehicle sped its way on the Tubman Boulevard, taking the third lane of the opposite side of the boulevard, nearly triggering a motor accident. This prompted members of the Liberia National Police to stop and arrest the vehicle and the driver before parking the vehicle around the Sinkor belt.
A call to the District #10 representative apparently from the driver enraged Representative Kolubah, who drove to the scene in a short jean pants and T-shirt and attempted obstructing the processing of the driver who was caught for reckless driver.
The fact that the lawmaker was not on the scene of the incident and therefore was not familiar with circumstances of the case did not matter to him. Upon arrival, he bellowed with rage, splashed invectives at the police officers, including their head, Deputy Police Inspector General (102) who was on the scene.
Attempts by the police deputy boss and his men to explain the unruly attitude on the part of the reckless driver to Rep. Kolubah, as per live Facebook footages shown, fell on deaf ears of the lawmaker who burst up, as his custom is, with profanities directed at the police and the government of Liberia.
While the police tried to calm him, at least to give him a fair understanding of the incident, the Representative cared not. He sufficiently exhausted the F’ and S’ words, panting all over the place.
The Chief of Profanities
Since his election to the Legislature, the District #10 Representative continues to prove himself oddly, always polluting the public space with obscene words, vituperations, invectives and cusses, and he does so in the crudest way possible without remorse.
The chambers of the House of Representatives are not honorable enough to restrain lawmaker Kolubah from vibrating with profanities even on the debate floor and in his own office in interview with journalists.
Every time he participates in normal legislative debates, he hardly ends his thoughts without cussing and cursing his colleagues or members of the Judiciary and Executive Branches.
Representative Kolubah’s prime victim is often the President of Liberia. He says anything he can draw out from his profanity-filled mind and splashes crude invectives at President Weah.
At no occasion—whether at his office, or the chamber of the House of Representatives, or his home and in the streets—the District #10 lawmaker is ever heard speaking sane, intelligent words on tape and camera. His greetings—his hello and goodbye—are always profanities.
Interestingly, the media, particularly the Facebook-powered media, take delight in the verbal obscenities of the Representative, often provoking him with leading questions that he responds to with more cusses and vulgarities.
Montserrado District #10 Representative Kolubah got no match, as he hardly utters a complete thought without starting and ending with cusses such that many now referred to him as the Chief of Profanities in Liberia’s contemporary opposition realm.
Angry Reactions Yesterday
Though many adherents of the current opposition bloc and their leaders often celebrate and hail Rep. Kolubah’s vulgarities in public places and hardly frown on his odd dispositions, yesterday’s traffic incident showed some difference. A number of eyewitnesses and passersby on the scene and others writing on Facebook uttered their indifference and lashed out at the lawmaker in no uncertain terms.
“Something needs to be done, and soon, about this representative or he will continue to disgrace this country with his insane outbursts,” Businessman Timothy Quedee who watched the scene yesterday said when he was asked by The Analyst to give his views about the incident.
He said further: “No sound mind will indulge into this kind of shameful attitude. Without any remorse, he put out any word, any time and any how without regards to sanity of the public space. This is very bad, and there is need to stop it one way of the other.”
A passerby who stood at the scene for some time before walking away was heard saying rather hysterically: “Yekeh Kolubah is right. He has not got his match. What he’s doing in this country, particular giving his official title, has no reference anywhere in the world. A lawmaker just randomly utters profanities and abuses government officials anytime? Is he really well?”
A commenter on a live footage wrote: “I wonder Liberian laws cover and exempt lawmakers from public obscenity edicts? Why don’t they grab this man and show him some sense? Do you know what it means when our children and more so foreign dignities hear Yekeh say the kind of things he says on air? This is a total disgrace to this country and government must do something about him.”
Another Facebook commenter added: “What Kolubah does or says is not free speech. Nowhere in any democracy anyone be shielded for indiscriminately and unremorsefully using the crude profanities which he often spews at government officials in this country. It is outright rudeness, obscenity and insanity at the highest, unbecoming of any citizen, let alone a member of the parliament. Does he claim to be a normal human being? He deserves some prohibitory actions.”
Profanities with Impunity
Despite Rep. Kolubah’s sporadic, nonstop spewing of invectives as his way of life in the officialdom, President George Weah and his government continue, very strangely, to turn their faces on the other side as if they have run out of options.
The yesterday incident was not the first time the representative rowdily engaged the police and other government agents and officials so uncontrollably temperamentally with invectives. It has been his habit to spew profanities at members of the Judiciary, the Legislature and Executive. And he does so on camera and live on social media with impunity.
Liberians and foreign partners who hear his unsightly outbursts wonder many times if the District #10 representative and others who mimic and applaud him have immunity to reprimand for such attitude as a lawmaker.
“No rules of the House or laws of the land protect any citizen or resident of Liberia to throw profanities all around the place,” said a law student J. Moses Kiazolu. “It is total shame that we have opposition elements today who are so desperate and angry that instead of criticizing based on substance have resorted to cussing in public places without the slightest remorse. And all we see is the government pampering Kolubah and his likes. Strange!”
A talk show caller recently had this to say when the representative was being discussed: “Why is President Weah, together with his security people always downplaying this grievous attitude of Kolubah? Or is it that the President is opting to win the Nobel Peace Prize or the Mo Ibrahim Presidential Prize which is why he allows the Liberian public space to be defiled by profanities and cusses? But before the President gets those prizes, Liberian political discourse would have already been turned chaotic and dishonorable even after his presidency. We are almost getting to a point where our children are understanding public discourse to be about profanities and as if nothing is wrong with it. This is bad. Something must be done.”
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