The “Regime Speaker” Conundrum -Rep. Koon’s “Confession” Sparks Concerns

MONROVIA – When 47 members of the House of Representatives signed a resolution last October to remove Cllr. Fonati Koffa as House Speaker, they among other things accused Cllr. Koffa of dabbling in conflict of interest, altering the 2024 Draft National Budget, and taking unilateral decisions on behalf of the House of Representatives. But in a rather strange twist of a confessional, House Majority Speaker Richard Nagbe Koon, whose ascendency to the position has been heavily criticized as unconstitutional by ordinary citizens and legal luminaries, over the weekend admitted that the reason behind Cllr. Koffa’s ouster was because the ruling party could not allow an opposition lawmaker to be a speaker of the House of Representatives in a government of the ruling party. As The Analyst reports, House Majority Speaker Koon’s faux pas is ruffling feathers at home and abroad.

Speaking over the weekend during a public engagement in Montserrado County’s District #11, Koon said his ascendency to the House Speaker position was mainly intended to push the government’s ARREST Agenda, the policy roadmap of President Joseph Nyuma Boakai’s administration.

“To push our agenda, we need to have our own speaker. So today, an opposition speaker will not push our agenda. We need to have our own speaker. So today, I am the regime speaker.  A speaker of the Republic of Liberia that is 100% supporting His Excellency Joseph Nyuma Boakai. No speaker from the opposition will promote us.

“The ARREST Agenda was suppressed by the opposition Speaker,” Koon claimed. “We could not sit there and let it go any further. All the things we planned to do, they all got damaged. Look at the Assets Recovery Team, it died. Look at the Corruption Court, it died. Look at Ministry of Local Government area, it died. Everything the Old Man talked about, we talked about the Tourism Act, all those various acts that would reform Liberia, all died for the first 10 months.

“But we resurrected. We now have all the bills coming and passing, because that’s what we wanted our country to be. We will never sit in this country and let an opposition be the speaker of a ruling party,” Koon said abrasively as his supporters from District #11 clapped.

“Regime Speaker” – A Red Herring

Pundits believe that the statement from House Majority Speaker further exposes a collusion between the Majority Bloc and the Executive Branch of government to oust House Speaker J. Fonati Koffa and replace him with a puppet legislator that can be easily controlled by the presidency. “This coup truly represents the decline of constitutional rule, wherein one branch of government has usurped the functions and powers of another separate and equal branch of government. This can only happen when there is no respect for the rule of law and constitutional provisions,” a member of the Bar Association told this paper.

“Can you imagine we have a speaker who came to power illegally, used the executive to beat up his colleagues, broke down the doors of another Speaker who hasn’t been voted out constitutionally, but is happy to say that he and his colleagues breached the law of the land because they cannot work under an opposition Speaker! Nowhere in the history of this republic has our constitution been so desecrated. If Liberians don’t check this raw hunger for absolute power, we will all wake up one morning to see that all of our civil liberties are seized by one branch of government,” a furious Mohammed Kabba of Front Street said.