Unprecedented! -Legislator Denied Funeral Rites at Rotunda -But CDC Says: This is the way Opposition wanted it

Unprecedentedly the body of District #15 Representative Adolph Lawrence of the 54th Legislature could not be honored with the usual legislative rite at the Rotunda of the Capitol Building to the surprise of Monrovians. Reports gathered state that a band of thugs of the ruling Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC) said to have been led by CDC’s Chairman Mulbah Morlu, Representatives Acarous Gray and Thomas Fallah, and other little known leaders of the youth league of the Coalition for Democratic Change, but the CDC Chairman Mulbah Morlu denied, saying “This is the way they wanted it and had planned the whole thing to generate the result they now have.”
Notwithstanding, some bystanders who considered the act as an attack and dishonor of the late Representative narrated that crowds escorting the Coffin bearing the remains and the body of Rep Lawrence were prevented entry onto the grounds of the Seat of the National Legislature.
The late Lawrence was representing Montserrado County District #15 at the House of Representatives; he recently died in a vehicle crash on Tower Hill along the Roberts International Airport-Monrovia Highway. He was returning from Buchanan where he celebrated his 50th birth anniversary along with his wife, Senator Nyonblee Karngar Lawrence.
As narrated to our reporter who later went on the scene, the CDC thugs took cease of the body and some members of the mourners from the Samuel Striker Funeral Parlor to the Capitol Building to give the late Montserrado County lawmaker his last respect at the Rotunda.
Reports have it that Lofa County Senator Steve Zargo who chairs the Senate Committee on Defense & Security along with Montserrado County Representative Yekeh Kolubah were held captive by the thugs of the CDC; the captives however regained their freedom after militants of the Vanguard Student Unification Party (SUP) from the University of Liberia made a decisive intervention by countering the CDC thugs to free the two lawmakers from hostage.
The confusion started when the CDC thugs started to claim that the body is theirs because the late Representative Lawrence was a member of the CDC, a claim that was resisted by the mourners thereby introducing a feud that led to the incidence.

SUP rescued Lawmakers
Although our reporter did not cover the actual riot, a post on the page of the Student Unification Party that reportedly rescued the lawmakers considered Thursday, April 25th a sad day in Liberia.
“Today is a sad day in the epoch of our country history as CDCIANS notoriously barricaded the Capitol Building thus denying the mortal remains of the late Hon. Adolph Lawrence from befitting state funeral at the Rotunda of the Capitol Building, the seat of the National Legislature,” the SUP post said. The post added, “Unfortunately and disgracefully, the body was stopped from entering the rotunda of the Capitol Building by disgruntled elements of the CDC.”
According to the post, “Fortunately and revolutionarily, the body was retrieved from the feckless CDCians while Hon. Zargo, Chairman of the Liberty Party and Hon. Kolubah were freed by militants and stalwarts of the Vanguard Student Unification Party.”
Currently, the Student Unification Party said in their post, the body is in the possession of SUP and we’re marching our way at the deceased residence at Logan Town in District#15 along with Hon. Yekeh Kolubah, Hon. Steve Zargo and the wife of the late Adolph Lawrence to give him a befitting revolutionary State Funeral at his home.
Hear the SUPists: “SUP will never allow our fallen heroes and martyr to go home to our ancestors in martyrdom recklessly and shamefully by nitwit right wing elements.”
The wife of the deceased, Senator Nyonblee Karngar-Lawrence, decided not to fight with the thugs of the CDC but allow them to move the body to his district where he will be allowed his constituents to pay their final respects until he is sent off tomorrow.
However, the body of the late Representative Lawrence was moved to the Paynesville Town Hall last afternoon from District #15 to the Paynesville City Hall from where it will be transferred to Cathedral for the funeral and then the burial.

The CDC Reaction
But the CDC said this is the way they wanted it and had planned the whole thing to generate the result they now have. The ruling party swiftly through its chairman, Mulbah Morlu, in a press statement on the Facebook denied in a press conference and blamed the Liberty Party and the Unity Party for the incidence.
The weak and acrimonious opposition needs to stop being disingenuous & make haste to explain the actual facts of the disruptive acts of violence they staged with their own hands, right before the eyes of the media & the public, the CDC Chairman said.
Narrating what he referred to as “… the facts”, Morlu said officials of CDC were already peacefully seated in the Rotunda of the Capitol Building awaiting the arrival of the mortal remains of their late partisan, when they heard that partisans of the Liberty Party, backed by Sen. Steve Zargo, had tried to violently bulldoze their way into the Capitol Building, leading to exchanges with the Police.
The CDC spokesman, Morlu, indicated that all this took place while they have already sat waiting inside, unaware that the opposition was fermenting violence, delivering disruptive skirmishes at the entrance of the Capitol Building.
“This unruly action on display at the Capitol Building didn’t start there. They had carried out similar provocation at the Samuel Stryker Funeral Parlors, preventing CDCians from coming anywhere close to the Hearse/vehicle bearing the mortal remains of Partisan Adolph Lawrence,” Mr. Morlu said in a press release placed on his Facebook ward.
He said “Like we did throughout the procession, we calmed our partisans and conceded to the LP/UP collaboration, letting them to have their will. One only needs to look at pictures and videos of the march from Stryker to the Capitol Building, and will agree that the incidence of violence and disruption at the Capitol Building was a calculated way ahead of time by the LP/UP.”
The CDC side of the story maintained that the move by LP/UP was intended to deny Hon. Lawrence the deserved dignity of a State Funeral at the Capitol Building, where the CDC had sent and supported him to work for his people.
It is said that the late Lawrence was elected on the ticket to the Legislature. “This is the way they wanted it and had planned the whole thing to generate the result they now have,” Morlu’s statement on the Facebook said.
As always, the CDC remains a party of love and tolerance, which explains the huge attendance of our partisans in genuine outpouring of grief and sympathy to the bereaved family as we continue to mourn the death of comrade Adolph Lawrence, the statement said.
The ruling party warned, “Therefore, the opposition needs to stop politicizing the loss of our brother. They cannot be inhaling the smoke of their own exhaust, getting high on it, while at the same time trying to shift blames to a grieving party. This isn’t politics, it is wickedness, desperation & insensitivity to the pains of others.”
The CDC finally noted that as the CDC mourns the loss of its partisan, it stands ready to perform any funeral role (big or small) in line with his family’s approval. “The late Lawrence died a CDCian, and there is no limit to what we as a party may contribute to give him a befitting burial, Chairman Morlu said.