Vicious Cycle Of Political Failures -Wisner Reflects on Why Country Struck in development Abyss

That Liberia, since independence, is stymied developmentally is something all its citizens – educated or illiterate, poor or rich, opposition or ruling administration – are fully aware of. Ironically, the country has not been short of promises, rhetoric, resources and even bloodshed needed to make it leap out of the quagmire. One of Liberia’s progressive activists, who also occupied a strategic public office once, has been questioning why public officials who continuously know what is right and needed to enable national development have repeatedly chosen to do what is wrong.” THE ANALYST reports.

Former National Investment Commission Chairperson George Wisner has provoked critical thinking over the intractable vicious cycle Liberia is faced with whereby politicians and leaders have consistently failed to deliver on their promises to transform the country whenever they take public office. He called vicious cycle “shocking failures and maladies”.

He noted that poverty, inequality, exclusion, marginalization and outright economic deprivation are ever-present evils in Liberia, bedeviling “our nation, dominated the political economy, and undermined our quest for nation-building and development since the foundation of the Liberian state”.

Speaking visually as a panelist during at a conference organized by the Association of Liberian Journalists in the Americas last week, Mr. Wisner emphasized: “Time and again, including through internal wars, pubic dissent, mass dislocation of the people, and lofty promises of political leaders, we have continued to experience shocking failures by the State to adequately address these maladies, leading more and more Liberians into distrust and increasing cynicism.”

The issue before the conscience of the Liberian nation, he said, “is not whether we need to change; the question really is why can we not change!”

He spoke on the theme, “Addressing Liberia’s fragility, through war crimes, accountability, and social economic development.”

The former NIC Executive Director quipped: “Why have we continuously known what is right and will enable our development, but have repeatedly chosen to do what is wrong, which have sometimes led us to the collapse of the State.”

“Over and again, we have heard pronouncements of ‘new republics’ and ‘dawns of new eras’, only to repeat and measure progress or lack thereof by the old republic or previous dawns,” he further said, adding: “Over and again, we have heard sworn oaths to ‘uphold, protect and defend the Constitution’, only to resort to even more egregious violations and disregard for the Liberian Constitution.

“Over and again, we have seen political activists become national actor only to abandon the causes of their so-called activism and measure their own and administration’s success by those they criticized, if not removed from power. We have heard promises to make all equal before the law and to fight corruption wherever it rears its ugly head, even swearing that there would be no ‘untouchables and sacred cows’ in the fight against corruption, only to dive head-on into a cesspool of lawlessness, illegality and corruption, made muddier by their actions or inactions.”

He introduced himself as a card-carrying member of the ruling Unity Party, but quickly said Liberia’s checkered history has shown it is not a failure of political party, as it is a failure of country.

He noted that ruling parties have a duty, to which its standard-bearer and elected president swore on its behalf, to build a nation, rather than to seek to only enroll all citizens into its membership, while also denying equality in opportunities to all citizens.

“This is not just ironic, but obviously against democratic precepts, and specifically against the Liberian Constitution by which the ruling party swore to govern,” he said.

“Sadly, this has been a pattern throughout our history, including contemporarily,” he said, stressing that all citizens ought not to belong and pledge allegiance to one party in a multi-party democratic order.”

Wisner told his audience that “political inclusion, therefore, in which a ruling party avails itself to attracting the best minds across the citizenry, to build the nation, does not weaken a ruling party. It strengthens the nation”.

He wondered how a national aspiration for peaceful and democratic self-governance, with equality in rights, and justice and freedom for all be considered serious, when the nation continuously adopts the historically-proven to fail and dangerous vestiges of exclusionary political policies.

“As Liberians,” he continued, “we either own Liberia and all of its natural wealth together, as landlords, through policies and programs commanded by our constitution, or we delay the inevitable of being entreated as tenants – not owning anything we should be proud to call country.”

He listed a number of inconvenient truths the country and its people are faced with, first of which is the “the dysfunction of the Liberian state and the perpetuation of bad governance continue to be not the exclusive practice of a specific regime or group of class elites.”

Secondly, he spoke of political tension and civil strife between the governed and governors have not merely been about land, but also, and even more, about unequal access to the nation’s wealth, and both historically and contemporarily, against exclusion or unequal participation in national decision making in the distribution of the nation’s wealth.

“Thirdly, failure to address poverty, inequality, and equality in access to opportunity has, and will continue to have, serious repercussions for social cohesion and inclusive economic development, all of which are ultra-necessary for sustainable peace.”

Wisner disagrees with Liberians who claim that the United States has not done “enough for Liberia!”

He asked: “Have Liberians done enough for themselves? Have we held each other accountable enough, if any at all, for the failures against ourselves? Some even surrender our problems as being cursed by God notwithstanding the abundance of blessings the Almighty has bestowed upon our nation – the same wealth we corruptly and shortsightedly squander with apparent impunity!”

The former NIC boss expressed worry that Liberia continues to regress deeper and deeper into ethnic cleavages and away from a true national center and identity.

“We are becoming tribesmen and women more than we desire to be citizens. This has not happened overnight,” he stressed. “For wholly selfish political benefits, we deepened our tribal divides and heritage – congau versus country, native versus settlers, and now we have worsened the divide so that its congau versus congau and natives versus natives. This is evidence, as if we needed proof, that tribal divides never get better for anyone, let alone a nation”.

He called on Liberians to invest in an appreciation of competence wherever they reside and in whichever tribe they can be found.

“We must invest in think-tanks that will actually think about ways we can become better judging ideas not from the political parties they come from but against what is best for Liberia,” Wisner urged political leaders. “We must debate and encourage healthy public disagreements and cross fertilization of ideas, especially new ones, without seeming to merely argue, a word which has now come to define the exchange of ignorance, more than it should be to find solutions for our collective uplift.”

He continued: “We must not settle for mediocrity. It simply is not good enough. We must strive for excellence and the best quality from our leaders. This is why leaders must be bolder with their visions, and importantly, act in fulfillment of such bold visions.

“For far too often, our leaders have settled on repeating the past in spite of its stalking consequences. Repeating the past has never been bold. In fact, it can be argued that repeating the past is cowardly because it fears new solutions and ideas for a different future,” he intoned.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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