Following the Thursday Grand Gedeh County mob attack against opposition Collaborating Political Parties Chairman Alexander B. Cummings and his entourage which included lawmaker Yekeh Kolubah, the ANC political leader says the opposition will remain resolute and not be intimidated by orchestrated attempts to cow them into submission ahead of the December 2020 midterm senatorial elections.
“We will not tolerate this kind of behavior in our country, it is completely unacceptable. That we cannot come to a county, spend a night, have meetings and move on. This was orchestrated – and every Liberian needs to know that the CPP, we are going to stand resolute, we are going to stand firm. In this December elections. We are going to put up the best candidates and we are going to support those candidates so we can change the direction of the country. We will not tolerate this sort of behavior and any attempts to revert the votes of the Liberian people, we will fight,” Mr. Cummings said immediately following serious riot from unruly youths who cordoned Cummings and his team in their Zwedru guest house and threw rocks at them.
Audio-visual footage from the scene showed angry youths hurling insults at Montserrado County District # 10 Representative Yekeh Kolubah, throwing stones inside the guest house, and demanding that Representative Kolubah in particular leaves their county because of the long-standing insults he had meted against President George Weah.
Mr. Cummings and his team have been touring parts of the Southeast over the past week, having spent the Independence Day in Maryland County, meeting with traditional leaders, youths and CPP partisans. Cummings said, throughout their tour he and his team never experienced anything like what happened in Grand Gedeh County.
“We have these small political stuffs, you know – we were not allowed to use the halls in Fishtown etc. But that’s politics. But to come to Grand Gedeh and to have rock throwing, threatening our lives. It’s just unacceptable. We have a constitutional right to be here, to express our points of view, we did so peacefully. And to have some Grand Gedeans – and I believe this was orchestrated, this was not spontaneous, to come and threaten us, it is just unacceptable. This is not the Liberia we all want to live in, we all are striving for, we all trying to improve,” the CPP chairman lamented.
Accusations from CPP chairman Cummings indicating that the Thursday mob action was orchestrated most likely with the knowledge of county authorities was also confirmed by one of Cummings’ aides, Attorney Moriah Yeakula.
In a video footage, Ms. Yeakula is seen narrating how the Superintendent of Grand Gedeh County, Kai Farley, came to them demanding that Cummings and his team must leave the county.
“He came first and asked us to leave the county because ‘as we could see his people didn’t want us there’. We told him we had the right to be in the county or any part of the country and were not leaving until we had our meeting with our Executives as planned and eat before hitting the road. He came back this time to tell us after Yekeh went outside, that if we don’t leave the county immediately, anything happens to us will be our fault and we will have ourselves to blame. So I tried recording to have his statement on record and you can see his reaction. Right after he left, the rock throwing started, thus damaging two of our vehicles and hurting one officer,” said a shaken Moriah Yeakula.
“It took the AFL to deploy, push back on the mob, provide security for us while we had our meetings as planned, ate and left when we were ready. Prior to the arrival of the AFL, the police was begging and playing baby with the CDC mob. If this man- the head of the county, could tell us to leave the county immediately or we hold ourselves accountable, it is enough to assume the source of this attack,” she said.
ANC Youth Wing Congress Wants Int’l Community Monitor Situation
Meanwhile, the National Youth Congress of the Alternative National Congress (ANC) says it has watched with utter dismay the unruly behavior of some thugs, hooligans and hoodlums who were hired by CDC government officials and trucked into the county from Monrovia and other parts of the country to demand that the political leader of the Alternative National Congress and chairman of the Collaborating Political Parties (CPP), Mr. Alexander B. Cummings, Hon. Yekeh Kolubah and other high ranking opposition leaders “immediately leave Grand Gedeh County.”
“This act of violence clearly contravenes Article 13(a) of the Liberian Constitution which states, “Every person lawfully within the Republic shall have the right to move freely throughout Liberia, to reside in any part thereof and to leave therefrom subject however to the safeguarding of public security, public order, public health or morals or the rights and freedoms of others.” The woeful, undemocratic, appalling, dreadful and repulsive situation being witnessed in Grand Gedeh does not only remind us of our bitter past as a people, but it shows to Liberians and the world at large that Mr. Weah is either unwilling or unable to execute the duties and responsibilities assigned to the office of president,” the ANC Youth Wing Congress press statement signed by Secretary General Mulbah Kesselly read.
“While we (ANC/CPP) conduct ourselves responsibly and lawfully, we want to unequivocally condemn and denounce the distasteful and unacceptable circumstance of lawlessness displayed by the Coalition for Democratic Change hired mobsters. And we call on the government of Liberia to immediately arrest the situation to avoid setting a very dangerous roadmap that would threaten the peace we have all worked tirelessly to strengthen over the years,” the ANC youths averred.
The group then called on ECOWAS, the African Union, the United Nations, the United States Embassy near Monrovia and all development partners of Liberia to closely monitor the happenings in Grand Gedeh County and also pressure Mr. Weah to safeguard the peace and security of Liberia by ensuring that the rights of every Liberian citizen is protected as enshrined in the Liberian Constitution.
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