November 10, 2023
It is obvious that people like “Moses” Acarous Gray, who regularly take in doses of cocaine, “Kush”, cannabis and other harmful substances, can never be normal.
That the UP and Joseph Nyuma Boakai have defeated the rascal George Weah and his clan of insane boobs is a fact of life.
Liberians have rejected these rascals.
That looks like a good self-defeating campaign message from Montserrado County Representative Moses Acarous Gray who, perhaps naively, may be underestimating the voters of District#8.
It looks like SOME folks in the CDC aren’t sure of their chances in October, so my best bet is that they may be cleverly working towards some extra-constitutional arrangments.
I believe that continual provocations, they know, may either prevent the October polls from taking place, or if they do take place, the outcome remaining indeterminate.
In their calculation, a stalemate will force some kind of “political compromise” when the administration’s tenure expires in January. While in their estimation this looks like a “good” strategy, it is most likely to backfire.
Also, watch out for dozens of unresolved electoral disputes after October 10, should the polls not be disrupted as the signs are now foretelling.
My prediction is that though all of us prefer electoral disputes to be resolved through the established legal mechanisms, The Supreme Court may be overwhelmed by massive anger and protests to the extent that the vicinities of The Temple of Justice and Capitol Hill will be so unsafe that no hearings may take place, even if some force is used.
In fact, as a result of the likely and massive post-elections public anger, citizens will not heed to any call for calm from any quarters.
I know that many Liberians hate to hear any predictions that spell doom, but I think we should brace ourselves for a scenario we dread the most.
Besides, if leaders of the governing CDC who should set the tone for a healthy national debate by acting in conformity with the Law are, as I have always said, so inclined to the primitive “might makes right” policy, then we should prepare for the worst after October 10, 2023.
I do not subscribe to the mere utterance that “We ought to maintain the peace” as if the mere utterance of such will automatically translate into the conducive environment that encourages free, fair, transparent and credible elections.
And those who think that fear and intimidation are effective winning tactics may still be living in the 19th or 20th Century, when Charles Dunbar Burgess King rigged elections in the 1920s or Samuel Doe’s “50-member Vote Counting Committee” headed by former LBS Director-General Olivia Shannon declared him winner of the 1985 elections at The Unity Conference Center in the presence of blood-thirsty, heavily-armed and trigger-happy soldiers.
Just before the 1985 polls, Colonel Harris S. Pennue had said, “If NDPL loses, I will overthrow”.
Pennue was a staunch Doe supporter and one of the trio that formed the nucleus of the People’s Redemption Council: M/SG Samuel Kanyon Doe, S/SG Thomas Gonkarma Quiwonkpa, and PVT Harrison S. Pennue.
Both Doe and Quiwonkpa had joined the Armed Forces of Liberia with a clear motive.
Quiwonkpa, a native of Zor in northern Nimba County where the LAMCO JV Operating Company was exploiting Liberia’s largest iron ore deposit, had abandoned school with the hope of joining the army to prepare himself for a possible military takeover. The young Quiwonkpa saw how Liberian government officials had colluded with American and Swedish nationals to reap fortunes from Liberia’s highest-grade iron ore deposit in his home region.
At the same time, Doe, a native of Grand Gedeh, was also harboring a similar ultra-nationalistic ambition: to join the army and, as he confided to a colleague during training at The John Hilary Tubman Military Training Academy in Camp Naama, “fuck cap”, meaning to get rid of the True Whig Party hegemony.
When the two therefore met coincidentally, their spirits simply knit together. They became inseparable. Their friendship flourished. The rest is history.
Sometimes, as Regis Debray once said, “History has an uncanny way of (influencing) the present; each time the curtain is raised, the past is (often) superimposed on the present”. So, the year 2023, I am afraid to say, may just not turn out to be as less eventful as some had thought. I doubt it will.
Of course, I am not a doomsayer or, by any means, a pessimist at all. But I base my predictions on factors which some dare to talk about because of their sensitivity.
As our own activities grow, we will present our position on what now look like clear patterns, just as we did on the census issue.
When we announced that this year’s “census” should not be held for obvious reasons, nobody saw the dangers.
Now it is obvious that the chickens are coming home to roost. Political parties in the Opposition have now recognized, albeit belatedly, what we saw a long time ago, when most, if not all, of the key actors were apparently sleeping.
Let us therefore brace ourselves for the worst, which is yet to come, like it or not. This is how I see it.
By David N Targbe
