Liberia: Be Reason-driven, Not Money-driven

Although the National Elections Commission (NEC) of Liberia has not declared open the 2023 General and Presidential Elections, as called for by the Constitution of Liberia, campaigning for the 2023 Elections has already started. Campaigners can be seen all over Liberia making donations, making promises, and making declarations to convince voters to vote for them. 

Some opinion leaders have gone ahead to declare publicly their support for the candidates for re-election and election. All of these activities lead me to have the expression ‘Wonders Shall Never End’ as my favorite Nigerian movie expression. Some of these candidates have gone abroad for weeks and months to seek support from the former global colonial masters who remain in control of the local powers that be through the violence-oriented poverty generation production system.

Many times, I go to Hataee Centers unannounced. One such time, I went to an Hataee Center in Monrovia and the members there welcomed me by saying, “welcome Dr. Tipoteh”. I thanked them for their warm welcome. When the time came for me to speak, I told them that “if someone were to be rushed to the hospital because the person is sick and needs to be attended to, would you call upon Dr. Tipoteh to attend to the patient?”

 They yelled “No”. Then I asked them, “Why?”. They told me that “Dr. Tipoteh does not have a record of being a medical doctor.” So, I said, “clap for yourselves”. And they asked me “Why?” So, I replied by saying that “you have the correct answer”. 

I proceeded by saying that “Liberia is sick with a disease called violence-oriented poverty and you voters have voted for persons who have no record of being workers against such poverty because you received from the candidates some money and now you are complaining about their failure to carry out campaign promises.” Then they yelled out “oh, we are to be blamed for the disease called poverty because we voted for the dishonest candidates.” Wonders Shall Never End!!! 

It is impossible to end any UNFAIR system and bring in a FAIR system if the people who love FAIRNESS do not work together to bring about this change. Any UNFAIR electoral system cannot promote the election of good persons. This working together of people who love Liberia is working well and should be continued with more enthusiasm. This working together is producing good results, as seen in the fact that nearly all of the Legislators of the 52nd and 53rd National Legislatures of Liberia who wanted to be re-elected were not re-elected. 

This trend is highly likely to continue in the next elections for Legislators. The Legislators with bad records will not be re-elected and candidates with bad records who want to be elected to the National Legislature will not be elected. In fact, the Police had to rescue a Legislator with a bad record from the anger of voters in his District. 

Of course, voters must stay away from violence because violence is against the Rule of Law.  This same rescued candidate proceeded recently to convince many of his fellow Legislators to pass a Bill into Law so that he would get re-elected.  Some people are wondering how any bad person can be elected in a bad system. Bad persons get elected because it takes time for the good work of voters to change the bad system. This is why good voters have to work harder and better to change the bad system. However, as shown in several of my Commentaries, there are some good people in the bad system of Liberia who work to end poverty generation and bring in poverty alleviation. 

This Commentary, Be Reason Driven Not Money Driven, should serve as a Wake-Up Call to the people who love Liberia to get up and start working together harder and better because the raising of awareness approach is working well but the poverty problem continues to prevail.

 The people who love Liberia cannot be happy when they are singing All Hail Liberia All Hail while others who are money-driven are singing Let Poverty Prevail. Let the people who love Liberia continue to work together for poverty alleviation to prevail so that they can sing happily All Hail Liberia All Hail!!!