Liberia: No Play-Play Country

Some people see some actions in Liberia and continue to say that Liberia is a Play-Play Country with no serious people. Well, this Commentary has news for these people. The news is the good news, showing that Liberia has the World, Europe and Africa number one Footballer, who became President of Liberia. Also, the National Physically Challenged (wrongly called Disabled) Football Team won two African Cup of Nations in the row. Then Liberia has one of the top four 200 meters runners in the world. Furthermore, Liberia has the First African to fly a single engine plane across the Atlantic Ocean from the United States of America (USA). We are not finished. 

Just Friday, November 24, 2023. in Flensburg, Germany, a Liberian-German Boxer Freddy Kiwitt became the World Super Welterweight Champion. The Liberian-German Boxer defeated the Venezuelan Boxer Luis Enrique Romero with a technical knock-out in the eleventh round. World Champion Boxer Kiwitt, born in Liberia, went to Germany for studies and pursued a boxing career. Later, he became a professional boxer, winning 25 fights and having 15 TKOs but three losses.

What Liberia has achieved is not only in the area of sports. This commentary focuses on sports because of the great achievements made by Liberians most recently. Definitely, we remember the great achievements of Liberians in the fields of religion, education, health, food production, engineering, governance, and economics, not forgetting other fields of study and practice. However, some people are correct when they wonder why there is longstanding and widespread poverty in Liberia in the midst of these great achievements. Poverty exists in the midst of plenty because of the actions of the powers that be and the relatively low level of awareness of the vast majority of the people. 

Being money-driven, the powers that be continue to be controlled by external forces, mainly the USA government and transnational corporations. The external controllers continue to promote poverty generation instead of poverty alleviation through the system of the production of raw materials for export without any prioritization of Value Addition. In the system of the production of raw materials for local manufacturing, the number one resource becomes the human resource rather than the financial resource. With local manufacturing, value is added to the human resource through education and training. Thus, employment is promoted. Local production is increased. Prices become affordable with income generation and poverty is alleviated. 

However, poverty generation persists because the powers that be continue to be elected to make national decisions. This bad situation is being minimized with the maximization of the awareness raised by the people who love Liberia. This awareness raising is at once non-violent and lawful. This awareness raising is working well, as seen in the non-re-election of most of the National Legislators who wanted to be re-elected. This awareness raising through the Rule of Law is the best and only way that persons with good records can get elected to bring the system of Justice, the indispensable ingredient for Peace and Progress in Liberia and in any other Country.