Responsible journalism

After month of idleness from my part, it is time to untie my tongue and contribute once again towards trying to make our beautiful country a better place. Let me start by saying that over the years, FrontPage Africa has done a lot to bring issues of interest to the nation to the public debate. They have done so with bravour. This should be the main goal of a newspaper, to bring to light issues concerning all of us. And believe me they are debated. However, during these years, I have always thought that the paper all too often relies on single, unconfirmed reports-rumours-informers, often without contacting the accused party. These often unconfirmed sources of information are then turned into very biased stories, where the editorial staff never checks their information to confirm authenticity. In Liberian english, we call it he say, she say. Someone goes to a journalist, makes an accusation of some sort. The journalist should then be all about trying to confirm this statement. Not in Liberia. Here, we write the story based on that statement, and run with it. It is so bad that based on one daily running an unconfirmed story, all the other local dailies jump on the same unconfirmed, unbalanced story the next day, often repeating it and giving the first daily as the source. All the while, the accused party has not been heard. As a result, 9 time out of 10, the accused party has to call a pressconference to publicly refute the statement and give the correct facts according to them. I do not know about you, but if it ever happened to me, I would want revenge too. But our so-called journalists are so itchy to write their one-sided stories that many times they would not dare to check their facts; maybe they fear that there may not even be a story if they start real investigative work. So they act as if they are dealing with facts, and the unknowing reader is left with what he/she thinks are facts. Today, this type of so-called journalism has turned around and bitten a so-called journalist in the ass. And now they want us to feel sorry for him. If I know my people correctly, the editor will be released eventually. Will he have learned a lesson? I doubt it. It will be repeated.

Liberia is a melting pot

Tribal overland migrations of hunter/gathering peoples from central/eastern Africa. Then you have the seafaring/fishing settlements along our coasts. Then you have the Portugese trading posts. Then you have the slaving factories. Into this mix, you throw in those returning from the Americas. Ship upon ship of emacipated newly captured slaves from the Congo basin, all dumped in Monrovia and resettled. Then you have the German traders. Later, you mix in the Lebanese traders. You mix all this together, and you get what is Liberia today. These are the facts. This is what has happened. This is our history. We need to acknowledge this and move on. We don´t have time for a "my-religion-is-better-than-your-religion" or "we-were-here-first" debate. This reminds me of George Orwells "Animal Farm" where the pigs declare that some animals are more equal that others, and start feasting in the farmhouse while the other animals are excluded and forced to watch through the windows. Wake up now.

Greed

What is greed? Greed is something that will make your eyes look inwards and see only what is you. It will make you to yearn for something that you only want for yourself, no matter the cost. It will make you to treat those around you in any way, as long as you satisfy your own greed. This feeling has throughout the ages made reasonable men into insatiable monsters, who would not even sit back and reflect upon their own actions and see that no matter how much they satisfied their greed, it would only grow. In the end, that same greed will be their downfall. Look around, and check out what greed has done to our world. Devastating chaos. But in the end, where are all the greedy men? In their graves, unsatisfied.

What a joke... or... dun mak me laff yah.

Out of pure curiosity, I went to see our lawbreakers in session just the other day. I was shocked, utterly petrified with what I saw. I had to ask the guy next to me if this was normally how things went about. Let me put it this way, whoever you voted for is taking you for a ride. Not only that, they are making you pay for that ride. I have never seen a bunch of more ignorant people in my entire life. I swear on my plum tree. It is all a big bluff, so what I am wondering is who takes these guys seriously? If you ever see me run for office, please remind me of this. They could not pay me enough to lower myself to these guys standards. In the mean while I am going to go and produce something.

The Ambassador

When I saw this documentary last year, nothing I saw surprised me. This kind of thing will happen again, and again, and again. It does not matter on what level it happens, but this is typical of us and our country. What needs to happen is that these kind of people have to be forwarded to the right channels, procedures and checks. Our ignorant people have to learn that anyone can be white and wear a suit and tie. It does not make them god, but that we are their equals, and should interact with them based on this fact. From what I can tell, there are very few Liberians out there who have actually seen the documentary. Make sure you do before you start making noice. It is undercover journalism at its best and it exposes a lot of weaknesses in our society and in the Central Afican Republic. Our biggest weakness: Awe of white skin!

The absence of debate!

During the gone elections, all kinds of organisation were arranging debate amonst the contenders. As usual, nothing came out of it. Just today it hit me, the reason we do not have debates in Liberia is because there is basically nothing to debate. It is just a power struggle amongst crowd of friends.

At the end, we all want the same thing.

Know your history...

...but do not dwell on it. The past is nothing we as a people can change. We can look back and learn from it. We can spot mistakes made and avoid them in the future.

This does not mean that we should spend our days arguing about who did what, when. We need to take our eyes from the rear view mirror and look towards the horizon.

That being said, lets put our heads together and figure this future thing out. No one is going to do it for us.

Spindoctors beware

They think they can sit over yonder and pull the strings. This is not the seventies. I am sure that our world famous footballer has lost his patience with you people now.

You know the days when you could put on a suit and tie and proceed with this disguise to fool Liberians are over. We are not that desperate to believe your lies anymore. We are more informed today. We see beyond the fancy clothes, the false facades, the empty words.

Somehow, I feel sorry for him. Look at all they have put him through. He wanted to believe them, listen to them. What on the other hand were they after? Who are they? Do you never wonder what kind of Liberians have this kind of lust for power, that they dupe one of our most popular persons to team up with one of the most devious characters from the past. What kind of a hold do they have on him? They forced him to get an online degree, step down from leadership, exclaim election fraud. Who do they think they can fool?

Do not shoot the messenger

Ha ha ha! If you do not like what people are voting for, accuse the messenger, like always.

Look losers, if you want to make accusations of election fraud, please be specific. All the boxes are there numbered and waiting for you to check and recheck.

So be specific. Do not be vague. I do not know who is fooling you, but the results are self-explanitory. Stop acting surprised. Start getting ready for the runoff now, instead of blowing a lot of air.

Nobel Peace Prize 2011

The Nobel Committee is going to give our president the Nobel Peace Prize today. If and when it happens, it will mean extreme focus on our small country by the rest of the world.

We have the likes of Weah wanting to go back to the old days of closing down newspapers, disappearing journalists for printing unfavorable stories.

If you know what is good for Liberia, you will vote for press freedom/freedom of speech.

Let democracy prevail

It is still quite hard to stomach. Even today, Mr. Weah still claims that he was cheated during the last elections. How he ever came to this conclusion, I guess we will never know. But his hard-headed attitude over this is what gives me the creeps.

It seems that no matter what happens, we love to put out false accusations, and the rest of us love to nurture them as truths. You see this in our society time after time.

Please be careful out there, and may the most popular person take home the elections, so that we can continue to rebuild our once so great nation.

Get on with it

Right. The referendum is over. Lets look at it with hindsight and move on. Lets call it a dress rehersal.

The results are in and they will surely be debated from now until our day of reconning. That is what we are good at, talking, debating, wheeling and dealing.

Looking back at the results, one thing surely stands out; the number of invalid votes. Seriously, the number of invalid votes is near or around 10% in most cases, and this worries me. What went wrong? Who is to blame for this? How can this be avoided in the future?

From one thing to another

I have never in my life seen such a sight. It looked like a feeding frenzy, when you throw food to a school of fish, and the water starts to boil.

I am talking about our future lawbreakers, ahum lawmakers, all rushing to register at the different spots put up by the Elections Commission.

Nobody wants to do an honest days work, but everybody wants to sit back and be a big shot. Well, I guess we deserve our destiny.

Ignorance itself is also a virtue

West Africa has always been an ambiguous place. You have people who are ranting Christians but still believe in and fear tribal spirits. People who see the wonders of modern medicine but still believe that sickness is spread by witchcraft.

Then you have people who have college degrees, sometimes more than one, but are still ignorant.

In recent statements by a vicepresidential contender that he is certain of obtaining at least 2 million votes. Anything under that will mean that he is being cheated.

Yeah right.

One of the virtues of ignorance is that it usually shows in a person, but the person is unaware of the fact. Oblivious actually.

How can you in your right mind get up and make such a statement, when the number of registered voters in Liberia does not exceed 1.7 million?

The only answer is complete ignorance.

Land of lawyers but none the maker

I read an interview with the now retired Justice Gladys Johnson. According to her, none of our present lawmakers are lawyers.

Wow.

The reboot that went wrong

In school, the seniors always had certain privileges over those their junior. Every junior thought that these privileges were unfair. They thought so until they themselves became seniors.

This seems to be the case in our "honorable" legislature. Instead of starting afresh and changing the ropes to fit our society of 2011, many elected officials tend to resort to looking in the mirror and trying to imitate what once was.

Now that their time of reconning is coming, beware of them. When the dust settles after the election in October, how many lawbreakers, eh sorry, lawmakers will turn over their dearbought computers, cars and other government properties to their sucessors. How many of them have managed to build mansions and how many will have unfinished mansions.

Please, I beg of you, please leave at least the furniture in your offices so that we Liberians can stand proud and say look, at least these ones did not steal their furniture.

Oh! Do I have to pay taxes?

Our "honorable assemblies" were caught with their pants down again. This time it is to be audited based on the assets declared to the National Elections Commission before the elections of 2005. The audits to be done are to check any changes in assets as well as to determine if said asset holders have paid their taxes on these assets.

Oh, how your can act like that so.

Tactic now being used:

Summon the messenger, threaten the messenger behind closed doors, demand that the letter informing them of the audit be rescinded since, it was not written by the Auditor General. Same old same old.

Presidency is not a reward

A lot of our "politicians" bring up and always try to highlight their past deeds and acheivements as ground to become the President of our nation. Others exaggerate their untimely remittences to family members as sponsoring scholarships to ordinary citizens.

They make it sound as if this qualifies them to become President.

Let me just make it clear that the Presidency of Liberia is not a reward, not even an acheivement. Although our politicians mentality would encourage them to persue these ambitions, one of the main reasons for this is simple greed.

Look at the Precidency as an opportunity to take Liberia forward. See it as a daunting task to improve the lives of all our citizens. Forget your greed for power and think forward. Show us what you will try to acheive, instead of dwelling in the past.

Still waiting for answers

We are still witnessing these unholy marriages amongst our politicians, and they seem to be pairing up majestically. This is expected, and we will continue to be surprised as time goes by.

What I am still waiting for is honest declarations of platforms, how to acheive these. Up until now we are still seeing people with similar goals all looking to grab the spectre and run. I still say that all these different people want the same thing, or at least that is what they say. Then why do they not unite with other like-minded and become more convincing.

Not in Liberia though, that will never happen. Everyone has an ego to feed. Pity that.

Same old, same old

I repeat, please come home and contribute to your country. Please come home and help us produce stuff here. Please come home and spread your experiences with your people. Please teach us. Bah, I hold your foot, come home so that we can move foward.