By Olando Testimony Zeongar
Danish author, Hans Christian Andersen, a prolific playwright and poet, best remembered for his fairy tales, once penned a short story about some weavers who promised an emperor a new suit/clothes. The weavers are con-men who convinced the emperor that they were using a fine fabric invisible to anyone who is either unfit for his position or “hopelessly stupid”.
The fraudsters lied in that the weavers are actually only pretending to manufacture the clothes; they are creating make-believe clothes which they mimic. Thus, no one, not even the emperor nor his officials can see the alleged “clothes”, but pretend that they can for fear of appearing unfit for their positions, and the emperor does the same.
Finally, the weavers report that the suit is finished, they mime dressing him, and the emperor marches naked in procession before his subjects. The townsfolk uncomfortably go along with the pretense, not wanting to appear unfit for their positions or stupid. Then, a child in the crowd, too young to understand the desirability of keeping up the pretense, exclaims that the emperor is wearing nothing at all, and the cry is taken up by others. The emperor realizes the assertion is true but continues the procession.
President George Manneh Oppong Weah, like the little boy in Hans Christian Andersen’s tale, “The Emperor’s New Clothes”, I’m constrained as a patriotic Liberian, to blurt out so very loudly that from the look of things, if care is not taken, you might just repeat the mistakes of this vain emperor in Andersen’s story.
Wait a minute, before I get crucified and hammered down to my early grave with their usual tons of unkind words, insults and threats to my life from your operatives; your party zealots and extremists included, let me say here for all to hear and know. Mr. President, I do fervently believe in a manner that does not acknowledge or express regret that you seem to be traveling down the same road.
Mr. President, like the emperor, you are surrounded by too many ‘con-men’, who, either for fear of losing their positions or for their own pecuniary gains, are not saying to you too many things that they should, but are making you exceedingly unpopular. For example, recently, they ushered you onto the football pitch to play soccer in the name of “Pro-poor Day” celebration, when in reality, the vast majority of your citizens who should be the actual beneficiaries of the “Pro-poor” ‘slogan’ are agonizingly languishing in untold hardship on a daily basis. Realistically, what is there to celebrate Mr. President?
Have your ‘con-men’ of officials told you that based on their advice, while you were kicking football on your government’s so-called “Pro-poor Day” celebration, the exchange rate was disturbingly kicking its way so very astronomically high as far as 154 Liberian Dollars to just a single US Dollar?
Mr. President, have they informed you that the price for a gallon of gasoline has skyrocketed, and your people are striving to purchase this essential commodity for LRD 535 or even more per gallon, depending on where it’s being sold? Do they even care to let you know, Mr. President, even though you reduced tariff on mosquito coil and chicken feet the other day, rice, Liberia’s staple, is fast turning into a luxurious commodity for the common man, due to the high price tag being placed on it?
Mr. President, while your officials and those who have your ears were busy advising you to stage a “Pro-poor Day” celebration only to be observed between and among partisans and supporters of your political party, merrymaking, while the majority of your citizens across the country, especially those excruciatingly grappling with the trigger down effect of a bad economy under your leadership are starving.
Did your officials let you know that like in many rising cases of indiscriminate shooting incidences since you took over, that state security in a most recent case gunned down an innocent and armless woman in broad daylight right here in the capital city, Monrovia?
Mr. president, have they told you yet, that since your ascendency to the presidency, in the name of ‘doing the nation good’, your administration has repeatedly flouted the laws of the land; like in the case of the hastily arranged ETON and EBOMAF loan deals versus the PPCC Law?
Have they told you that in any democracy the government of the day should be careful not to make the free press its enemy, and your administration has clearly and unfortunately set off to doing just that?
Mr. President, I wish they’ve told you that by covertly and undemocratically maneuvering to selectively bar a segment of the local media from operating, while you flippantly endorse others that wine and dine with you, in a bid to only sing your praise, you are shooting yourself in the foot. This is so because the pen is definitely mightier than the sword, and no matter, for how long the truth is crushed to the ground, it shall rise again…
No, Mr. President, your officials are not saying to you these things; I am inclined to believe so Sir, because, the way you and your supporters sold your political resume, painting a picture of you being the ‘people’s man’ and grass-rooter, a ‘messiah’ that has come to redeem Liberia and Liberians, from the debauched leadership defects the nation and its people have suffered for close to two centuries. You cannot be the one now turning blind-eye and paying deaf-ear to the unbearable hardship your people are enduring under your reign.
But, Mr. President, even if like in the case of the emperor, your officials turn out to be sycophantic and unnationalistic. And they play along in telling you not, that nearly in every nook and cranny, the people are crying because of the mindboggling height at which hardship has soared in the nation under your watch. I am here to cry out so very loudly like the boy in the story, “The Emperor New Clothes”, to say, Mr. President, the bare truth is, under your over five-month regime, the majority of the people are severely faced with an indescribable degree of hardship in an uncomfortably traumatizing and dehumanizing proposition.
Simply put, Mr. President, things are rough! – Please do something, and do so quickly – for the economy under your watch is sadly nothing to write home about.