By Moses M. Tokpah, mosesmtokpah@gmail.com
Citizens of Foya District in Lofa County in the northwest of Liberia have established the root causes of the prolonged division, which they said has caused the District to be underdeveloped.
At a well-attended peace conference organized by the Tamba Aghailas Foundation held in the District recently, people of Foya acknowledged that they are divided, thereby attributing it to several factors.
In separate presentations during the conference, the citizens outlined disrespect on the part of the youths towards the elders and traditional leaders,
Citizens in Foya also cited greed for power on the part of politicians, self-interest, discrimination and disrespect to the rule of law; as well as injustice as some of the causes of the division.
“First we have on our list is policy, that is the number one thing that divided Foya today, there is no truth in us within this District; for you to look at your brother where he has gone wrong to tell him the truth that is not within us.” one of the groups narrated.
According to them, the existence of too many political camps and the belief that everyone belongs to a camp and cannot associate with others is also one of the factors.
The Foya Citizens further explained that there are people who feel that they are the most educated people in the World and cannot share with others what they have acquired, but brag about it using the young people to cause problem in the District.
They further underscored revenge, love of money on the part of the youths, poverty, partiality, tradition, giving of misinformation, the lack of love amongst them and elected officials wanting to perpetuate themselves in power among others as some of the causes of the division they continue to experience.
Meanwhile, citizens in Foya have made several recommendations that must be considered and worked on, if the division in their district must be eradicated from among them.
The citizens recommended that they should forgive each other, the Foundation should hold a reconciliation conference among leaders of the District, they as citizens must be honest to each other; do away with self-interest; there should be equal distribution of district’s properties as well as respect for each other.
They also recommended that there must be justice, elected officials should be able to unify the electorates after election rather than building camps, truth should be told to would be wrongdoer.
There should be respect for cultural value and Foya Citizens should selected one of their sons to contest for any electable position in the area, among others.
For his part, the CEO and Founder of the Tamba Aghailas Foundation said the Foundation will take all of the Citizens’ recommendations and use them to develop a comprehensive strategy development plan for the District and share with development partners and government officials using existing data as well and to know what the citizens are saying as it relates to their needs.
He then said the conference was a module that he has used in the International Development setting and is used to identify problems at the grassroot level.
After the problems are been identified, the citizens are the ones who are able to proffer solutions to those problems using a structure approach and giving them ideas, tips and guiding them in the process, the Tamba Aghailas Foundation’s CEO said.