PHOTO: Joe Boakai and Alexander Cummings
By Garmah Never Lomo, garmahlomo@gmail.com
TEMPLE OF JUSTICE, Monrovia- The Monrovia City Court at the weekend issued Subpoena Duces Tecum for Liberia’s former Vice President and standard bearer of main opposition Unity Party (UP), Joseph Nyumah Boakai to testify in the ongoing criminal trial of the Political Leader of fellow opposition leader, Alexander Cummings of the ANC.
Subpoena Duces Tecum is writ used to compel the production of books, records, things or documents therein specified.
The former Vice President, who is backing Benoni Urey’s ALP lawsuit against Cummings accusing him of tampering with the fractured Collaboration Political Parties (CPP) Framework Document, is to testify against the ANC leader who was head of the CPP when the alleged forgery took place sometime ago.
Mr. Boakai is expected to start testifying next Tuesday, April 19,2022 and he is state prosecutors’ second witness, while Theodore Momo of All Liberian Party for state prosecutor first witness who was on the witness stand for more than a month.
The court discharged Mr. Momo from the witness stand last Thursday April 14,2022 after he was thoroughly examined by the defense lawyers.
But state prosecutors first general witness, Mr. Momo of the ALP who has been testifying for several weeks now took the witness stand and testified that between 2018&2019, two great historical meetings were held that led to the formation of the CPP.
Mr. Momo added that the first meeting was held at Liberty Party headquarters and was attended by four chairpersons of the Unity Party, Alternative National Congress, All Liberian Party and Liberty Party and at the end of the meeting, the chairpersons agreed to work together in formation of alliance and reduce their communication through resolution and signed by all chairpersons.
Witness Momo also explained that the chairpersons returned to their respective parties and provided briefing to their leaderships and said briefing provided a second meeting after there has been consultations among the political leaders.
According to him, the second meeting was help at UP headquarters and at the meeting, the four political parties’ leaders signed a declaration of intent to collaborate.
Following that, the political leaders convinced a meeting in which they asked ALP political leader to chair the formation of the collaboration.
After months of deliberation, the framework document was drafted and presented to the All Liberian party political leader Benoni Urey for onward submission to the other political leaders.
Mr. Urey and colleagues issued another mandate for the revision framework and execution of that mandate, the party was requested to send equal number to review the committee and after the revision, it was sent to the validation committee.
Narrating further, the validation committee completed it work and reported to the political leaders through chairman Urey and they then set a date for the formal signing of the CPP framework document on May 19,2020.
ALL Liberian Party chairman Momo also revealed that on May 19,2020, there was a signing ceremony and political leaders along with chairman who were at various locations due to COVID-19 pandemic signed the framework document on that same May 19,2020 and that signing the documents ended the chairmanship of Mr. Urey.
On the same date of the signing ceremony on May 19,2020, ushered in the ANC political leader, the first legitimate chairman of the CPP.
Mr. Momo disclosed that after the signing ceremony, the original framework documents were submitted to Mr. Cummings and he was mandated to seek certification. And after the signing ceremony, five copies of the signed framework documents, each copy was organized in a form of booklet and was spiral band with a color of the political parties’ logo arrange in order of alphabetical order of the parties namely ALP, ANC, LP and UP. Those five copies were said to have been delivered to the ANC political leader for the purpose of notorizing all five copies and return four of the copies to the parties after notorization and one was submitted to the National Elections Commission for accreditation.
The ALP official further testified that when the five copies were delivered to the then chairman Cummings as anticipated four copies as signed were not delivered to the parties which blew public concern above the particular article signed on May 19,2020 on job distribution and appointment.
The leadership of the CPP convened a meeting of the national advisory council and the executive committee at the LP headquarters and at the end of the deliberation, the leaders agreed to solicit the assistance of private lawyers to advise the leadership.
However, the lawyers led by Cllr. Benedict Sannoh were called to another meeting and same venue and were requested to assist and he gracefully accepted to assist the CPP but Mr. Cummings the then chairman was mandated to submit to the leadership for advice.
The lawyers made a presentation to the leadership of the CPP at the LP headquarters and in their presentation, lawyers identified ten issues with each page and on each page there was a suggested deposition, it was said.
Mr. Momo of the ALP during his testimony in chief, told the court that as a constituent party said, the ALP that the framework document was an organic law governing the CPP, and it was not necessary to participate in the CPP when they were not in possession of the instrument that brought them together as CPP.
The issue was raised with the National Elections Commission and Mr. Cummings on numerous occasions was requested to serve both the May 19,2020, original copy of what they filed with the NEC but he (Cummings) promised to do so but reneged on his promises.
Furthermore, the then CPP chairman, Senator Nyonblee Kangar-Lawrence through several communications and meanings of the National Advisory Committee to have officially requested Mr. Cummings to submit to his colleagues the May 19,2020, signed original framework documents and the one filed with the NEC.
However, when they contacted the NEC, they said they were surprised to see a document believed to be a framework document with a photocopy cover and similarly signed.