HARPER CITY, MARYLAND- University students in Liberia’s southeastern city of Harper, Maryland County have done a heated debate on President George Weah’s recent call for a change in the Liberian constitution to allow whites to be citizens and dual citizenship.
Article 27 b of the Liberian constitution forbids people of non Negro decent from being citizens of this country:
“In order to preserve, foster and maintain the positive Liberian culture, values and character, only persons who are Negroes or of Negro descent shall qualify by birth or by naturalization to be citizens of Liberia,” the constitution says.
The Liberia Media for Democratic Initiatives (LMDI), the facilitator of the People To People public education flagship platforms, “THE DIALOGUE” “ DUCOR DEBATES” this week launched a series of debate style interactive forums highlighting the recent call by President in his first State of the Nation address on January 29, 2018.
According to a press release from the LMDI, the first of the open citizenship proposition-sensitive forums was held at the Tubman University in Harper under the LMDI People To People Debate Style Flagship platform “DUCOR DEBATES”.
The release said it was “a fierce debate on the advantages and disadvantages of NON-NEGRO and DUAL CITIZENSHIP proposal” of the new Liberian leaders.
Divided into two groups of four each, on the pro and con of the proposal, the Tubman University presented strong arguments to defend their sides in the debate.
On the pro defending the call of President GEORGE WEAH, the team headed by THOMAS WILBUR DAVIES propounded that President GEORGE WEAH is right because Liberia is far lagged behind as a result of what they call the segregative and racist constitutional provision of the old order.
Team –A- presented that Liberia’s current citizenship provision has only served to keep the country backward, while its neighbors move ahead because of their liberal citizenship constitutional provisions.
The Tubman University students on the pro side of the debate pleaded with the audience of more than 500 to accept president WEAH’S proposal for a change of the country’s citizenship provisions so that in their view, economic growth can be realized in contemporary Liberia.
Team –A-lead presenter THOMAS WILBUR DAVIES was fiercely buttressed by DWEH DEE MILLER who argued that Liberia’s denial of citizenship rights to other races of the World is grossly hurting its general survival, pleading that unless Liberian citizenship is open for both DUAL and NON-NEGROES, the country will remain underdeveloped with its citizens continuously suffering.
Team –B- was led by BRYANT J. KPANGBALA with arguments that President GEORGE WEAH’S proposal, if accepted would buy poor Liberians off their own land and put wealthy foreigners in charge of the best part of Liberia.
Kpangbala and team contended that the WEAH proposition will only help individual foreigners achieve over suffering indigenous Liberians. Though on the con, they were not totally opposed to the idea but propounded that timing for the proposal is wrong.
They pleaded that Weah and his government should rather empower Liberians and differ the citizenship relaxation proposal for sometimes in the future, but did not say when specifically. To this point the pro-team jumped in to argue that the World is not waiting for Liberia’s gradual cooling off on serious issues to move on.
They argued that Liberia is the oldest nation in Africa and has wasted near two centuries accomplishing virtually nothing in material and social development and as such now is the time for Liberia to act and act swiftly to change the nation for prosperity in this generation.
Meanwhile, LMDI’s Director John Kollie has the subsequent forums on this issue will also be held under the LMDI’S sustained debate-style flagship platform, “DUCOR DEBATES, which was started during the 2017 legislative and presidential elections to give those elections a People To Participatory posture and space for the direct engagement between candidates and constituents.
The LMDI Director said the citizenship sensitive debate forums is his organization’s own way of sustaining the constitutional review and referendum national public visibility engagement started by it with support from the OPEN SOCIETY INITIATIVE FOR WEST AFRICA (OSIWA) in 2015—16. It is to allow for participation of the marginalized population in the planned constitutional referendum that aims to amend the 1986 constitution of Liberia.
Kollie said though the OSIWA support to his organization’s constitution review and eminent national referendum, public consultation and visibility ended in 2016, the people’s direct and indirect participation in public policy formulation and other documentation initiatives are a passion of the LMDI.
He therefore said resuming such work with the renewal of the citizenship change proposition by president WEAH is only living to its foundation principles.
According to him, although his institution lacks any resources to carry out such ambitious plan, he and the LMDI feel obligated to open the horizon of Liberians in making informed decisions at the polls about Liberia’s future citizenship status in an eminent constitutional referendum.
Meanwhile, Kollie is appealing for “generous philanthropic and other contributions to this drive so that Liberians are educated to make informed decisions at the polls, when the time comes for a national referendum for possible changes to the1986 constitution.”
A team from the LMDI, headed by its Director, John Kollie, has been touring all five counties of the South Eastern Region of Liberia for the conduct of the region’s session of the YEAR TWO of the organization’s annual General Knowledge Pop Quizzing competition.