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My Money, First Thing First! A joke many may say when talking about the US dollars. Some may ask, but from where will it come after nearly 18 years of suffering, compounded by inhumane and degrading treatment?
Coming from a teacher-training town and truly a teacher by birth, I am often reminded about a proverbial saying whilst in elementary school some nearly four decades ago, that “do not trouble trouble until trouble troubles you.”
Not truly interested in trouble, at times many consider the quietude of individuals and begin taking gross advantage of him without realizing that that man could come back very strong and repay such debts that cannot be forgiven by mortal man but God.
With the many bazookas, dragons, AK-47s, Berettas and you name it, the children of God are always taken care of simply by reciting the Holy Rosary or the Lord’s Prayer.
Anyway, this is certainly not the issue but from what has been obtaining in Liberia, with conspiratorial activities on the increase simply by having one to simply demonstrate love of parents, Charles Ghankay Taylor often said that “even if we will have to reach Timbuktu, we will go there.”
Long and still most times underscored that democracy un-fought for with life can be short-lived, it is still being misconstrued by many elements in society, since they may not know its value.
Thus and without much delay, an unorthodox approach as this columnist may want to choose, it must be underscored that environmental protection, without harm to Ms. Anyaa Vohiri of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), is proving major concerns especially for the justice and security systems in Liberia.
This is precisely against the firm backdrop of evolving complaints by individuals that there continues to be the appointment of individuals by the Presidency to sensitive security positions without reference to the non-existence of such institutions.
In recent months and based upon full consensus of the Legislature assembled, few security institutions have been viewed as non-essential to the ongoing constructive development unfolding throughout the country, with the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) and the National Bureau of Investigations (NBI) counted in the number.
In spite the legislation calling for the merger of these two institutions with others, perhaps the Ministry of National Security, National Security Agency, Liberia National Police (LNP) or the Bureau of Immigration, predicated upon budgetary constraints, it appears that President Sirleaf may only be giving the process a try, though having fully acknowledged the fact that such decisions made and printed in handbills are now rooted within law.
Better still remains the glaring fact that the Advisor to the President on National Security Affairs, Dr. H. Boima Fahnbulleh, is never absent-minded from expeditiously conducting his functions and will at no time try to mislead the Liberian leader, given the truth and facts that “security must always remain priority Number One,” without which a nation is doom.
Whilst it may have been considered in the past as medium to exploit the nation’s coffers in the cause of “operations,” Liberians have become too sensitive to the past and those ascending to positions of trust therein ought to realize that this is a democratic period in which accountability and transparency must remain the core.
Addressing the topic from the perspective of an investigative journalist in Liberia for many years and acquiring some degree of expert knowledge simply for having read for 18 years, when jobless with no one to care other than parents who are all dead, the typical Lorma man’s parable that “my head cannot fit in anybody’s mouth,” unless a devil, proves the case.
Better still, if a father or mother is used to beating a child daily for even something he or she may not have committed and it gets used to that child, the parents would soon find themselves into grave danger, since they would, at some point in time dangerously resist any further action or reaction. This, too, is child’s right and quite fundamental.
Whilst efforts by the Ministry of Justice, in conjunction with the Supreme Court of Liberia, as well as other parastatals of the security sector have begun a very fine process by constructing a hub in Bong County that would witness joint operations undertaken by them, in protection of lives and property of citizens, it cannot take on the form of surveillance in which individuals are targeted simply to possess that which they did not honestly earn.
Perhaps with the current scenario also viewed as one intended to continuously “charge” individuals who may be wrongly perceived as been dangerous, when they certainly are not, no amount of excesses within the sector can now be practiced, unless just falling from the skies and not having shared the bitter experiences of the past civil crisis that very innocent lives became lost.
Worth reiterating that these very candid views evolved purely from journalistic experiences locally and abroad, taking careful stock of what had transpired since the 1970s through the 1990s, much is desired in the creation of an enabling environment that will engender socio-economic growth and development.
To hear through the grape vine that a clique has decided to “arrest” you by whatever means in security science is dangerous and those bent thereat must resist or be internationally exposed.
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