By Henry Mamulu

I must have seen Willard in 1960 at the birth of Pupu Platoon. This was when nearly the entire First Grade Class from Saint Patrick’s Elementary puped on themselves I being last to pupu right before Teteh Darpoh gave the Eyes Right (Salute) at the Old Mansion on Ashmun Street before President William Tubman. You see through the UN The Liberian Government supplied us with Non- Fat Milk. That thing was a laxative, or a real stomach runner.

It was Williard, Jim Holder, Robert Phillips, Patrick Burrowes, Victorio A. Jesus and Nathan City Hall Russ, Keith Asumuyayah Best that gave birth to most of the liberties that the Liberian Masses enjoy today that has been ascribed and romanticized  an indigenous thing when really it was born in Monrovia. 

Liberties such as the right to vociferously protest, (a word pronounced correctly to me by Pheme Weeks in 1975), multi- party democracy,  your constitutional rights , these inalienable rights were brought to the gates of the masses by these social and political luminaries as they strove and brought down the oligarchy that was the True Whig Party.

Willard came up during the Golden Age of Liberia represented by a modern Monrovia. We were moving from an agrarian society of subsistence farmers (Harry Morris, Tommy Bernard, Rocheforte Padmore, Moses Mamulu, Moses Weefur, Arthur Summerville, Alexander Ketter, Tamba Taylor) to a more mechanized Public WORKS, T.V. modern Hospitals and Schools) and of course elevators in buildings and the Five Star Ducor Intercontinental Hotel.  

The social scene long dominated by men in High School who played football (Winston Taylor, Garretson Sackor, Monkey Brown, DeWit Roberts, Borbor Gaye) who  had replace the Volleyball Players (Waltron & Amaru, Chacha and Granville) who replaced the Lawn Tennis (Rudolph Roberts and John Smoker) and gave us Basketball, a sport that one could consider elitist.

Basketball was elite because first of all when Christian King was in Saint Patricks about 1964-65 perhaps there were four basketballs in the country. One at B.W. Harris where Frank Potter introduced the game to Willard and them, Saint Patrick’s when Brother Austin coached it, one at C.W.A. with Emanuel Freeman and another at perhaps Gboveh Mission or L.T.I.

Secondly, you could not practice basketball if you went to afternoon school as the game was taught from about 2pm until the sun went down at 6pm when every decent child was home. Thirdly (and this applied to me) when one went to a basketball practice you sat and watched. You were not allowed to run on the court grab the ball and bounce it around. After about a month then you were allowed to run, pick up the ball and throw it back on court. Finally in your third month you snuck in a quick shot when the ball fell out of bounce to the the staring eyes of those on the court. You did not mess around with the ball until invited.

Willard played with Emanuel Roberts, Adelaide Roberts, Rosetta Stewart and Gwedolene Nene Williams who was more famous to my generation for her slow dance than jump shot. By then Isaac “Twe Twe” Whisnant had already transcended the game and along with Tah Harris had achieved god-like status at B.W.Harris and the Y.M.C.A  along with David Murray from C.W.A.

On the court Willard was known as Boy Duck, a name he did not like because of his flat feet. Willard’s feet were like LeBron James’ with his toes pointing to the outside and caused his shot to be rather flat. Hhowever he had a decent turn around shot from five feet out. For Monrovia, Willard was big and so he rumbled to the rim. It was not a skip,nor hop but like a running back, or better, bowling ball. Willard knocked the pins over on his way to the hoop quite effectively. 

By 1971 my generation through the NBA Sporting Ambassadors Program held  at the Y.M.C.A. had sufficiently been coached. I was ready to try out for one of the major teams, either I.E. or Barrolle.

Willard worked with I.E.. He was a loyalist to the organization and sports as a whole and believed in the purity of the game. Well we saw it differently.

It was time for a change in the country and we were going to change the way Basketball was played from being a prescribed sport to a game of unpredictability with shots flying from every angel. 

Practice for I.E. was held the first week at The Y on Broad Street and by the time we got to ACS to prepare for the game I was calling my shot out before I released it and making it. I.E Point Guard was a young B.W. Harris student that I had allowed  to practice when I was being groomed by Bruce Williams who had learned the game at St. Patrick’s. Bruce for me was always Liberia’ best player and this player of I.E. was John T. Gabbidon.

The day of the game arrived, the gym was packed and Willard introduced his starting five. On the five was Henry Kessely and Bobby Askew both pretty good players with Kessely having range on his shot. However, they were already working out of town and had not practiced and so they were rusty. I.E. was being defeated easily and so I got so mad at Willard, we had a falling out and I left the gym and went to my friend’s house. My friend was Vivian V. Reeves Jr., older brother to Ernest Jakal and Reggie Legend. I told Vivian what had happened and that we should form our own team. He agreed and told me if I organized it he would find a sponsor.

So we entered the league in 71 – 72 and called our team Three Pointers. We were coming to show Willard and them how basketball should be played. Well Willard recruited Mathias Nimley, a beast who scored 36 points on me the first day. The second game Mathias gave me 44 points however the M.V.P that year and perhaps the first recorded M.V.P  was Vivian Reeves who averaged 30 points that season. Incidentally, we were on average 15 years old on Three Pointers.

The next year we exacted our revenge when we got Steven Darpo Clark who executed the first dunk in a game in Liberia against Willard and I.E. Mathias had gone to United Lakers who we crushed on a Wednesday. However by Friday night Darpo was found dead in his room and our dream of changing Liberian Basketball was over.

We all left Liberia after the coup of 1980, me in 87. Twenty something years later, I returned trying to find my way in a new nation after the war. Someone told me that Willard was looking for me and I was shocked. I knew the wars I had had with this man and was prepared to continue however I went to the Ministry of Transport. A smiling Willard came out,  greeted and hugged me and took me into his office. He asked me if I knew Ben Urey. I told him not personally.

Willard said Ben was hosting a big program in Careysburg and needed someone to manage it and he told Urey only I could do it the way Ben would want it. The wind went out of me as he added ‘please do it for me”. I needed the money and publicity would not hurt and so accepted.

Upon Willard’s recommendation I met Ben Urey, who was the most gracious host and treated me with celebrity status. I never could get over what Willard had done for me, for as I came for war he came for peace.

The life of Willard has taught me to let bygones be bygones. Help those that you can help. To Iris I say none mind yah. To Ben Urey I say the same and add forgave me if I have offended you in any way for I tend to get caught up in myself and play the fool. To all of us None mind oh. God bless. The Lu.    

By: Henry Mamulu

The year was 1969. The year Stevie Wonder penned and recorded “Yester Me, Yester You, Yesterday”. The song haunted me then.

Today I get an eerie feeling when I hear “Yester Me, Yester You, Yesterday”. It has the ability to make me hurry up my steps and go and finish whatever I still have left undone.

I enjoy reflecting on my past. Nearly every preteen and teenage girl in Monrovia played nah foh (knock foot). For you who do not know our culture knock foot is like double dutch without the rope. They also played “haa ska” (hop scotch) which has mutated into a game now that I just don’t recognize. Well for us the boys we had to walk around with our hands covering our butts all day. “Oh so that now you can’t remember free kick?” If your hand was not covering your butt, your friend came and gave you a good kick, thus free kick.

And who can forget blade. We took a piece of wire, or cord and made it into a circle. That circle was buried in the sand. All the players had a stick to “juke” into the sand hoping to find the buried ring. The one whose stick found the ring was the winner (usually the one who buried it in the first place). He then had the privilege to pound all the losers’ palms with his folded knuckles. It was called “konking your chicken thigh”, the fat area of the palm just above the thumb.

We seem to have transcended the need to provide food, clothing and shelter; to have gone from “Mat” to “Mattresses”; to have ascended to “Higher Heights” as sanctioned by the government of the late President Tolbert. Against the tide of their refusal to vacate the eroding “West Point”, residents missed the opportunity to occupy and own estate housing in Gardnersville, Barnersville and New Georgia, newly built by the government on previously uncharted lands close to Monrovia. Monrovia had become the City That Did Not Sleep compared to New York for this particular characteristic. We staged The Sound of Music with Vasti McClain starring as Maria. The
National Cultural Center was in full bloom producing Yata Zoe and then the indomitable Nimba Bird. Agnes Nibo, a Kru girl who married Von Ballmoos turned the choir at LU into a high performance act presenting Handel’s Messiah as expertly as they delivered a Bassa or Kpelle song. We were cultured. “Bia Moh Flee”, a song sung by the LU choir in the local vernacular was hailed wherever the LU choir performed in the USA and other parts of the world. The LU choir even recorded a record album in the USA.

Luminaries like Hugh Masekela, Mariam Makeba were residents of Monrovia. I saw Nina Simone and played with her daughter Lisa. I had beers with the actor Calvin Lockhart. Hugh could be found on any given evening at the hangout “Attitude” next to Charles Williams’ house. Jimmy Yhap and Bongie Makeba also hung out together and it was Bongie who introduced us to the “click” sounds of South Africa”. RIGHT HERE IN MONROVIA. And, yes we had advanced socially but politically the government had become too comfortable. Basically, we had gotten used to being called The Most Peaceful Nation on Earth.

Enter the “Progressives” and the spirit of adventurism. The Progressives had the ability to excite the people politically in ways that the True Whig Party could only imagine and after nearly a century of rule did not have the desire to. Their promise was that the world we knew would be melted away and sort of immediately replaced by basically , utopia.

Now I can say that little did the Progressives know that their then political naivety to their own influences was comparable to the True Whig Party’s unpreparedness to deal with situations as they developed. And the situations were developing fast.

The people began to feel that nothing was impossible and all could be achieved immediately. Finally the spirit of adventurism fueled the people to challenge the government’s right to lead. And the government fell.

Nothing seems to be left from that Great Transition inaugurated by the Spirit of Adventurism and the Progressive. It gave birth to Samuel Doe and The People’s Redemption Council which assimilated the movement and eventually killed it. However, the Revolution’s (as it was remembered) enduring legacy, it has claimed, is the multi party system we “enjoy” today.

Finally, The Progressives gave us a healthier appreciation of our traditional names. Rudolph Roberts (Doc) became Togba Nah Tipoteh, Joseph Chesson, Jr. a.k.a Chea Chepoo, Bacchus Matthews (considered the Father of the Movement) remained Bacchus Matthews after convincing everyone else to change their names, and Samuel P. Jackson could not become Samuel P. Tubman; as is rumored he was sired by Vat himself. Uncle Randolph McClain a.k.a. Randolph Kpokpo Weah Worjloh. Quiwonkpa was a “Cooper”; Chris Neyor was a “McGill”; Tom Woiwoyue was a “Smith”; Trohoe Kpaghai was a “Jones” and was recommended for a scholarship abroad by E. B. McClain, Sr., and so on and so on.

Yes all these did happen but there was one thing that was not to occur back then in 1969.

Our generation was to live forever; at least that’s what we thought. I talk about Michael Itoka, Saku Sillah, Samuel P. Jackson, Morris Saytumah, Chucks and Nuks, Nat and Harry, Sekele, Ben Pursur’s brother, Jimmy Yhap, Steven Pelham, Boikai Fahnbulleh, Rupert Hoff, Amara Freeman, Ian, Fahmare and Renold, Gbo Youh and many others.

However just as the sixties was to end and Yester Me, Yester You, Yesterday hit the air waves we came face to face with death. Darling Cole, Patricia Stewart’s sister died from either diabetes, or sickle cell and I for one learned about fear.

I had gone up on Benson Street, just above Newport Street and one house from the back of Chief Justice James A. A. Pierre to see Charles Martin. His father, Senator Levi Martin, said that Charles had gone to work at Street and Walker Company and so I left. At the corner of Robert’s Street, a parked car was blaring off Yester Me, Yester You, Yesterday. The words said, “I had a dream, so did you, life was warm and love was true, two kids who where breaking all the rules of yester dreaming”.

It was about 9:00 a.m. vacation time. Monrovia was blanketed with a gray hue brought by the dust from the harmattan wind that blew across the Sahara. There overlooking the Masonic Temple on West Benson Street, I thought I saw a man who seemed at least one hundred feet tall.

I recognized the spectra even though he had his back turned to Monrovia. He wore a black frock coat that hung just below the knees and just as suddenly he turned and looked at the city. His face had the sadness of a broken heart and wounded spirit. You know when you tell your two year-old, “I will not play with you”. They go and stand in a corner dejected and alone until you run and hug them again. That kind of sadness. But no one hugged President Joseph J. Roberts. With his head bowed in shame and rejection, President Roberts seemed to turn, walk towards the Atlantic and disappeared over the horizon.

Scared, I, too, turned and ran over Newport Street and down Benson Street near Ada and Irene Watts’ house where Itter Pharmacy is now. Darling Cole’s mother had just moved down there. The song by Stevie Wonder was on some one’s radio. The words said,” now it seems those yester dreams were just a cruel and foolish game we used to play, Yester Me, Yester You, Yesterday”.

I take public transportation into Monrovia every day. The bus puts us down either on the corner of Broad and Johnson Streets or on Buchanan Street. We then walk into Monrovia in groups of five because at any time Zogos can attack and jerk your bag, snatch your phone or juke you.
In Monrovia we are not stabbed but get juked.

One bus has earned the reputation of being the most deadly transporter after causing the deaths of at least 7-10 pem-pem boys alone this year. The bus is known as Killer Bean. Killer Bean is actually the Yellow School bus from America, perhaps the friendliest symbol in the western world but in this culture of “Me, Myself and I”,
WHICH IS PRESENT DAY MONROVIA, the Yellow School bus has taken on the persona of the evil Killer Bean.

Let me tell you what I see at 5:30, right before the sun rises. Monrovia seems to wake up from a dream. A dream where “life was warm and love was true.” The city seems to dream of a time of peace as opposed to the hellish reality that night time Monrovia is without a police officer in sight to assist a citizen from getting raped or assaulted or juked.

At 5:30 a.m. with C.W.A. on your right, the Baptist Church on your left, the air heavy with the smell of Kalla being fried on an open fire, you have one last glimpse of colonial Monrovia. The city where everyone knew each other.

Then the sun comes up from over the Ducor and you have got to side-step a plastic bag of fresh ‘boot’ flung into the streets the night before. And of course now you can see the used up condom on the church’s steps, testimony to last night’s frolic. And no one can miss the fresh peepee scent as it wrestles for control of the morning air against the Sweet Palm Butter “cold bowl” odor from the Lappa-Be-Door near C.W.A. Then I recall what we had and how I feel lost and I feel sad with nothing left but the memories of Yester Me, Yester You, and Yesterday.

Dedicated to Connie Yhap “One Bad APPLE”, Joy Grimes, Tanji Bull, Jimi Bull, Lady Richards, Gledy Badio, Cia, Nathan Crawford, Bruce Williams, William Ward, Henry Kesselly, Kolu Basseh, Purple Haze, Kapingdi, The Gardners, Psychedelic Six, Moby Dick, Christine Clinton, Mills (Police band), Mackinley A. Deshield, Jr. (the Saw) and all of you whose contributions continue to infuse fond memories in these challenging times. God Bless You All. Amen.

By: Henry Mamulu

Richard blossomed just when Normal Day Liberia reached its peak under the most normal of old Liberians, William Tubman. This was the age of the emergence of basketball at B.W. Harris as introduced by the Peace Corp Volunteer Frank Potter. Richard would later go to St. Patrick’s under Brother Austin. Andrew Pyne bluffed his way into the under garments of the Liberian society, Stanley Alpha stole that under garment, Bruce Williams and Bill Ward shot their way to immortality and Jimmy McCritty dazzled in that them under pants. It was way back in them Fancy Fair days and Jeanette Uso was the person that caught his eye then.

Angie Sherman had her Speak Easy on Mechlin Street, the Keyhole, but if you meant business, all roads led to the Wave owned by A&A Enterprises, Andrews and Adighibi, where the legendary Nina Simone of Young Gifted and Black would strip for all to see because Liberian royalty Danliette Horton called her ugly. You still got a new suit for the 26th Day Ball but was required to wear the same shoes your wore at First Communion. You prayed to God that your Ma was not Ora Mamulu, for she would cut that shoe toe and make you go dancing with Lady Richards and Ruth Weeks looking like Ole Jiminy Cricket or Chicken George!

Richard left the scene just when Old Liberia was about to disappear into the midst of forgetfulness. The emerging Gbemah Nation of Liberia has taken center stage. But who was Richard Ellis?

As we went through this Golden Age of wealth, pomp, circumstance and been-to ( Been To America) as compared to those who stayed at home (which was the vast majority of Monrovians), Richard appeared to me to be this handsome but shy lad, the younger brother of Nana Ellis and Older Brother of Nuksy Ellis, the right winger of Snapper Hill Defenders, our Soccer Team. 

At this time just back from Nigeria was the incoming Prince of Liberia, Tecumseh Roberts. Tecumseh was a singer, an entertainer and a heart throb. Even my cousin Ellen Snetter fell for his charms. But while TR sought attention, Richard seemed to shy away from it.

I was a fourth or fifth grader at St. Patrick’s Elementary and went with my brother Patrick and Cousin Fatu Dennis to a show hosted by Convent at the St. Patrick’s auditorium. Seku Sillah opened with a Marvin Gaye song, ‘Too Busy Thinking Bout My Baby”. I was shocked how this guy not much older than me sang and hit every note. Michael Itoka did Otis Redding “Champagne and Wine”, the Soulful Dynamics with Emmanuel Obiliga, Ben Mason wowed us and then came on the First Dimensions.

The First Dimensions was Tecumseh Roberts (popularly called “TR”) and next to him, Richard Ellis. They opened with a medley of songs and alongside the singing performed a masterful dance routine. TR was supposed to be the star of the show but on that day, he had to share the spotlight with local boy Richard. Richard matched TR’s every step: swivel of the pelvis, bump and grind, twist and shout, you name it. And his singing and performance shared center stage. The crowd went wild. Later, when TR swept Angie Sherman of her feet the First Dimensions flew into the atmosphere of the Fifth Dimension. Then TR had an accident, broke his nose, Richard broke his crown and Monrovia mourned as if it had visions of the Civil War.

Later in life Richard would do art quite well as a form of expression and way to make a living. The years became a little unkind to Richard. We heard talk of him being in Vietnam but I just could not see the dancing First Dimension sensation fighting in Nam. Richard will be missed by his immediate family but also his boys Charles Hoffman, Charles Wiles, Charles Brown, Alvin Gibson and all of us, Rest in Peace Sweet Prince, Rest In Peace as you soar to dimensions yet uncharted.

By: Henry Mamulu, August 26, 2019

Before my ex-wife began to rain down her “reign of terror” upon my behind without ceasing more that 25 years ago, longer that the Liberian Civil War and Biafra Conflict combined, she said these now prophetic words: “Henry, hell has no fury like a woman scorned”. I had just entered “Spurnedville” and she was already in “Scornalia”. I was “fu###d” and have been since until now.

My sweetie went on and hissed, “therefore, whatever bears your name I will make sure I give to another man”. She spewed at me venomously. To that she has remained faithful! Bless her heart!!

Now this is neither to castigate the mother of my children as I can find 100 reasons, or, as the late James Ingram’s song goes, “Find 100 Ways”; but I have chosen none, nor do I plead my innocence in the sordid mess that will seem as justification; but rather to illustrate the collective anger of womanhood when men like me are accused or found to have gone rogue.

There is a Greek story called Lysistrata about the Athenian war. The women swore that when their husbands came back from war for a breather, “they will not allow the men to raise the soles of their feet up to the ceiling”. There was a motive for that. The women were neglected because of the men’s constant engagement with wars. So in order to stop the wars, the old women (Medusa) seized control of the treasury and the young women would deny sex until the wars ended (Young Liberian Women). When the men promised to end the wars in favor of sexual gratification, the women, now recognizing the power of their abstinence and the discomfiture that sexual deprivation renders upon their men, continued to hold out until finally everyone gaves in and peace talks and celebrations were held. 

We swore in “Me, Myself and I”, Liberia during “12 Years A Slave (2006-2017)” this oath: “Never again will we make a woman President” as we sipped Small Club like twats (British faggot) and not the Large Club as men. As Christina Hoff Summers explains in her book, “The War Against Boys”, misguided policies are harming our young men. The Reign of Medusa encapsulated the essential features of an unwritten policy (not necessarily misguided) against boys and men alike so that by the time it came to a screeching halt, men had shifted to wearing silk panties while the women wore boxer briefs and tiny whities and showed you the “Fruit of the Loom” tag to prove it. 

We went further to believe especially around the Field in Barnesville, by the false spirit of Machismo that ushered in the Town Giant, that insults hurled at Medusa for 12 years by CDC and the citizenry will not be tolerated during the rule of the Town Giant especially from the “Carton Pushers” in the Diaspora. What people in Barnersville did not know was that most of their friends from the Barnerville estate living in Philadelphia and Minnesota are shit cleaners, expert in handling lumply, knotty, and watery pupu, and not Carton Pushers. 

So as man proposes God disposes; I sense an Organic Movement to restore Liberia, a movement  born deep within the womb of Liberian womanhood, a movement without a personal agenda or a presidential end-game; the Dream of nearly every Liberian Man. This Organic Movement is not carried out in the “dry and dusty wombs” of Medusa and the “Kitchen Cabinet”; the “Girls” who for 12 years gave us stillbirth males with survivors only achieving the standard of “Robert”, but in the wombs of Liberian Women, fresh with vision, fertile with ideas, filled with courage and protected by the strength that can only come from God. Indeed, in this new western front, where the resurrection of “Django” (Koijee), the “Two-Gun Kid” (Dorleh), “Charles Ponzi” (Tweah) and “Zorro” (Chea) is manifest (in Logan Town, New Georgia), it seems only God can bring true deliverance. And to see it coming from and through women, the one men swore will never see power again, is astounding. 

Of course, this New Organic Movement will find no support amongst the putrid swamp that is the womb of the Bigger Girls of The Gbemah Nation because when the Town Giant gets vex with them, they take it out on you and similarly, when the Town Giant gets vex with you, that means automatically they vex with you too. They think with their “fish”.

This movement is led by such as Leymah Roberta Gbowee the only Liberian woman to truly deserve the Nobel Prize. How they managed to group Leymah and Medusa and what their intentions were is still a mystery to “awoke” Liberians. Leymah advocated peace for Liberians while  Medusa, after being the lynchpin supporter to all of Liberia’s previous insurrections and wars, again nearly drove us during her administration to hear the sound of guns as she and her Kitchen cabinet ravished the economy as the old women had done in Lysistrata. They hated Leymah and tried to run her out of town too, but there is a God.

Then there is Telia Urey our own modern day Joan D’Arc who, on her white stallion called “Redemption”, is blazing a trail not on Dolley’s and Fahgon’s “Road to Perdition” but on a street called “Liberty”. But we all know the story of how Joan D’Arc was betrayed by the French and sold to the English. This nearly happened in district 15. Not all women are created equal because when the struggles of the likes of Telia Urey and Leymah Roberta Gbowee promises to bear fruit, “Dusty Stillbirth Wombs” and “Putrid Swamps Wombs” will try and join the parade as if they were there all along. I like the sound of Roberta in Leymah’s name.

Then there is Nyonblee K. Lawrence, Adolf’s wife and Cathedral High School adopted student. Out of her grief she stands upon Ducor Palace weeping to a new dawn “to hurry up and break now”. A dawn of equality, a dawn of peace and a dawn of justice still held hostage by the looming and ever present and dangerous darkness. Sister Jewel Darkpanah has remained the symbol of pride (for upon this rock I will build My Church) when it seemed “The False Spirit of Machismo” would reduce her  to naught. She has remained rooted, rooted in Liberian Womanhood. We will wait for MacDella Cooper, disliked also by Medusa and her kitchen cabinet, to come to herself. 

Do you remember also April 14 1979, the Police was no help to us. They will not be now.

So here we have “12 Years A Slave”, Dusty Stillbirth Wombs, Gbemah Nation, Putrid Swamp. Where is the Love? Still in and with Old Liberia!

It all started in the most unlikely, yet familiar of places, The Embassy of the United States of America where a woman rules. Look folks, America has her problems, who does not? But we are tied to this nation, the richest in the world and false pride causes us to benefit fusah from it. We looking to China, India, countries who are one pay check away from being “Third World”.

I think it was when the Police under Marc Amblah attacked CDC headquarters. It was claimed that an “assseassination attempt” was carried out against then Ambassador Weah. Yes, a sniper in police uniform was said to have shot into his car thinking the Ambassador was there. The bullet lodged into the seat of the car. However if Marc was getting high with Adolph Yancy on that day, then who ordered the hit? It seemed Medusa herself, the very same one that CDC protects today.

As the volatility of CDC rose , then Ambassador to Liberia, Linda Greenfied, called Ambassador Weah. But let me first tell you about Linda.

Linda loved and loves Liberia and thinks she is a Big Boned (pronounced Bone ned) Kru girl from Sinoe. She became so familiar with Liberia that she would sit on Defense Minister Samokai lap in meetings.  A “2 Dan” Karate Fighter, Samokai’s best kick was never in his legs. Ambassador Greenfied knew this.

Now this reminds me of an incident on Park Hill when Terry Brown and I ran the Boys dorm in 225 4M. We were walking down to the base and T. Amanda came riding her bike like Little Red Riding Hood. Terry yelled, “I wish I was that cycle seat”, as I turned and looked at him like Stephen Koffa would of the Mutual Kru Admiration Society. I never knew “The Kotos” (Terry ) had it in him! 

Back to the narrative. Ambassador Greenfield called Weah and told him he had to contain his people because “he was the next in line”. What did Ambassador Greenfield mean? Were they going to ensure the massive wave of popularity and love CDC enjoyed at the moment as the momentum to propel it into the Presidency or was she going to do everything in her power to make it happen on a personal level? After all if she could Jump start Samokai who was a Karate Fighter and owner of a legitimate liquor store, the rest of the small beer drinkers in government were nothing. 

Now here is where it gets tricky. Nearly all of these women named earlier were rumored at one time to be involved with George Weah.

I met Leymah at the funeral of Nugent Cooper ‘Frankenstein’. I sat next to the singer of the day Fulton Reeves and soon was called over to the bench that Leymah also sat on. I was introduced and we became friends however we got lost in the crowd as somebody else pulled me away. Leymah was drop-dead gorgeous with a very happy personna, the kind that only real satisfaction can give you. The next time we met was at the inauguration of President Weah.

She came running across the pitch with the most ebullient and bubbly smile. The rumors about them had long since died down and if it was real, that day she was way over him.

I interviewed Leymah and learned she had come like what seemed around the whole world to celebrate George and the hope for a better tomorrow for Liberia. We were so hopeful that day because it seemed a New Day had come for the poor of Liberia. One of her native sons had done it.

I had worked on the Presidential Campaign Team very briefly, perhaps a little over a month with Mr. Ben Urey.  His relationship with George had gone sour. There were no more riding floats together and this seemed a growing theme; if George did not get or could not continue to get what he wanted apparently the party soured fast. But however, I always got the feeling that Mr. Urey did not want him to have Liberia anyway. He foresaw a disaster. He said and felt that the country deserved better.

As we strategized, a young Telia came in. This was after the death of Kojo Anderson (“Psycho” for psychology, a coaching name) and she was now his Campaign Manager. It was apparent he loved her and she took her work seriously. As we talked she said. “I was on the beach with George until 1:30 this morning”. Ben asked, “what did he say?” as I was uncomfortable with him not asking instead, “did it have to be so late?” or “what were you doing out so late with him?” or something like that. You see, up close, both sisters are beautiful; Telia being strikingly attractive and is built and walks like the big Urey people unlike her sister Dannielle who seems more fragile and struts as a princess. And we talking about George here,  the machine himself. George’s venom is unforgiveable against Telia and her entire family. Like a mafia boss, he has ordered the “hit” on all of the Ureys political ambitions and he knows his “pit bulls” are standing by to carry it out. And for what? It seems that this beautiful, intelligent, ambitious woman has committed the ultimate sin against George, she has rejected his overtures. “So close and yet so far”.

The President of Liberia is a compound, complex character, very difficult to fathom. Yet I have  sensed a deep emotional loss; the need to be constantly loved and adored. George has slept with nearly all the beautiful girls and women in Liberia, impregnating half and marrying none. Why? This seems to be the crux of the matter.

George was grievously hurt by the June 7th Protest and could not understand how people who showed him love before, after all he has done, now protested against him. It threw him into the same emotional state I believe Samuel Doe fell into after the failed raid by his Brother Thomas Quiwonkpa.  The Liberian People called Thomas Jesus and that was what hurt Doe. Not so much the fact that Thomas came to dethrone him but rather he Thomas was seen as ‘The Savior” and not Doe. That was where George found himself on June 8th.

Once on Park Hill at the African Store I met George. Salisa Debah had just left the store with his bag of Afican food to cook and George came to get his bonnie, stock fish and pepper too to go make his soup. I told George, “Oh I saw your man Debah, the man looks fit”. George huffed “but I not fit too?” as if all glory must belong to him.

This is not a far stretch. George Weah does not like Liberian women, not enough to marry. I have not heard him being engaged to anyone of you or had seen you as a woman for him to be seen out with. Look we guys, the girl we like, we like for our man them, our boys to see us together. Yes, he likes your sufficiently to have sex with, it  makes him feel good, your are beautiful so he likes your company but to marry, never. And once again this is the crux of the matter.

The average Liberian woman from the war years showed nothing but love so why did he scorn you and marry the other? Ask yourself why. Look, real Liberian girls them will follow my drift but the Bigger Girls of the Gbemah Nation can never ask themselves this because “The wife got the ring,  they think, made to believe, but they got the man”. However, if they ask themselves why the wife is Mrs and they are not, they will be sad and broken hearted. So they settle, can attend lil sessions, drink drinks, get small thing and say they balling”. What you do not realize is men do not like women who gave it up too easily . At Least, have on some panties when you come around but soon I enter the room you flashing your Susy.  

So what happened? Well, Remember Marina Sayon, the young Kru girl Oppong took to Europe and I think it was a guy called David Treseguet (I know I spelled the last name wrong) took her from Oppong. George will never trust another Liberian woman like that with his most vulnerable state, his emotional heart.

It was his emotion that that made him speak out against the Ureys  for normally, he is silent and then he gets vex and burst his own secrets. Emotionally he said, I speak to you not as President but George Mannah Weah. No Urey will be whatever in Montserrado because ”they are wicked people”. Not Ben but Telia also had become wicked because she dares to challenge him in a  race but will not go on the beach at night anymore. “She”, my friend in his mind “had become a Marina Sayon, a Rebellious Liberian Girl”. So your the Bigger Girls of the Gbemah Nation, who will love me even to your detriment, “flog that little girl!”. He personalized it and called her a little girl. Ah Yah  I believe they did, almost to death.

Madam Gbowee spoke at the Independence Day Celebration. Whatever she said on that day and the day after, the President was customarily silent . Then he came back a week later castigating the speech and virtually called her a liar. 

In his mind she had betrayed his trust and like Marina Sayon was only good for a tongue lashing.

This Organic Movement is birthed in the Spirit. The manifestation in the Physical; Unpopularity. The Movement will never tell,nor threatened the Presidency directly as was the case on 8/20/2019 when a group of women were out in the rain spiritually telling George ”we do not love you no more”. ‘You are President and we not want your job, but to put our lappa down for you again that one there that only God”. I am told the President of Liberia met a representative of the women who read a petition and gave George his copy.  She turned to go as he extended his hand and she did not see it. I am told the President said, “but wait now, you will not respect me as a man?” It is personal between them he knows he has ABUSED THEIR LOVE, spat on it and trampled it underfoot.

A woman scorned will make you suffer and if care is not taken could go to Hell for having an unforgiving heart. They voted for George not because of his eloquence or great economic plan but because they loved him. WOW.

George got no answer for this because it is not political but spiritual.  Look man when it seemed that the Mighty Congress of Democratic Change could lose their strong hold, CDC instituted political cells in government offices. A brilliant idea. A young lady “whipped”  into a coma said they have guns and ammo buried strategically. That too is a measure to secure the Presidency but Love, show me how you get it back when it is gone. Liberia was lost to Medusa and and took on the spirit of Me, Myself and I which was given to the Gbemah Nation only to be reborn in the Organic Movement of the women.

So Liberian Women scorned by their Mr. Wonder Man are saying, “take all you got, we do not want you no more”. When will McDella join the chorus?

Now, now Minister Fahngon, Lord Mayor Koijee, read the article first before you unleash hell upon me. So, how’s my people doing oh??!!? Your doing alright?

Who remembers Oppong? Even you, Minister Fahngon, you never talked about him and what he meant to this our Presidency particularly, Africa specifically and the World in general. He was not a politician, no,  but what a baller!

For some of us we remembered “Oppong” as this pekin we grew up with and loved. A pekin who did many wonderful things for Liberia during the war years. In my Book “Calm Before the Storm” we referred to him as “Hope Itself”. He risked everything through thick and thin BACK IN THE DAY.

Some of you went to school with him. Kojo Nortey, Humphrey, Dawn, your know yourselves. Sharp kid but did not like class room business too much, only football. Apart from the year 1985, when Kevin (who was still a mama’s baby) and Dionysius Sebwe whipped him along with Salinsa, Kai Jerbo and Polo and won the High School Championship for Cathedral he was simply the Best. Then he joined the Invincible Eleven and became a star. “WHERE OUR PEKIN EH? Your remember him now?” We are hearing nothing about him and so we are wondering.

Our friend, Edison Suah, always told this story about a judge in Nimba County. “A traffic judge, when taxi drivers were brought to his court for infractions, usually by people who were friendly with him, the Judge (everybody knows each other in Liberia except the Fula and Mandingo taxi drivers. We call them foreigners.), would question them. He knew they did not speak or understand good English  and so he asked them not in Mano, Gio, or Mandingo but in English: ‘Were you driving CAUTIOUSLY (while waving his hand frantically with fury and aggression) or VIGOROUSLY (changing his gesture to one of total calm as if rubbing the head of a pet cat or the monkey they coming put in GB, a soup made in Nimba)?’ The taxi driver, inferring the meaning of those words from the gestures would reply ‘VIGOROUSLY’. By the driver’s own response on paper which was recorded in court, he would be found guilty and the records would reflect his admission of guilt. That was a funny story and we always had a good laugh about it over large Club Beers during our frequent drinking sessions. In our drunken stupor, the far reaching implications of the story escaped us.

Oppong, the king that we knew and the one who made us support the Lebanese boy Adnan video club searching for BetaMax and VHS video tapes at the corner of Carey and Gurley Streets just to get a glimpse of the greatness of the only Liberian hero to conquer every other nationality on planet earth in the ‘greatest game on earth’ seems to be  ‘warming the bench’ on a team drawn and managed by George.

George, and all that he represents and who represents him, are waving their hands forcefully as they beseech Liberians to be calm arresting Yekeh and having a Prosecutor declare him a flight risk. Acquiring wealth while protesters want more accountability. Oh, we know “Oppong” made millions. A young man got shot in the head while the Justice Department forcefully subdued Liberians “to be calm or else”, and having a supporter like Boley saying “as President, George can not say I am sorry”. That was something Medusa said, “I do not forgive”, as they assume a calm demeanor and familiar disposition. 

George as a true son of Nimba has taken on the mantle of the  Traffic Judge In a grand way. The Nimba case study is now applied in the Gbemah Nation.

Sometimes life can be like this in Liberia or, as we know it now, the ‘Gbemah Nation’. Things are vigorous on the inside but look calm on the outside.  Before you know they finish “rubbing red oil round you mouth and say your stomach foot. But behold, behold you hungry like hell”. Things are calm and filled with the joyous sound of “Ay Yah, Ay Yah” as we sing and dance and escort the President to this practice and the next. But school coming to open soon, then the vigor for school fees will begin cautiously.

This is living in Liberia, in Me, Myself and I, if you belong to Medusa Clan or the Gbemah Nation of Liberia. It deceives you. Let us take education for example. It tells you to study and trains you for a job that 9 out of 10 persons never find, a change of status that as a brass ring dangles off of the tip of your fingers, constantly, just out of reach. Tell me how many college graduates do you think long to move out of West Point, Doe Community, Buzzi Quarters but can never pull it off? But the real college graduates don’t get employed. It was never about graduating from college in the first place. And we wonder why Liberians are pissed and want kill.

I mean you go to Tubman High School where the bathroom still got the pupu left by Toyuwa from Great Ball Players last practice.  You then go to LU, survive the Palava Hut and SUP political party, graduate 7 long years later with a BA in E-CON (economics) for they fail you in P.E. and French and after 3 years you still “ain’t got rock”, or as our sister  in the diaspora on Woodland Avenue, Philadelphia can say ”make it lazy”. Da small thing?

Today, Liberia has a President, George Manneh Ousman Tinnepey Weah. You notice no “Oppong” our baby “we not know”. He sees and identifies problems, “you do not need PhD to put light pole on Robertsfield highway”. Yet he will have difficulties articulating most of the complex issues of his Presidency and substitute it by talking  down to the people or as this girl in Philly declared it, ‘’HE SPEAKS ON THEIR LEVEL”.

Nothing wrong with that but who is teaching who? What time our citizenry will rise up and take another step upwards. Everything regardless of how great they seem points downwards. You understand my direction here.

Personally, I am sympathetic to George and many of us carry this empathy. In him we still see “Oppong” the pekin who just want play ball and who became the “Greatest the world ever saw”.

We vex with President George Manneh Forkay Klohn Weah but we will vote for Oppong again.  Oppong our pekin made George President. Today his name is not even mentioned among all the names George has got.

So I am sad and will sing. “Play hard Oppong oh play had oh, play Oppong play what time you go score oh. Play hard oppong oh play hard oh”. We’re in the dying minutes now, the game is tight, Liberian people looking, stretching their necks for one of their saviors to pull Liberia from the jaws of defeat. Debah will go get the ball and start coming while Oppong will start running and looking for the ball. Defenders shaking because the whole field know, Oppong coming to score”. Aye yah, our Pekin.

Fahngon, George number two after Kewellen who is number one smoke blower will reply: “Georgie Porgie pudding and pie, kissed the girls and made them cry. When the boys came out to play, Georgie Porgie ran away”. Oppong scored but George made the children cry.

I have not gotten the sense that CDC believes in the UN and World Bank and all these organizations that actually got richer using “Oppong” to promote them when he played ball, all the while  giving him peanuts, if anything. At the peak of “Oppong’s career”, he had about a billion fans and the world made money from it. He was as big as Michael Jackson, Ronaldo and Jordan without the same amount of money behind him. Oppong was the Big DOG so we voted for him but on that day of Inauguration George was sworn in. I remember asking Jackie Appiah, the Actress, why she was there at the inauguration. Greatest Kojo had said she was his girl. For true?? She said; “I am here to support George” never mentioning Oppong, she who is a Ghana girl and the name “Oppong” is of Ghanian origin. Of Course she never mentioned “Greatest”.  

When George called his names as he was sworn in, I do not recall him mentioning the name “Oppong”. “Oppong” had served his purpose, made George king for the second time and now a concerted effort was begun to erase him as if he never was. Follow what I am explaining here. Something happened. Remember in Italy at A. C. Milan? Oppong scored but King George made the headlines.

As the Liberian War blazed as a forest fire in California during the el nino season, 250,000 Liberians lay dead out of our paltry 2.5 million population. The World decided to step in and do a concert and they will use “Oppong” as the unofficial face but use a white guy as the official sponsor. They chose “Luciano Pavorotti” the Opera singer. He had the proper credentials, rich, famous, lived in Milan, Italy, knew all the right people and was, did I mention? White. But there was an elephant in the room with a billion fans, blacks, white, yellow, who had just scored a goal from one end of the field to the other in 10 seconds, “Oppong”.

Dr. Joe Diggs explained it like this to me. He was there at the San Siro Stadium, the home of AC MILAN. “Elton John and Stevie Wonder had sung to thunderous applause and now the Spice Girls were on stage doing their thing when it was flashed on the  screen that our pekin “Oppong” had entered the stadium. The audience filled with Princes and Princesses, rock stars, billionaires, millionaires who were there “two for five” started murmuring. The music stopped and it was as if God has entered his holy temple and the Earth fell silent as they looked for “Oppong”. When they found him they all, Elton John, Stevie Wonder, Spice Girls and all the Princes and Princesses made a line to shake his hand.

When I returned to Liberia in 2012, I was unemployable and used music to feed and keep me  afloat as it always had in my hour of need. My musician, Eddie Gibson; the venue, Sam Gibson’s Crystal Palace in Mamba Point. Guess who was the Liberian Musician at San Siro during the Concert for Liberia,  Eddie Gibson. God knows how to do it.

The Liberian delegation to this concert that could have made at least 1 billion dollars was led by Myrtle Gibson and Sam Gibson, The Friend of the President. They were given no less than 3 million dollars, Eddie and the Refugees, fart, Oppong, rock. “Oppong” saw how they exploited Liberia  taking money meant for us and using it on perhaps Afghanistan or Southern Sudan but he did not let it bother him. He had a game coming up and they will pay. But it was George who remembered and recorded the entire slight and remembered the disillusionment. You see George holds everything to heart. If he heard you said something or gave an advice he did not like, he remembered it and held it in his heart and waited for the moment to use it against you. True son of Medusa.  No wonder he calls her Ma.

You see “Oppong” will fight for Liberia. It was he who paid your way to the game on a chartered jet, took care of refugees in Ivory Coast. But George only remember the time he could not go to the dance because his scobbies was busted and stopped speaking to everyone who was at the dance up to now. He did not give Liberians rock and allowed his pride and poor judgement to deny Liberia her place at the World Cup.

“Oppong” became a millionaire when he was 21 but George never forgot when he was sleeping on the floor and therefore has the need for houses now.

Sam Gibson came home, took the money, bought his land and built Crystal Palace. The money was for Soul Clinic. Understand my anger, understand my rage. Who will take care of these people now that “Oppong”  does not play anymore? 

“Oppong” became Ambassador for UNICEF after the famed Actress Audrey Hepburn retired from the position. He was mostly ceremonial, used to cheer up the sick or refugee kids but his opinion was never sought. It was George, Bad George who sat quietly, watched how they used “Oppong” and bided his time to show his feelings. As “Oppong’s” career drew to a close, George became more dominant and visible until one night Taylor spotted him manifesting himself in “Oppong”. When Liberia played Ghana in our biggest fiasco, it was George who drew the team and had made himself the manager prior to the game. Just as it was George who refused to meet the protesters, wants Yekeh arrested and said. “As long as I am President”.

So where is “Oppong”? He sleeps under a tree at Jamaica Beach. Acurus Gray blows weed not “Blood” but “Tangbe” weed mixed with paupau leaf, and “LOBETO” from Freetown smoke in his face all day and keeps him weak. Fahngon stops by with Muna and this rouses him momentarily for he likes Muna and she likes him too. She remembers her days as a struggling Model and all his assistance. A call from Oppong and she did not have to do what those guys wanted her to perform just to put her on the runway in Paris. They did it because the man who made money for all of them called on her behalf.

But not Bad George. He wants her to bring his water, scratch his back and  treats her like his kitchen girl and will not even take her out to dinner before he wires her. Not “Oppong”, everytime he came by it was roses, jewelry, I mean such a sweet boy but not Bad George. “And ACARUS THINKS she does not know he can be under the bed spying when they wiring her, squirming around with his short self?

“But poor girl here, what will I do?” “I do not do what they want  and the next election they will hold someone else hand and say make her our next Senator for my sake”. “Oh Looka, Remember how they treated Seah Tandenpole?”  “Then people will vote for that person who hand they held thinking that they voting for a friend of “Oppong” not knowing he sleeping under the tree”.

“So what will we do when everyone scared that Bad George will take their job in this hard Monrovia or as we have coined it: “Me, Myself and I” in the Gbemah Nation of Liberia? “For me, pu aah,  I rather be his kitchen girl than hustling for contracts in this The Gbemah Nation of Liberia. They will not give you the steam from their piss because everything got to go through his office. Oh, you jek?”  “So we will wait my son.”

“Soon Election Time comes again, then he will call. ‘Muna’, Just like I staying with him. Muna, come here, wake up ‘Oppong’. Ah yah, that the only time they need him now oh. Sometimes in his sleep he can be calling for one Dawn girl but she fool to come here?  I do not know if she even living. Then he will yell again: We need him to wake up and go fool the Liberian people again to think they voting for their beloved super star ‘Oppong’ because that the only way we will stay in power. Then I will go use my mouth to revive him because that one there, that my area. Then Oppong will go out and win it for George again”.

THE KING IS DEAD, LONG LIVE THE KING! Amen and Amen! 

By: Henry Mamulu – June 01, 2019

Romans 13 (verse 1): Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. (verse 2) Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. In essence we will respect the king, however when the king rejects God, a little child will declare, “Your look, the King naked”!

Who started it first? Reminds me of when we were Young. People encouraging a fight pretended to pick the hair off off of your head and put it on the opponent’s head. And if the agitation did not rise to fight level then your opponent’s hair came to your head and this would go back and forth for a while until either you fought, or opted out of the fight. Looking back, I cannot  for the life of me, recall the significance of the hair transfer that brought so much anxiety to the situation but as a stimulus for a raucous confrontation, it sure worked.

So the hair for this June 7th nonviolent protest was taken from where on Costa and his supporters and was put where on CDC? Things that make you go hmm.

My older and wiser uncle once told me, “if they like you, they will open doors for you: if they do not like you, they will spit you out and step on you. While under their feet, they will squish you and grind you until you are not able to rise up again”. After so many years, I have come to understand those words. They have not changed how I approach the challenges of my daily personal and professional challenges, but they have given me the tools to recognize or at least rationalize the undulations in my life. The question I now ponder is: now that we’ve exchanged hairs and drawn the dividing line, have our tempers risen to the level of confrontation or can we opt out of the fight?

On December 24, 1989, President Samuel Doe announced on ELBC that Charles Taylor had crossed into Liberia with single barrel shotguns. I was 34 going on 35 and although I had been in Liberia during the 1980 coup d’etat, the Weh Syen episode, the Flanzamaton 50 Calibre Pajero Jeep fiasco, the Quiwonkpa failed invasion in addition to several other small skirmishes, I was not alarmed. Kedrick Brown, who rose to the highest technical rank of any Liberian in LAMCO, had seen enough in 1986 when the new head of the PPD, Charles Julu, a Krahn designate, wilfully took the law into his own hands and meted out harsh and sometimes fatal “justice” within and without the concession confines. I was there when he came to Monrovia during his final departure. I am not sure how it was relayed to me, but I must not have seen any cause for alarm then. And so on that fateful Christmas Eve, when Doe was announcing an invasion with 2 single-barrel shotguns, I did what most people in Monrovia did: breathe a sigh of relief and asked Mr. Charles Taylor: “what took you so long? We been waiting ever since”.

Exhilaration followed in Monrovia in early 1990 as Taylor’s forces seemed to be going from strength to strength, or as they might say at Church Forkay Klohn, “Glory to Glory”, relying, we were told, only on weapons captured from government forces as they went to Nimba to engage the ‘rebels’. The naivety of Liberians was on full display as open and defiant support for Taylor pervaded the capital, the most flagrant being the bumper sticker that read “Chucky’s Coming” and “Chucky Did It” and depicting the face of the evil doll from the 1980s horror movie “Chucky”. It appeared on many cars but mostly on taxis. Looking back, I think this was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Doe had had enough of our insolence and just as quickly as they had appeared, they disappeared along with some of their owners. It was now around March 1990 and the first real signs of tension for us novices had arrived. But we were not panicked. Things went downhill from there quickly and by June, Monrovia seemed to be under siege. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (or as I mostly refer to her, “Medusa”), entered the fray and declared that Charles Taylor should bring the executive mansion down and they would build it back in response to Doe’s towering resistance which I think was not expected. The funny part had arrived for us and it was no fun. Corpses, friends and strangers, littered the streets. We watched spontaneous executions of the most gruesome kinds. One very popular method was to tie the elbows at the back until both elbows touched each other. That would stretch the skin of your chest and stomach to their upper limits. Thereafter, the application of a sharp knife or even a slight puncture of a pin would tear open the bowels of the victim, who watched his/her intestines and organs spill into the open. The remaining life of the victim would be spent looking at his/her own innards and waiting to die while in excruciating pain. It was called “tarbay”. I personally witnessed one instance where, after the entire exercise, as if that were not gruesome enough, the intestines were pulled straight and stretched across the road as the rope of a checkpoint. I never found out the owners of the two fresh skulls that were used as the crown of the posts that supported the intestines at each end of the crossing. You fool to ask? This scenario was not the exception. IT WAS THE RULE!! AND it was horrible!!!

This year, if we are not careful, our Christmas Eve is coming in June. June 7 to be exact, when we anticipate that we must forcefully make a point to the duly elected President of Liberia, George Weah.

However, George can be vexing at times and seem to be doing fine on Cloud Nine while Liberia is held together only by his massive popularity. He seems ignorant to the fact that not all Liberians are CDCians and therefore stomachs are not full from just looking at him , school fees not paid when he waves and fo not get well by seeing his shadow.

In Monrovia, many can testify that life has become extremely difficult. They say many families are eating chicken soup daily these days, without the chicken. Simple things like lime and bitter kola are unaffordable and mango plums, once sold for 50LD a pile, will run you 50LD each. And they picked it from your tree and brought it back to you to buy! Human traffic has reduced by at least 50 percent and automobile traffic by a similar amount. I watched the Champions League and Europa semi finals at my favorite Monrovia sports bar, the Red Lion at the corner of Broad and Buchanan Streets…ALONE. Even I am having difficulty meeting my monthly obligations. I stare in the faces of hungry, starving and hopeless people everyday, a heart wrenching experience. Yesterday I was able to help. Today, that option is gone. Multiply that by thousands more.

Coupled with this is news of outright stealing. 16 billion Liberian dollars and then 25 Million US dollars and now “borrowing” of donor funds and trying to justify the horror of it “that other administrations did it too”.. They want us to believe that this was done through standard banking and financial transactional procedures. The optics are bad but the reality is even worse because it has now impacted the pockets of almost all of the citizens and you can see it in the streets. Only the diehard CDCians are still applauding, singing and dancing “for as long as there is Weah, all is well”. How did we get here and how do we get out of this highly undesirable situation for the majority of Liberians? Well, the not so good news is that we have been here before and so maybe we can learn from history.

By 1989 leading up to the 1990 war, it was not only Charles Taylor’s bravado that sent the population into a frenzy, it was also the economic strangulation that brought severe hardships to the people. As I explained earlier, the invasion was a highly popular one but most people had not heard of Charles Taylor until Doe began mispronouncing it as ‘Char Tilla’ on that fateful Christmas Eve in 1989. People who were born as far back as 1980 would have been too young to understand the similarities between the two but we did experience equally difficult times, although for different reasons. Today, I still have my savings bond representing two months of my salary that I will never see and many other payments to NICOL, NASSCORP formerly NSSWC and other agencies. The government was “dryfacedly” taking our money and using it up just as is happening today. The seven corner Doe coin was heavy and losing value just as is happening with the LD today.  Somewhere we wrote that for not dealing with the global economic systems but trying to find alternative sources, Weah was going to experience economic downturn, political backlash, and even military discipline. Two out of three have happened so far.

Under Doe,  the population was dispersed all over the country and there was no social media. Charles Taylor had to start from Butuo. And now, after the war has changed the demographics of the country, it is no longer necessary to decimate village after village. Liberia or The Gbemah Nation of Liberia is the village named Ducor. One-third of Liberia’s population resides in Ducor. All the chickens are in the coop.  All the sheep are in the fold awaiting the slaughter and social media gives us the false impression that we are in the majority. So right now, if KPETEE (Fighting) broke out, all the rest of the world need to do is fix popcorn, get some beer and favorite chair, and watch the show in Liberia. If I didn’t know better, I’d say that some clever person has planned the mass destruction of Liberians, assembled us in one place and dropped the seeds of hate and division among us. This time we don’t need guns. We are all together. This is close combat. Machetes (cutlasses) will do! Rwanda had 30 days in April. Liberia’s story will be entitled “One week in June” and we writing it already.

And so, on that fateful June 7 day, as protesters took to the streets armed with an ample supply of T-shirts, banners, flags, water bags and ‘chucky coming’ bumper stickers, I sat and wondered how these people, who couldn’t afford a decent meal yesterday, were able to acquire all that was necessary to launch such a successful protest? As it is now, those whose families will send ‘small thing” to help them, they will take out “The Protest Money”. That’s what they want us to think. The activities behind the scenes are far more expensive, elaborate and sinister.

All that logistical preparation, lobbying and offshore preparation is more expensive than the flags and t-shirts. In my mind, it will come from the same place that the Chucky stickers came from except instead of hitting the market gradually, they appear all at once on that day. By the time Doe realized the pervasiveness of the bumper stickers, some of us quickly removed them from our cars. That saved us. There is no gradual progression to this one. They appear all at once on June 7. You are in the protest. There is no time to back track. And like the day of the Rapture, “there’s no time to change your mind, the Son has come and you’ve been left behind”. You disappear with your sticker. You better mind!

When they started to bring Liberia down and fooled your saying it was only the True Whig Party, the investors, the Sponsors of the Movement and subsequent Coup d’etat,  utilized French Cables to communicate with the Judases within, the Progressives. They used two runners as they planned April 14, 1979, H. Boimah and John Stewart. For John, a boy from Mamba Point, Teacher Stewart son was misled into thinking he was bringing in multi-party democracy. He was hanging with Joe Guanu who had whipped him at Saint Patrick’s Elementary, and Gabriel Bacchus, President Tolbert’s Godson. They all had visions dancing before their eyes about what the New Liberia will be like under their rule. To hell with the fact he was friendly with the children of everyone one who died. It was his time to do something important in Liberia. Now what is left? We meet at morning Mass two Old Soldiers, we remember our youth , we hug, each of us praying to God for forgiveness and hoping we could start all over again.   Today, somebody is still fooling you on FACEBOOK, making you believe that only the truth appears there.

And make no mistake about it, there are diehard George Weah supporters within this urban dwelling one-third population. Even if they happen to be 10 percent of the Monrovia population that is still over one hundred thousand people. One hundred thousand people who cannot imagine what a post George Weah life would be like.

The thought of “a Cooper or Dennis Presidency”, is the recurring, sweaty,  nightmarish dream they awake from and into the brilliant reality of the sound of “AH YAH AH YAH”. And all is well again as the drums from ‘Gbekugbe” rings in another Jor Weah day. And since our donor funded and NGO enhanced agriculture projects have supplied nearly everyone with a machete (cutlass) for ‘farming’ during the 12 years of Medusa, and we still get our pepper and bitter balls from trucks coming from Guinea and Sierra leone, well, what can I say? Happy harvesting as Heads and Kpangoi will literally roll.

Liberians, we’ve been through a lot but we are blind and have refused to learn from our experiences.

And for some of us we noticed about a year and half ago the appearance around Monrovia and even the rural areas,  a poster with a cut off fist bleeding at the wrist. I remembered wondering out loud the origin of this image on a road trip to Cape Palmas at a time when machetes appeared to be everywhere in the rural area but not a cup of Country Rice or Pepper was found by us in the trip in Nimba.

Folks, we need to rethink our method of handling this situation. Shucks, the money that we’re talking about is nothing compared to the billions that passed through this country during the prior twelve years before Weah’s presidency. I am not saying that the one today is insignificant. I believe that those responsible for the missing money must be made to atone for their sins. We have all come to agree that the President might not be the most astute person on the block. The dynamics of this administration is not like in Medusa’s time where she was the mother and directed her children, this one is more like we have put our famous and successful child in power and now he is looking to mama and papa to tell him what to do next. Instead of guiding their child properly, they are greedy and is using their child to accomplish their self aggrandizing goals. But we can all recall when we went to visit the girl in your class and her Ma drove us and called us a ‘pisty boy” because she wanted the girl to have God Pa and support the house although she was only in 10th grade.

So they steal millions and billions thinking that they will get away with it. To guarantee that they will not be disciplined, at least by the state, they make sure to include their child in their crimes. That way, they feel, he has eaten the ‘cafu’ and now they are immune.

George Weah, like Michael Jackson, is a celebrity who is where he is by circumstance. There is nothing calculated or calibrated, he has just rolled downhill in an avalanche of circumstances and ended up as Liberia’s president, all the while relying on the advice of his different managers as he has done all throughout his career. Today his Karika, Wenger and Sidibe are mostly Tweh, McGill and Chie, the managers who are supposed to lead him to a successful Presidential career. The difference is, in his football career, he was the greatest player on earth and so his talent spoke for itself. His managers relied on his performance for success. In this new scenario, he has to rely on his managers and unlike his role in the previous arrangement, his managers have no skills and cannot perform. The one overwhelming fact is his popularity with the Liberian people. This is what is ‘saving the state’ right now. However, eventually one little child will say,’Mama look oh, the Emperor naked oh and his blocus, (Kpangoi, Nut Bag) cut”.

Medusa on the other hand cannot understand why, after the Nobel Peace Prize, Mo Ibrahim award and numerous other undeserved accolades bestowed upon her by the international community, King George continues to be more popular in Liberia. The same thing drove her mad with jealousy about  Taylor and the Liberian people up to and including 1997. Thereafter her mission was to destroy him once and for all. It wasn’t an event, it was a process that took years of planning and execution along with her supporters. In the end, Taylor was too popular with the Liberian people. They had to expose their poker hand. George Bush threatened direct intervention and after they evacuated the most popular Liberian president to Nigeria, he mesmerized gullible Liberians with his ‘country devil’ dance with Medusa at the mansion and we were ‘sold’.

As Weah’s star soars in the country among common folks , she is hated more by common people. If the true story were told, the possibility that he won the 2005 and 2011 elections but relinquished them under pressure might come out but this seemed especially true in 2011 when, as VP to Winston Tubman, he declared irregularities in the first round and urged his constituents not to turn out to vote in the next round. The numbers were in his favor and Medusa did not get any more votes in the second round than she did in the first. King George’s popularity soars above Medusa in Liberia and now has become the only potential stumbling block to whatever nefarious actions Medusa, The Progressives and their young apprentices plan to unleash on Liberia next. It is this popularity that one day Weah will miscalculate. At this time, he should not have disrespected the non-CDCians with  pre recorded speech. The nation needed a heartfelt appeal for calm from its leader and got none. He was sure they will forgave him for this also along with everything else he does and will do. And you know what? They will.

There is no one in Liberia that does not believe that Medusa did not control the outcome of the 2017 elections in Liberia, engineering it against her Vice President, Joseph N. Boakai. From my previous article “End Game”:‘That Young girl helped George Weah to become the 25^th President of Liberia and not her Vice-Chair….. George Weah just wanted to be called ‘Preszo’. He accepted her proposal, called her Mama and promised her Freedom from prosecution and persecution which she otherwise was deserving of’.

It was not that Weah could not have gotten the numbers at the polls, but the ultimate victor would not be determined by those numbers as they never were. The determination would be made by Medusa, as had been effected in 2005 and 2011, not merely for the protection earlier noted, but also it seems, to keep in the crosshairs the only challenge to Medusa’s popularity and make sure that it is destroyed once and for all. She intended for Oppong to hear in his sleep, ”ehn you know I made you President eehn”, when in reality his popularity had already done that for him.

Medusa knows exactly what she is doing and who she is using to carry out the dastardly deeds. Bear with me here for a second. Antoinette Sayeh, after her term as finance Minister was moved into the World Bank. Amara Konneh was also rewarded, moving into a regional African supervisory position at the World Bank and now using this platform to boost his popularity for a future presidential bid. These people are qualified for the positions that they have ascended to but their ascendancies do not appear random. After his Tenure as Economic Advisor to Medusa for the first three years of her first term, Lawrence Clarke, A Guyanese born economist, ascended to the job of Regional head of the World Bank for Equatorial Guinea, Namibia and other countries in that part of Africa. Lawrence Clarke had also worked in Liberia during the 1980s on the failed MUDP project. In effect, he was what was described as an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins in his book, “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man”.

Weah’s Finance Minister is not an unknown as he would like you to believe. He understands what he must do to earn his next upward move or to protect what he is now amassing. He has already told the public, in defense of his $21,000.00 air ticket, that he served in the United Nations in some capacity. In addition, he is one of the three founding professionals of the MCC (Millenium Challenge Corp) in Liberia. He has been keeping ‘good company’ while retaining the culture of the ‘Gbemah Nation’. Perfect cover?

Let us talk so and talk so. The Protest set for June 7th is a great thing that the constitution backs. However, the language from some of the principal leaders of the Protest smells of arrogance. “Just wait until I get in Liberia, those buggers will see”. “We will be armed with single-barrel shotguns and will be well protected”. It is pure provocation and seems as a challenge of a personal nature which Jeff Koijee will be happy to meet. Then listen to Darius Dillon,  he will dump Costa as soon as he can see his way clear to becoming a Legislator. Then there are others in the Protest who will not listen to Costa but have their own agenda. There are many old friends of Weah who are simply jealous of his success. Still there will be outright looters who see this June 7 protest as the perfect opportunity to ply their trade and ”deliver the pregnant Monrovia”

But my greatest fear is that this stage that is being set must bear fruit and the fruit is not necessarily sweet. There are so many case studies around the world where violence has been forced out of what would have otherwise been a peaceful protest. In the most recent case of the Ukraine, this led to the fleeing of the president, Yanukovitch, the division of the country and a prolonged and bloody civil war. Sometimes the desired outcome of the creation of civil uprising (usually quoted as ‘peace’, ‘compromise’ or even ‘democracy’) is not the intention of the supporters of the activity. Be careful that you are not infiltrated by ‘agitators’ whose sole intent will be to fuel the flames of dissent. During the protest. In the Ukraine, it appeared to be hidden snipers, shooting people on both sides of the divide. This is documented here:

(https://www.globalresearch.ca/february-2014-kiev-maidan-snipers-western-backed-oppositions-false-flag-study/5499379?utm_campaign=magnet&utm_source=article_page&utm_medium=related_articles).

I have no doubt that every side is going into this with the best of intentions but beware of the strangers in your midst.

Then there are the Progressives, nearly all who are alive today are PhD holders as compared to CDC dropout of high schoolers, (El Presidente), College (Koijee and I think Acarus Gray who acts like a drop out because nothing he does or says makes sense) are prepared to take orders from CDCians just to be on what appears to be the winning side.

H. Boima, who served under Medusa will be given the position of what? Now that he joined CDC? He and the other Progressives have become CDCians because this is the last chance they have to fulfill that ultimate dream, ”the Final Destruction of Their Congo Rivals”. Barring that, there is another fundamental difference between CDC and the Progressives. The CDC may actually be intending to do good for the people and the country but are limited and don’t know how. The progressives on the other hand have always wanted to destroy Liberia and know exactly how they will do it. Their long term plan started over 40 years ago and continues today with gradual contextual changes. Even if CDC does not have Liberia’s destruction on their agenda for June 7th, the Progressives will place it there as they will embroil everyone in a conflagration of hate and unforgiveness. That is who and what they are, “consuming fire” a fire that will blaze onto the very altar of Fokay Klohn.  Can you just see them sitting back and watching the show?

Then there is that Die Hard core of CDCians led by The Pit Bull, Jefferson Koijee. They call it “The Youth Wing”. He leads the ones who will fall off of the pickup, gets rolled over by a passing car, hobbles up from the pain for it will hurt, runs back to the waiting pickup, all the time being encouraged by friends and fellow partisan. If they feel Jor Weah is threatened, they will fight for him  to the end for it was through him their lives became significant, NOT RICH! For ordinary CDCians, it is about the appearance of effecting genuine changes that affects their daily lives. Let their bosses get rich, they do not care as long as you are not in power. Poverty for CDC is a small inconvenience as long as Jor Weah, Chief Koijee and Boss man Morlu are in power.

On June 7th, 12 noon, Costa, draped in his assumptions and resources (and who can blame him, considering where he started from) and foreign capital and supporters who refuse to hear, “the GOL is not being asked to step down”, Darius The Unfinished Dillion, who never completed school, the one whose Political Party was a BridesMaid at the Ball, Urey trying to live through his daughter, Cummings “finally, I now stay long enough” will strut down Broad Street each filled with their own vision and seeing their personal dream like a young girl rocking her waist in front of them. No two vision will be alike but like sailors lost at sea and feverish with the lure from the beat of the political drum shall plunge headfirst into a mist called “Save the State”. Brumskine, the “bat” in the show, will, true to character, probably not show up. Who knows who his handlers are?

Perhaps I am jealous of them as we all grew up dreaming to do something great for Liberia and this June 7 Protest has the potential to become life changing. Perhaps it is I who am feverish after having my realities turned around so many times after making plans for Liberia and watching them take a downward spin because of one upheaval or another. Till now some of us have bought our burial plots wherever we find ourselves for this one thing is sure, ’majority of us born in Liberia will die outside of Liberia and be buried where we fall”. That my people is the triumph of Ellen Sirleaf and the Progressives and not even they saw that far.

Nadi Nah my student is contemplating upon retiring,  which West African or East AFRICAN COUNTRY TO move to. We have driven the poor girl from her mother’s land. How many more want to bring their children home but are scared of the Boggie men like Prince Johnson or Kewellen Dolleh.

Oh I know Costa will come from out of the mist see the the unrecognizable faces and realize “for true I can be Prezzo, Fedel, here your pekin oh”, Dillon, ’yea man 15,000 usd every month, 45,000 USD to prepare myself, club beer suffer in my hand’, Urey ‘aye God, let them not see me and vote for Talia’, Cummings, “Ah Shorty”. While at the corner of Center and Broad, Koijee will be waiting for them and saying, “bow wow”!

It will be like an old Cowboy show, where the hero and bad man meet in the center of town and shoot it out. Your already now pick side so find your seat because the Hatai Shop will be busy and we hope not bloody on the 8th.   

So let us end where we began. God delegates His power to the authorities for the public good, not merely to the president but to ALL in authority. Because of this we voted Weah for President because he seemed ready to do the most public good being a public man himself. We knew Cummings had good plans but he was not a public but Corporate Man so we did not vote him. If Urey had run as a Taylor boy not his own man he could have won. But he just seemed to dislike MacArthur the public’s popular man and politician. Prince is mad. Who will make him President?

Our success is as the day and is followed closely by our failure the night. We are allowed to dance at our success as long as it was daylight and then they punished us as soon as it got dark No wonder Me, Myself, And I (Monrovia under Medusa) was dark, dank, and scary.

Being the first has not helped Liberia as it should but instead made our enemies to plot our failure. For, left to itself, Liberia was poised to lead the nations free and this was unacceptable. Black men being made free by black men and being governed successfully by black men, can not be allowed this must never be. And so they make you think that we are our enemies and we must kill each other. It was not true in 1980 AND IS NOT TRUE NOW. You got unhinged by your color, tribes, region and station. A lie was told to you and, like Esau before you hungry from the field, you were told “we will give you dry rice and oil if you embrace this lie”. That lie, that Krahn is the enemy of Gio, Bassa that Nigi and Kpelle just Stupid but all your enemy that the Congo will kill you.

Oppong is vexing because he is stubborn. He is stubborn because he is self made. As I posited in my previous article and discussed briefly in previous paragraphs, this first black African republic cannot succeed and cannot be seen to have succeeded at any time during its history. Its success would be proof positive of Africans’ ability to govern themselves. Rather than getting rid of our leader, we should demand the leadership and power that God has delegated to be used to exact punishment on those that have gone against God’s ordinance. Joseph Boakai was not a progressive and there was no progressive popular enough to beat Jor Weah and continue the progressive agenda after Medusa so they had to concede. But Jor Weah and his popularity stands in the way of the progressive agenda and therefore must be completely decimated if Medusa must have her way. Audit reports and other investigations have already revealed who the real culprits are. If you think Jor Weah got the head to plan a 25 Million heist or engineer the diversion of the donors money then I will sell you some nice fertile land in the Sahara Desert. Demand punishment from your leader. Demand restitution but that is not so important. Liberia is a rich country. Fly was living before dog ear cut. And spare Liberia the damnation that the bible has promised. This time, our protest must put our leader on the right track rather than give us reason to ‘tarbay’ each other.

Liberia is willing to forgive our superstar football hero for anything but that immunity does not extend to all of the “gbe-kakays” that he chooses to surround himself with. He should therefore either decide to deal drastically with the irresponsible criminals that he has considered as friends and employed at the highest levels of his government or go down with them. It would be a shame if he decided to go down with them because his popularity with Liberians is the only thing that has the potential to undermine the evil influences of Medusa but he would be opting to use it to destroy Liberia.

The most popular utterance these days among potential protesters is: “WE DAY ONE WHO DRESS THE DEVIL INSIDE, NOW WE COMING NAKED THE DEVIL OUTSIDE”. I pray Prezzo thwart this so that the real devil will be undressed because the devil does seem to be in a dress. Liberians! Open your eyes!!

Woof Woof!!

By: Henry Mamulu

There can be no tribute to Fulton that excludes his brothers and early Monrovia. They are all tied together with cords that cannot be broken. Just as you can not talk about Tofune and leave out Tito or Darpoh. But the one who popularized the sons was Sekely. No Butchie without mentioning Connie, Jimmy and Ian or Amanda.

It was the year of the Biafra war and I imagined Port Harcourt looked no different from Stalingrad when Hitler attacked Russia in WW11. The Supremes had just made the song “Love Child” and St. Theresa’s Convent on Randall Street hosted her annual Bazaar. Food had come from what seemed as all over the world and I along with S.S. Brown, and Lawrence Parker bought a cup of canned pawpaw (papaya) preserved in honey. It ran our guts for the rest of the weekend.

I wore a pair of pink bell bottom trouser that my tailor had made and a pink shirt. On the left breast of the shirt was a button I bought from “Big Apple Underground’ a store on Broad Street some Black Jews had opened. It was way too expensive for me so I bought pins, buttons, whatever, just to say I bought from that store. My button read “Save The Children of Biafra” and around my head a bandana that said “Love Child”. I was Liberia’s first and only hippie I felt, and protester of the war in Biafra.

I was bold on social issues but extremely shy on the personal side; a man of contradictions. I could sing live in public before strangers at the drop of a hat with no reservations but was too shy to ask the girl who clapped for me for a dance and so I sat alone most of the time and observed.

The most dominant force in high school sports at that time about 1967-1968 was Naomi Johnson, standing at about 5’11’’ and weighing perhaps 180 and wearing size 12, she was a beast.  However she had a younger more talented sister, Laurene. Laurene would become a supermodel in New York and France but this day she was just another tomboy like Fefe Weeks or Adelaide Roberts.  Laurene a 5th or 4th or 6th grader had a boyfriend that everyone admired. Oh, how I longed to be like him, you know able to tell the girls I love you. He was younger than I was and his name Jack.

At the Bazaar, Jack and Laurene held hands and walked around Convent to the delight of all. Jack grew up to become Ernest, and then Jacka, Mighty Barrolle’s Super Star. The first Reeves.

Before this, I had joined the YMCA and was a proud member of Tadpoles and had just graduated to Y Midgets. We were all in the shower, Bruce Williams perhaps the BEST Baller of All Times, Bill Ward the Legendary shooter and this kid not older than me but hung out with these big boys. He was fearless and asked which group in the YMCA I belonged to. I said Midgets and he threw me out of the shower because they were all Young Lions. He would go on to lead C.W.A to the finals with a broken wrist, fight Jim Holder and become my brother. He was called by many names. “D. Reeves” – the D was for defense. Those not in the know said “Z Reeves”. When the great Bruce Williams left Liberia, he bequeathed his nickname “Sneakers” to Vivian. It was a great honor within the circles. “Von Studenberg” was another but at home he shed his greatness and was simply known as “Junior”. The second Reeves.

So a tournament was organized at the YMCA. 5-6 TEAMS. I was on a team with with Abu Darrah a.k.a Abrakadabra, “the last medicine man”. A kid joined us, a real YMCA baby, bold,  fearless, did what he wanted to do but when he kicked the ball against the wall and was suspended for two months, it dampened our relationship. I was a follower of the rules then. He went on to lead Mighty Barrolle to the basketball Championship, taking over from Jimmy McCritty at Monrovia College, founded Great Ball Players basketball team and became the Liberian basketball Legend. Affectionately know as R.R., he was the third brother Reginald Reeves. The boys were great!

So I started visiting the Reeves home, Old Man Reeves loved for me to go to the farm with him and Junior because when I “knocked my head”, my eyes did not get red. Mrs. Reeves liked me because I was respectful. I came from a home not a house.

It was the vacation of 1968 and we were having the time of our lives. No one was looking for vacation job, it you found one you left by 12. A bottle of club was 75 cents and no one drank it. We all drank small beer 50 cents. ACS SChool was getting popular and people were having coming out parties for their young children. These parties lasted until 12 midnight.

There was a younger son at the Reeves household, Mrs. Reeves handbag. All day she called him and all day he answered yes Mammie and ran to carry out her errand. The Reeves lived in a frame house on Camp Johnson Road, a real Busubasa (Old Congo House). No body seemed richer than their friend.

Grambling College, the Black American School had come to Liberia for Tubman’s Birthday. They brought the Marching band and those boys played  everything on the radio except high life. “Jackson Five , Ball Of Confusion” oh Monrovia was upside down and we were in the thick of it. Well off, poor off, dirt poor all cooked early in the morning, ate soon, and  was was out in the streets to secure your spot to see the floats, bands, snake babies, country devil, Liberian army and US Marines march by. It started at the mansion where everyone did a “pass in review” before William V. S. Tubman. We had an old car that we parked on the sidewalk. The Liberian and American General Staff passed, followed by Grambling College and we threw our old car right behind it to the roar of Monrovia. In the car were, Vivian Reeves, Chuku Anderson, Charles Martin, Rudi Eadie, Henry Mamulu, Nukunu, Richard the Pepper Brain Wah, Hillary Brewer, Taweh Sweet Baby Sonpon and Reeves brought his ma HANDBAG Fulton Desmond Reeves.

Fulton graduated from high school at 15 years in 1973. He taught to enjoy songs like ‘Neither one of us” by Gladys Knight. Like most Monrovia boys at the time, I was into rock music. We followed Jimmy Yhap, Martin Johnson and Daniel Boone and were Purple Haze Groupies.  Too young to hang with us groupies and the Junior Temps, he would find his own niche, developing an operatic voice that became the performance staple for most important occasions in Liberia. Up until I left Liberia about a year plus ago, Taweh Anderson and I called upon Fulton regularly. He got up from his bed, bought beer for us and drank some with us. His passing brings to an end an era and ushers in an age where uncertainty will become common place for most Liberians. Rest in peace Desmond.     

By: Henry Mamulu, May 2019

The beginning of anxiety is the end of faith so “all who live in fear, arise and shine for the Lord is here, He is risen and will defend you. Your enemies have become your footstool”.

It is important that you comprehend why the coup of 1980 never appeased the hunger of the ‘raging beast’. The heathen raged and still imagined a ‘vain thing’. The Good Book said it was because the leaders had failed the people. It gave rise to the beast that was a spirit and manifested itself in the disillusionment of a dissatisfied people and made them to be as heathens. Just as Satan acted as a roaring Lion going to and fro looking for whom to devour.

Understand, stop and think. Oh you may hear but you have a choice to listen to the voice of reason or listen to the empty drum as it rolls downhill. You are not the mass of asses but rather human beings made in the image and likeness of God.

Not long after the Coup, The Vice-Chair of the PRC Thomas Weh Syen ‘fell out’ with Doe. Weh Syen was a pure and dedicated revolutionary and wanted to put to an end the memory of the Congo People for good. “Kill Them All”. Doe wanted an Afro, wanted to love to the Congo daughters and eat Cornbread and Liver Gravy while building a nation for the Liberian People in which he could enjoy his newfound privileges and rights. Weh Syen was, in a way, consumed by nothing but death. And so they got rid of him. Today, the spirit of Weh Syen lives on in Kewellen Dolleh the greatest Revolutionary and hater of the Congo people Liberia has seen since Medusa laid the groundwork for their destruction.

For humanizing the coup that did not seem to be destroying the Congos, the enemy of Congo boys and girls who were also the enemy of Liberia as we knew it, unleashed against Doe a young girl that they had trained. A young girl who had come to love and embrace their proclivities and commitments. You see, ‘hell has no fury like a woman scorned and wearing Fruit of the Loom’.  She favored Fruit of The Looms briefs because she had balls and for 12 years in Liberia, men wore silk panties and bombor under her rule. Ask Alex Tyler and Varney Sherman. “Tutu ah Pepe” (Chorus to the Donna Summers song Bad Girls).

Then they found Taylor languishing in prison and thought they had the perfect man to use for the job and then discard. Not knowing Taylor disliked Doe not because he was Congo and Doe native but because Doe had his (Taylor’s) dream job: The Presidency of Liberia. Taylor was determined to not become expendable.

Taylor was offered a proposition, ‘go get Doe or we will arrange to have Gwangos from D Block, Julio the Spanish fly and Magog the Russian, butt pounce you every night until you die’.  Taylor greased himself like a monkey, slid through the prison bars and the Liberian Civil War was born.

That Young girl helped George Weah to become the 25^th President of Liberia and not her Vice-Chair who was not desirous of the destruction of the Congo Boys. He owed them much. George Weah did not desire the Congo Boys destruction either; he just wanted to be called ‘Preszo’. He accepted her proposal, called her Mama and promised her Freedom from prosecution and persecution which she otherwise was deserving of. Soon after, Weh Syen, who had intended to do a documentary on CDC, stumbled upon the kindness of Mayor Koijee, and in a stunning departure from his professed training, removed his cloak of objectivity, called their Road to Power the ‘Revolutionary Highway’ and proceeded down that highway with reckless abandon. As quickly as he had appeared on the scene, a US educated professional with the potential to serve as a voice of reason and a beacon of hope, would disappear down the road, but not the ‘revolutionary road’ but the ‘road to perdition’.

Russia overthrew the Czar once; the French had one revolution, America one civil war, China one communist movement; the operative word being ‘one’. Collectively, people and leaders of these nations have come to grips with the defining moments in their history that would shape their politics, culture preservation and interpretation of their history. They learned from ‘one’ revolution. Today, their issues are not much different from ours. The richest one percent of their people own fifty percent of the wealth of these nations. It is no secret. They flaunt it on national TV in your face and you approve but they do not destroy their country for that. In Liberia, our first revolution was not a violent one but a peaceful one. A revolution not against its own people but a peaceful one that denounced slavery and encouraged a reunification of people of color, suppressed both at home and abroad. A peaceful revolution that succeeded in separating a people from their oppressors in the continent of Africa even as people’s limbs were being chopped off in what is now the country of the Congo by the Belgian King Leopold and the South African Shaka Zulu’s tribe was being decimated. A revolution that started a country even in those treacherous times, a country that has now grown to encourage revolutions against its own people. The success of Liberia was not because we put forward a mighty army, but because we recognized the presence of a common adversary, external to even the continent, whose defeat could be guaranteed only through our unity and combined pushback.  No matter what people think, Liberia achieved what no other African nation was able to achieve in the 1800s. It may not be entirely untrue to say that the success of our unified approach in the creation of Liberia gave rise to the ‘divide and conquer’ philosophy used against Africa and even within countries. But today, that unity is lost. The number of revolutions that Liberia has endured depends on who you talk to. One account says the murderous 1980 debacle encouraged by the progressives was the first, the creation of multiple factions and murder of Doe was another and the 12 year rule of Medusa when the new (and old) progressives were given free reins to acquire wealth was a third. Now in Liberia, Medusa’s puppets are led to believe that they have started a new revolution and is poised to begin another mini war. They already have their guns buried in strategic places and have marked the homes and properties to destroy. It is not the opposition which is Prince Johnson Party, Cummings Party, Fahnbulleh or Liberty Party that are targeted but those few ‘old and doley’ Congo Boys.

Today, Prince Johnson a killer turn priest, Butt Naked a “Slaughterer of Innocence” and turn Bishop, see in their unholy visions the “Mother of All Wars”. The one that will define men like Dolleh and gave their lives historic purpose. The “WAR BETWEEN CONGO AND COUNTRY’. If it was not so deadly in its concepts, it will be funny but believe me, their grandparent dreamed of it even before they sold Jacob to Esau.

I do not know one Congo person under 40 years old with designs on Liberia. Every one that I  know is around my age and we are not “Spring Chickens”. We are in the last phase of our lives. So who are these Congo plotters that Price Knows? Da those old men in their 70s on 18^th Street that Prince them want finally kill up? But half of them got serious case of gout and can barely wear shoes. Or Cora Peabody them coming to fight? Where they getting this vision from? And Mr. Madness Prince Johnson says in church, “no one will come to help”. What is this fool talking about?”

Or maybe that Irvin Coleman and Ian Yhap. Ian fighting to buy pampers for his new son and just need one good contract is thinking about what? I am here scratching my head and coming up with nothing while these people who feel just because they are ‘indigenous’ it makes them ‘correct’. And where is the great “Reconciler” when these kinds of sermons are preached?  Mulbah talking about fixing feeder roads, when known killers are talking Murder. My people, Liberia gone Crazy!

After all that has happened in the last 40 years it is perplexing that “Congo” even enters the discourse. Even in the recent interview that Medusa walked out of, she did not even refer to “Congo”. During the period when she was tolerant about the questions being asked, her blame was placed on the “Elites” and not “Congo”. The intolerance and contemptuousness arose when the interviewer inquired as to whether she felt that she owed the Liberian people an apology. Of course she was right to walk out. She couldn’t apologize to the “Elites” to which she referred. She has been one of the “Elites” and is even more so now. In Medusa’s mind, an apology to the Liberian people is an apology to the “Congo” people for whom their hatred runs deep. Never mind that they sacrificed over three hundred thousand other Liberians over the next twenty years and have continued to sacrifice the country itself to support the false claim that they are on the right side of Liberian history, they continue to be unapologetic for the fundamental and overpowering role that they have played in the decimation of the country. So medusa walking out of that interview at that point was not a matter of choice but a matter of necessity! bravo to the young journalist!!

So, perhaps the answer is a resounding YES! It is those ‘old and doley’ “Congo” boys that they are after and anyone who they perceive to be “challenging their narrative”. After all, no one else challenges the narrative and it is only when dissenting voices are silenced that their miserable failure of a progressive movement will be suppressed and false claims of Liberia’s success will take wings. So it is altogether possible that they know very well who they are targeting for elimination!  THEY WILL BLAME IT ALL ON THE JUNE 7 PROTEST! DO YOU SEE ANYONE FROM EITHER SIDE TRYING TO STOP THE PROTEST OR EVEN MAKE ANY ATTEMPT TO RECONCILE DIFFERENCES? For once I agree with Leonardo Chesson aka Alhaj Ansumanah Azziz when he alludes that no one has attempted real dialogue and in the end when a due diligence is done, we would have sped headlong into obvious danger without testing the alternatives.

Dolleh Weh Syen says it is because of the “bullying”. To bully is an American concept where a child is humbugged too much at school so he goes home and comes back with a gun and shoots his mates and teacher. In Liberia we call it “Teasing” although there is no record that it has reached such proportions here.

Weh Syen mentioned Richard Henries 3^rd (one Jumping Deer Wet Gin away from becoming a zogo since Easter) who Chippy Coleman calls messed up. The other is Mr. McCritty. I suspect the first thing he will pack for this war is his bag of High Blood Pressure medicine. That thing finish in the forest of Butuo and my man got to come back to CVS for a refill. Others still who have adopted the same spirit say ‘they made my Ma and Pa tote peepee and pupu chamber pot”.

So they win DV. First thing, “Maima I get job oh, 10 clients to the nursing home. I can’t talk long I got to go back and clean the other old mom but I send you small thing”. With P and D (pride and dignity for the modern day Liberian).

Folks this is just the Preamble. We have to find a motive for how we got where we are.

It all started in Israel and ended 70 AD when Vespasian and his nephew Titus sieged and sacked Jerusalem as Jesus had stated in Scripture. Titus would go on to become Caesar Augustus who lived during the time of Christ and built monuments of himself all over the world because he declared himself a God.

What young Weh Syen does not realize is that, politicians, after getting wealth want to enjoy it and raise a family so they compromise. Jefferson Koijee calls the former Mayor of Monrovia, Clara Doe, his “ma” because he respects her. The guy from ULIMO J will become a stumbling block to CDC and they will get rid of him because to survive they must compromise.

Ok so the getting rid of Dolleh Weh Syen could become our motive?

It is whispered through the halls of history and academia that at least a million Jews escaped into Africa in 70AD. When Herold of Esau’s race wanted to kill the child Jesus, his Ma and Pa brought him to hide in Africa among his people. When there was famine they came to Africa and even asked the Nubian King to help fight against the Assyrians thus giving rise to the destruction of the North Kingdom. Yahweh got mad because they did not trust him to deliver them. I say trust him and obey for there is no other way to be happy in Liberia but to trust and obey.

Even today when a Black American is fleeing, he runs home to his Grand Ma or Girlfriend.

Have you noticed that once a native Liberian leaves the village he never returns? All of us want to return to what we lost in Paradise, but the other will not try to find his way home. Why? He has the mark of Cain, the vagabond. All you who have ears listen. It is this detachment that makes him ruthless and envious. He does not belong but assumes your role and like a Cow bird becomes you.

The Jews settled in Mauritania, Algeria, and Morocco and gave rise to Carthage who later conquered Rome at Cannae. But during the final fight on African soil Hannibal was betrayed by African tribes who never showed up for the fight. Carthage was sacked for three years, women scraped their hair to make bow strings and finally defeated a guy called Scipio Africanus who poured sulfur into the soil of Carthage. Come on man I learned this stuff as a 10^th grader at St. Patrick’s High from Brother John. Others from the tribe of Judah moved further South into South Africa and some came to West Africa giving rise to the Ebo and Yoruba of Nigeria and established the Ghana Empire. Ghana embraced her history and said, “We Are The Best’. They know who they are. Liberia led by little weh syen, shouted “KILL THEM ALL”.

Now you see why the indigenous Hutu killed the Tutsi in Rwanda. The Tutsi reduced to sheep herders were out of Ethiopia and Cush, Sheba’s land and people of the Book. Now you see why they hated Mandela so and why we jubilated when we killed the Congo Boys in 1980.

By the time in the 15^th Century when the Portuguese had freed themselves from the Muslims they began to explore West Africa. Teacher Joseph Guanue taught us in Elementary school in the sixties that they named that area the ‘Grain Coast” because of the “Malagator Pepper” and “Cayenne Pepper “which they used to preserve food and cure beri-beri a disease sailors suffered from. By the 17^th century Pope Nicolas issued a Papal Edict ordering Alfonso of Portugal to invest into wholesale slavery in West Africa.

Emanuel Boten, map maker of the King of England, drew a map of the Slave Coast in Africa.  Slave Coast was were Ghana is and read Kingdom of Judah. Along with the other African tribes, your ancestors, The Jews were rounded up all over Africa and sold in the Americas, the home of the tribe of Esau. North Carolina, South Carolina, Mississippi, Virginia, Georgia, Tennessee. Oh those slave owners knew who they had bought. Everyone knew whom they caught, sold and bought. It was the Beginning of the time of Esau. And his Gentile buddies. After 400 years, the Jews who had hid in Africa after the fall of Jerusalem were set free in the Americas. God stirred the heart of the President and he declared the Emancipation Proclamation that granted them Liberty from slavery. They killed him for that. Two brothers, John and Robert Kennedy, tried to help those slaves but were also killed in the sixties.

I do believe that the slaves that returned to Africa, not to South Africa or Mauritania, or Ghana but founded Liberia were a parcel of those Jews taken 400 years earlier. God had a plan that they would introduce his Words to the people who lived like Abram’s father: Animist and Idol worshippers. They came and founded Liberia with the best they had. James Skirving Smith was the first Black doctor in the world and became President after Roye. Hillary Teague operated the first Black Newspaper in the world along with John B. Russwurm who all came to Liberia. But they were weak after eating at the trough of Esau for 400 years. Hillary a drinking problem that kept him away from the Presidency of Liberia. Soon they had adopted some of the ways of the indigenous Africans and by Tubman time, human sacrifice was common place.  Yahweh was angry and abandoned them. But he troubled Samuel Doe’s heart to show mercy and so Medusa killed him.

The reason is a spiritual one. It is who these Congo Boys are at their very worst but God is God and will not be mocked. Dolley Weh Syen know who they are and cannot live with them. The jealousy consumes him.

I wrote this just to explain what is happening. In the land of Edom they say knowledge is power. In the Gbemah Nation of Liberia ignorance is unity and in unity is strength.

God Bless Liberia!!!   

My hope and prayer is that Liberia takes her time to grow up.  Do not settle and become full of domestication as the stuffy Brits sipping on lifton not Lipton tea (as the Fullahs say).

Do not grow up so fast and in your maturity end up with a croissant and accordion like the French or wise and predictable as a Chinese or full of sophistication and boring as the Americans. 

On the contrary be like a young mare prancing upon the savanna of Africa so that the giraffes who are Kenyans, hunting dogs who are Ugandans and the gorillas of the Congo can  say: “yes Liberians, forever young” as we, in a gallop, race across the Serengetti and let the Gators of the Zambezi river marvel. Forever Young.

The day began dressed in the thickest darkness I had seen just before the break of dawn. Darkness so dense I was afraid to come outside and so I hid next to my house and listened for who or what was already up, out and moving.  I needed something that said this was January 22, 2018, Inauguration day.

 And then I heard the whine of the “pehn pehn” and soon its lights illumined Kebbah Road.  A figure dashed across the road. It was Samokai, the fatherless and motherless dog, coming from sowing his useless seed on the well-kept dog Saucy in Pastor Momo’s yard.

I got on the bike and wondered aloud “what kind of country is this, ‘Jor Wia’ Inauguration and no light?” The pehn pehn boy said, “dah ha dey country lookin.” (that’s the country that we find ourselves in). We got to ‘Bend and Stop’, an area along Barnersville road closer to the Freeway. There were no buses, cars nor taxis. No transportation. We headed to Barnesville Freeway Junction.

As we sped through ‘Day Break Mouth Open’, another Barnersville road community, I searched the darkness for Greatest Kojo (Joe Dotu). Perhaps I could get a ride to the Inauguration. His best friend, The President Elect of Liberia, had given him a car which he was still learning how to park. No such luck. We got to Barnesville Junction and there was still no transportation. I told the pehn pehn let’s get to S.K.D.

Fast forward To S.K.D. Stadium. As we turned down SD Cooper Road and ELWA Highway, I saw life and excitement as if God almighty had decreed it. 5:45a.m.: in came the Boy Scouts singing and jubilating. I had not seen the scouts in full formation since the late 60s. By the 70s, because of the lack of government support, they were now being called “Chicken Rogues”.

I heard sirens, turned, and saw the Coast Guard in full regalia coming into the stadium. But what melted my heart was the Girls Guide coming in drilling to: “left, left, left righhhttt, left righhttht.’ The oldest was 12 years old and the youngest Brownie 7. I know because I asked. Folks I was never happier to be a Liberian.

My man when you hungry, you can smell like hell.  Some kind of gravy aroma filled the air and disturbed the worms in my stomach. The smell led me across the street to Quiah Johnson’s place, the ‘pekin’ that got the rasta or dada.

One Old Ma was cooking spaghetti and it was kicking. I ordered a bowl but she said it was not dry. The way the police and soldiers were ordering fast fast,I told her to bring my own like that..it will get done in my gut.

My official press tag arrived and I moved into the stadium into the area set aside for the media, electronic and print services. This was the hub for national and international presses.

Guests were arriving and then I heard a roar from the crowd. It was the arrival of Nobel Laureate, Leemah Bowie. Beautiful as ever, skin as creamy as butter from all that cash with no man to spend it on, I moved on Leemah like a leopard catching a deer. She said, “aye you man, let me get my seat first”.

I understood because the stadium was filling up fast. Regrettably, I let our natural beauty go. A second roar went up and it was Mike the Nigerian Actor: Van Vicker the Liberian actor who does not want to be called such, and a Nigerian Actress.  They were whisked into V.I.P. and I did not get a chance for them to speak to my audience in television land.

She had on black pants which her legs were punishing. Her white shirt could barely contain her particulars as the wind caressed her long shining hair. My left arm was around her, her right arm was around me and we were oblivious to the crowd at S.K.D. For a moment it was only Jackie Appiah and me and then I was hurled back into reality. And what a sight reality was.

Like a Gbetu (tall country devil from the Kpelle tribe) coming out of the midst at 7’2” towered Dkenbi Jean Jacque Matumbo. I pulled my eyes off of where my hands should have been on Jackie Appiah’s particulars and wondered how many yards of cloth Dkenbi had used to make his pants. I looked down and saw that he was escorted by Mickie Dees, herself a superstar in her own right.

The Lady and I do not use lady loosely, MacDella Cooper. Dikenbi had blocked even Michael Jordan’s shot in his basketball career, but the child had no defense, for when MacDella had the ball in her grasp, the defense was at her mercy for what she wanted to do. Mickie Dees: 2 – Matumbo: 0.

Jackie sat down and I couldn’t find my true love Leemah. Dikenbi was in a leg and head lock and it was getting heated and heavy at the SKD. Several Presidents had come up to the V. I. P. seating area.  Jarvis, the Chief of Protocol, floundered as he wondered who they were.

He had called Vice President Boakai ‘Hon. Speaker’. Mary Broh was hustling a new CDC job by hauling chairs to the stage on her head, and the choir was fighting with a song written 2 centuries before by a dude named Handel. When I asked what kind of song it was, as any righteously sardonic Liberian should, one guy said “it is a song fit for Kings and Queens”.

He should have heard Agnes Nebo von Ballmoos and the University Choir during normal days. And then the crowd burst into another roar. By this time, the 40,000 capacity stadium was nearly full.

My man, money sweet o! The mark (money) got Samuel E’too white. The brother knew the people loved him and he was going to love them back. He ran to the crowd and was about to do a victory lap but the security said no, no Sammy Boy. We know you got your private jet and our man got his rental.  But it is his day. Sammy said ‘right on brothers, right on” and headed for V.I.P.

The security tapped me and told me someone in the direction of Jackie wanted to see me. Like a frisley Chicken I strutted over thinking Ms. Appiah wanted a second round. However, I was called by young Spenser Harris, younger brother of Toyuwa. Toyuwa had done Oppong’s first web site and was in town to collect.  As I left, Jackie slipped me a card and told me to meet her at the Sky Bar in Accra. Another roar went up.

I turned and saw Old Man Olusegun Obasanjo crawling his way up the stage to attend Jor Wia Inauguration. Wow the kid was showing juice. Another roar from a now filled stadium and this time it was ‘Bad Mama Jamma’ Herself, the Master Dribbler who gave Varney a concussion in the second round, predicted a knockout of Tyler and delivered it before the fight got started and played Uncle Joe ‘half field’ all the way into extra time.

Lovingly called Delilah (for she will crack Samson’s nuts) by her haters, ladies and gents it was the one that Liberians had grown to hate; but here she was leading the band, making a dance down the red carpet. All her sins were forgotten and we loved her for the dance. I tell you the hairs on my body stood at attention as our ‘Old Moms’ put on her greatest show. The old Moms held on to power until the constitution said, “aye mehn, let it be so now”!

On the stage her relationship with Uncle Joe was as frosty as an ice cream cone on a wet day at Sharks. As dry as wind blowing out of the Sahel, and as prickly as razor grass on the country rat trails of Bong. 

Joe sat with his mouth puckered up as if to say, “ehn you know we Kissi people can file our teeth? When I bite, you will know!” Ellen sat cranked to the side, one skinny, bony, right butt cheek raised off the cushion in Joe’s direction as if to say, “Kiss my behind”. It was rudeness to say butt in our house. We said behind. And, in the words of the Temptations song, “the band played on”. Just as the song says, there was a subtle “Ball of Confusion”.

The President was sworn in. He made a speech that no one really cared to remember. Low on substance, high in delivery. People behind me were saying, “Aye God please don’t let him chop”.  Some others said: “aye God let him put Costa to shame”.

The content and substance took a back seat to the high expectation of a relatively flawless delivery. Young people were not looking for any promises as had been the case during the entire election.

“He didn’t promise us anything and so we will not be disappointed if he delivers nothing. All those book people made big promises and delivered nothing” was constantly heard during elections. Well this was the first non-delivery of substance in a speech with negligible and no obvious flaws.

And the crowd loved it. It was as if he heard their pleas. He did not chop. His delivery was smooth, articulate and enjoyable.

In the past, the President’s speech was listened to hear about positive changes made for the country and substances gained, but today, we could care less. “No chopping” was the motto of the day. I wish the previous government had adopted this motto. Their English was great but they still “chopped”.

Right now, if the President pronounces the word “was” correctly, the nation goes delirious. In time, we hope all that will change. 

After the speech everyone started to go on their hustle. Jarvis was yelling “the program is still on, the program is still on”.

But who gave a rat’s ass? President Weah made a speech with no mistake then we must push our luck? We will defend that cause “with valor unpretending”.

 It was time to find your Dikenbi, Leemah or Jackie, or the next best thing, a cold bottle of club. In the words of Vice President Taylor, “In the cause of the people, the struggle has ended”. Peace!

By Henry M. Mamulu, student and eye witness.

One of the things I am accused of is that I seem to never want to grow up. “A Long Summer Running.” It is a strength, not a weakness. But in a city like Me, Myself and I, where we begin to be big boys as soon as we put on long pants and girls become women long before their tay-tay can grow, that strength can keep you unemployed.

You see, it is about appearances. Appearing to be doing something instead of actually doing it is what is important in Me, Myself and I.

I remember the names of my first grade classmates at Saint Patrick’s Elementary in 1961-62 more keenly than I remember my 12^th Grade classmates at Saint Patrick’s High School. Perhaps it was because we were the first generation of students who were vaccinated with the new, shining, gun-like instrument introduced by Public Health at the end of 1961. It replaced the straight pin that they stuck me with 22 times in 1960-1961. Believe me, I counted. That straight pin made one helliber sore on my arm that I can never forget. And the fever! You remember the scar it left?

Or perhaps I remember all those boys from 1961 and ‘62 because they introduced me to ‘Mame Open Wide, Put the Pepper’. Or it could be because we all were traumatized by drilling in Pupu Platoon and booting (my man, we could not say ‘butt’ in our house, you said ‘hind’) on ourselves or it could be because of Joseph Saye Guanu, The Terrorist.

The Principal of Saint Patrick’s Elementary was Father John O’Donavan. I don’t remember much except that he introduced Nonfat Dry Milk to the school which became the stimulus behind Pupu Platoon. Occasionally, he gave us chocolates that I want to believe was provided also by the Americans. Back then, every good thing that became bad for us apparently came from America as opposed to China and India these days.

Two Liberian Teachers ran the school, John Tweh whom we called “Teacher Tweh” or “Chay Pay Chay” and Joseph Saye Guanue, “Teacher Guanu”.

During those early years, even in Kru Boys School, as Saint Patrick’s Elementary was dubbed, we did not have or know any Krahn students — or rather no one identified himself as such. The warriors that we feared were the Grebo warriors. The tribe most respected by the Monrovia establishment, the Kru tribe.

It was not until that other do-nothing President Tubman built Zwedru Multilateral and Teacher Chay Pay Chay went to teach there that we started to suspect that he really was not Kru.

As the girls can say on the movie set, “the secret leaked out” in 1980.  John Tweh became Krahn, as did Edwin Zeelee; Salee Diggs became Salee Thompson and G. Alvin Jones who lived with Father E. George King became Gao Jones. So here we got one Teacher who was Krahn and the other Gio. Things that make you go Hmmm!!

Both Teacher Chay Pay Chay and Teacher Guanue beat us like slaves on the plantation. Instead of Kru Boy School, Saint Patrick’s Elementary should be remembered as “my slave years” or “six years a slave”.  You see they had permission to discipline us as they saw fit. They were instructed to prepare us for the future.

It was my Congo Mammie, Teacher Ora Dennis who married the Madinka man Teacher Moses Mamulu and had Vivian, Judy, Maggie, Boikai and Mr. Red Head Henry, who brought the damned rattan to school and gave it to Tweh and Guanue. Then when the “heathen raged and imagined a vain thing,” they said “the tender mercy of the heathen is…” However, I got to gave it to Teacher Chay Pay Chay . Every Friday he took us into the church (away from the trauma) and taught us songs, songs I remember today.

Later on during the war they say one man was cutting another man’s neck and telling him none-mind-yah, as he cut his neck from the back.

Teacher Guanue on the other hand never sang or smiled for that matter and seemed to take it all personally. I was made to feel that his only joy came from brutalizing us, but particularly the Congo children even though he actually was an equal opportunity sadist.

Teacher Guanue was handsome, neat and very sharp. He was articulate and that was inspiring in itself. John Tweh was light-skinned, had a big nose and small beady eyes. He appeared to have a secret and was not going to tell. Teacher Guanue, on the other hand, had nothing to hide. He was in your face or flesh all the time.

Here are the names of the brave warriors who scuffered (that’s a Congo term) as opposed to suffered at the hands of the “raging heathens who imagined a vain thing”.  In previous writings we described a heathen as not an indigenous, but a person so bent on carrying out his agenda he had no place for a compromise.

Crispin Jones, Michael Itoka, Julius Weeks (son of Rocheforte who got pulled out of the school after being Guanuerized by Teacher Guanue), Michael Wilson, Phillip Cummings, Robert Cole, Augustine Myers (Sapkah Myers’ big brother), Anthony Gray, Ralph and Anthony Taplah, Eric and Samuel Davies, Nathaniel “solo Baby” Brownell, Alexander Montgomery (his father had tailor shop in front of Heinz and Maria), Mozart Bernard (pronounced Musa), Hans Massaquoi,  Christopher Sirleaf, Harry Gargar, Sylvester Blibo, Wibur Kesselly, George Morris, Gregory Johnson, James Sirleaf, Ian Yhap (got rescued when he was sent to Ricks), Gerald Richards’ big brother, Hamilton Jones, Reynold Stubblefield (could play football) and Pickney King. I kept Pickney for last because Joseph Saye Guanue beat that child unmercifully. It seemed as if Pickney was the embodiment of all Saye hated about the Congo people even back then and he was going to snuff it out before it grew any stronger.

Pickney lived on Newport Street across from the Group of Seventy-Seven and next to Total Gas Station. His father Pickney King Sr. drove an old truck. He was a farmer and did not work in government at this time. Perhaps he was rich but it did not show. He had sent his sons Pickney and Derrick to England and they returned to Monrovia by 1960 or so. In those days it rained for two weeks straight and there was nothing, absolutely nothing to keep one dry going to or coming from school, except maybe a car.

Well Mr. King had his old truck and Pickney had come from England. Coupled with the fact he was not really good at history, which was Saye Guanue’s area and spelling, could also be the reasons WHY Teacher Guanue’s apparent quest to exterminate, purge and rid Liberia once and for all of the Congo menace represented by Pickney, it would seem.

One week the rains just poured and poured. By Friday everybody in first grade had fresh cold and their book bags were soaking wet. We saw Teacher Guanue’s shadow come down the hall. John Tweh had just left after taking his pound of flesh and now entered the Main Bad Man in the show, Teacher Guanue.  The guy was bad like a war show.

It was like the end of days. I remembered clearly the wailing and gnashing of teeth. Every breath one took produced a fresh snot bubble. As we inhaled, snot bubbles went in and as we exhaled, snot bubbles came out. We whimpered and silently called out for our Pa to come help us. We were at Kru Boy School and the slave masters owned us, lock stock and barrel.

So by Thursday we were wet like drowning rats and sick like cats left out in the rain. Those days no one stayed home because they had cold. What one did was share it with your class mates. So there we were, every nose running green snot and entered Pickney Jr. King. My man took off his rain boots and it smelled like something had died in it. We knew that was cause for a beating but Jr. King did not.

Teacher Guanue was making one of his scary rounds and smelled the funk. He asked “what’s stinking in here?” Who was fool to answer, Jr. King! “That my boots,” the slave replied to the slave master, Simon Legre, you know the character from Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Simon Legre Guanue responded with a nasty slap. Jr. King did not cry but got off the floor looking bewildered as to the reason for the whack. Jr. said again “but that my boots!!” And that’s what sent Joseph Simon Legre Guanue over the top.

That man started whipping Pickney in front of us. Some students peepeed, some cried, all made snort bubbles but were all petrified into immobility.

When they say dying man strong, that not lie. Jr. King broke away and jumped out the window. He ran as if chased by the hounds from hell straight down Newport Street to his Pa house. The green snot, now mixed with the blood and looked like Monrovia Rock when it now melt, was all over his shirt. As for us and Joseph Saye Simon Legre Guanue we all knew there was going to be retributions. Mr. King Sr. had the reputation of being one of those “Razor Bottom My Shoe” Congos who also was a gun-toting, all-night-hell-raising of a fellow. The stage was set for the preamble of the Civil War.

Through the eyes of faith — wait now, when your Pastor says it you can believe oh but now you want to question my faith? I saw everyone in that class get up at three thirty (who could sleep) for the show about to unfold at Kru Boy School. Me-pah, Six o’clock I was out the door and ran on barracks road pass ATS, heading for Kru Boy School. I got there and my first-grade class was already assembled for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Then we heard Old Man King’s “duazeh” (“old car” another Congo term) coming. Teacher Guanue swallowed his first spit. Old Man King drove in front of Saint Patrick’s Elementary and true to his reputation jumped out the car before it hit full stop. He was on Teacher Guanue like a leopard on a hapless deer. First grade exploded into cheers as Teacher Guanue’s whipping at the hands of Pickney King Sr. began. Father O’Donavan ran around like his gown was on fire trying to restore order but we cheered our Champion Pickney Mohammed Ali King on. Teacher Guanue was rescued by Teacher James Bernard another whipper who whipped me until my back got purple. I went home and Sis. Ora wanted to whip me again. When they took off my shirt and saw my red back all purple she broke down and cried.

Well, order was restored, our liberator at least for one day got back into his truck and we went to class.

That night no one in First Grade did his homework. It was Thursday. So, Friday we got homework again and no one did anything for the weekend. Monday, we got to school and Fr. O ‘Donavan had arranged a program and had the Nuns from the Convent there also. If Kru Boy School had order, then Convent with Clara Doe, Clara Tunney, Judith Mamulu, Olga Hash, and Sonia Burrows would have had order too. First Grade was marched up on stage and whipped for not doing homework. A public execution of sorts. So, come 1980 and they played “we want to know who owned the land”, I smiled. Joseph Saye Guanue had already prepared me for the reality of the day. Therefore, I want to thank him and Teacher Chay Pay Chay for the good work that they did preparing us for the brave, new future of Liberia.

Happy 26 and I hope and pray that we get our independence someday!!!

Thanks, Sirs!