By
Moses Uneh Yahmia
As we draw closer to October 10, 2017, politicians that did not have the taste to associate with the mass of our people are now prostrating and harassing them for support. It is now that they know the importance of the people. It is now that they regard the people as historical subjects. When our people were debased, those politicians took a backseat and watched the aspirations of our people dashed in the dustbin of history. When our people were considered as objects that could be directed and controlled, those politicians were conservative in their reaction to the maltreatment of our people.
One of those politicians is Cllr. Charles Walker Brumskine, standard bearer of the Liberty Party. Weeks ago, we saw this man wandering on the congested streets and in communities that host neglected markets in Monrovia, shaking the hands of the poor masses. He even went to the extent of stopping taxis on major streets to shake the hands of struggling passengers. Those depict how desperate this man is for the attainment of political power.
Our people have long passed the time when politicians rode on their gullibility to attain political power. The people are more conscious, united, determined and passionate to change this space sad narrative. Therefore, they will support a nationally conscious leader who has sacrificed in the fight for the people’s dignity, a patriot par excellence who has a remarkable history of service to the motherland and lastly, a visionary leader who has drawn out pro-people solutions to the challenges the country faces.
Cllr. Brumskine is not on the radar! When our people were being deprived political and economic participation in this country, Cllr. Brumskine never went to markets and taxis caps to shake the hands of the people and politically educate them about their rights. He was a beneficiary of the assassination of the people’s will to elect their own leaders and also benefit from the proceeds of the nation’s resources. His father, Hannibal Brumskine, under the decadent True Wing Party’s oligarchy, not elected by the people of Grand Bassa County, but selected by TWP cronies in Monrovia, served as Senator of such county. Such portfolio was used to educate Cllr. Brumskine. By the 1970s, the Liberty Party’s standard bearer was matured enough to realize that such system that disregarded the people needed to be gotten rid of. Brumskine did nothing! He sat and watched the democratic and economic butchering of the people that he pretends to care for today.
Cllr. Brumskine never went on shaking the hands of the people and telling them about the barbarity and cruelty of the Taylor’s NPFL criminal cartel that raped and killed our people on an “Industrial scale”. He was in support of the violence meted against our people by Taylor and his cabal. Because of his unflinching support for Taylor, Taylor’s NPP selected him to serve as Senator for Grand Bassa County under the proportional representation arrangement after the 1997 Elections. This man, because of his support for the slaughtering of our people by the despot Taylor, became the corporate lawyer of the Oriental Timber Company (OTC), a logging company that exported our forest resources in exchange of guns to ravaged not only Liberia but also Sierra Leone.
Was Cllr. Brumskine of the Liberty Party shaking the hands of ordinary Liberians when he negotiated the “Status of Forces Agreement” with ECOMOG (the West African Peacekeeping force, then stationed in Liberia to protect the Liberian people)? “The agreement was so lopsided in favour of the Taylor's regime that it forced the pre-matured departure of ECOMOG from Liberia to Sierra Leone” (P. Nimely-Sie Tuon). This left the security of the state in the hands of SOD, ATU, and the Special Security Service (SSS) that turned the already devastated nation into a brutal Police-state. So was Cllr. Brumskine shaking the hands of the people in markets and taxis caps when he was, under the Ellen-led regime awarded lucrative legal contracts by corporations that raped our resources under bogus concessions agreements? Was going against the workers of Mittal Steel at the Labor Court few months back the shanking of the hands of poor Bassa’s workers who labour had been abused by the company?
This Liberty Party man has always traded against the people’s will to build a nation of shared values, social justice, liberty and equality for all and with all. On October 10, 2017, the people will not buy into his theatrics! Time has passed and the people are determined to move forward. If he likes, he can attend all funerals in Liberia. He can attend all the masses’ events in the various slums, ghettoes, and the rural areas. If he likes he can speak all the last Bassa on all the radio stations in the country. He will be vehemently rejected by the people at the polls on October 10, 2017.
AND SO IT GOES!!!!!!