Liberia, the African country with the motto: THE LOVE OF LIBERTY BROUGHT US HERE has seen quite bloody successful and attempted coups, and survived two barbaric Civil Wars. However, one politician has been part of its troubled history for the past 46 years.
President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the out-going 80-year President of the country has served in every government since 1972 when President William. R. Tolbert.Jr appointed her an Assistant Minister. Since then, it has been one long story of a political leader that cannot be pinned down to principles.
In 1980 a Master Sergeant, Samuel Kanyon Doe staged a bloody coup in which President Tolbert was killed and some of his supporters, executed. But Sirleaf had no qualms serving as the Finance Minister in the Doe dictatorship. When she fell out with Doe, Sirleaf teamed up with rebels led by Charles Taylor to found the National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPF) and began an insurgency and Liberia’s first Civil War. She raised funds for the rebels.
After the war, she ran for the Presidency in 1997 as the candidate of the Unity Party winning 25 percent of the votes in an election in which Taylor won 75 percent of the ballot. Later, she left for exile in Cote d’Voire and returned after the second Civil War. She was the Head of the country’s Governance Reform Commission charged with overseeing the transition to democratic governance. That was in 2003. Two years later, she again ran for the Presidency losing to the international footballer George Weah in the first ballot, but won the run-off and was sworn in on January 16, 2006.
She suffered a serious blow when the Truth and Reconciliation Commission her government set up recommended that Sirleaf and others involved in the country’s Civil Wars should be barred from holding elective office for thirty years. Of course it was a no-binding recommendation and she continued in office until now.
In 2011, Sirleaf who had promised to serve only one term, again ran for the Presidency. While in the previous election, the hand of the West was a bit hidden, this time it was exposed; she was its beloved daughter. Her candidacy was challenged on the basis that it violated the constitution which provides that all presidential candidates are to have resided in the country for ten years prior to the elections. Six days before the vote, the Supreme Court ruled against the constitution claiming that those who wrote it did not envisage a Civil War which necessitated some politicians going into exile. Then four days before the ballot, a controversial Nobel Prize for Peace was jointly awarded her and two others; Leymah Gbowee and Tawakkul Karman for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women. Not a few wondered how a politician who was a leader of a violent insurgency which led to a bloody Civil War can be termed ‘non-violent’
Her reign is characterized by unprecedented nepotism. She appointed her son, Charles Sirleaf (who had been indicted for breaching the rules on asset declaration) as the governor of the Liberian Central Bank.
She appointed another son, Robert Sirleaf as chief executive of the National Oil Company of Liberia, while a third son, Fombah Sirleaf was made head of the National Security Agency, the body responsible for internal security. Fombah was accused of illegal seizure of money and an investigation was launched. In October 2014, Minister of Justice, Christiana Tah resigned in protest accusing Sirleaf of interfering and compromising the investigation. Sirleaf is also accused of appointing other members of her family into top positions in government.
The West never hid their dislike for Charles Taylor who appeared too independent-minded. He was President from August 2, 1997. Following another round of foreign-funded insurgency in Liberia, the African Union appealed to him in the overall interest of the country to step down. He did on August 11, 2003. However in a conspiracy of the West, then Nigerian President, Olusegun Obasanjo and Sirleaf, the asylum conditions of Taylor were compromised; he was seized by Nigerian authorities, transported to the Sirleaf government who from the airport handed him to his Western enemies. Today, the former African leader is in a British prison in Durham serving a fifty-year sentence for alleged war crimes. Sirleaf and Obasanjo compromised the ability of African countries to resolve conflicts that may necessitate an African leader stepping down to ensure peace.
Ironically, today, Sirleaf has to live with the reality that she will be handing over power on January 22 to President-elect, George Weah and Vice President-elect, Mrs. Jewel Howard-Taylor. Yes, the former First Lady of the same Charles Taylor she betrayed like Judas Iscariot betrayed his master.
When the West moved against Libyan President Mohammed Ghadaffi, sponsoring and funding Islamic terrorists, street toughies and criminal gangs to overthrow his government, Sirleaf was one of the African leaders used to undermine the Ghadaffi government and turn a quite prosperous and peaceful African country into a jungle.
Acting the Western script, the Sirleaf government without provocation, severed diplomatic ties with the Libyan Government. In trying to justify her slavish action, Sirleaf said “The Government took the decision after a careful review of the situation in Libya and determined that the Government of Colonel Gaddafi has lost the legitimacy to govern Libya.”
As part of its long term plan to colonize Africa militarily, the Americans established a so called US Africa Command (AFRICOM) Like the infamous American House Negro, Sirleaf groveled, begging to allow Liberia host the headquarters of the foreign intervention force. But the Americans rejected her pathetic pleas and located the headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany. Under her Presidency of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in 2017, she was fingered in the unsuccessful attempt to hoist Morocco, a North African country, as a member of the West African Regional bloc.
Sirleaf introduced free education in Liberia. I am not in a position to assess this. But she put up a spirited fight to stop tough laws against homosexuality, obviously to please her Western pay masters. Not surprisingly, a President that came to power with the mantra of anti-corruption is one of the 120 world leaders exposed in the Paradise Papers hiding off-shore investment. Her company’s name is the Bermuda Company Songhai Financial Holdings Ltd.
In the run-off election, Sirleaf showed her unprincipled side by abandoning her Unity Party candidate, Joseph Boakai who is also her Vice President to campaign for Weah who was more likely to win. It is not surprising that the party has expelled her. To them it is goodbye to bad rubbish. As Sirleaf departs the Presidency of Liberia, I don’t think we in Africa will miss her.
Forty years of flowing with university admission.
By Owei Lakemfa.
A controversy raged in 1978 over admission process into the universities. Traditionally, each of the then thirteen universities conducted its entrance examination, but a unified admission process called the Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) was introduced. I joined some of my classmates in Secondary School to take the maiden examination. For us who were yet to take the School Certificate Examinations, it was a ‘Mock’ examination to prepare us for the following year when we would be prepared to take it having had the basic entrance qualifications.
The JAMB examination held during the students uprising called “Ali-Mon-Go” when youths protested against attempts by the military junta to turn tertiary education into an elite commodity. On examination day, we waded through the streets which were garrisoned by armed, battle-weary policemen who had for days fought demonstrators. Burnt cars at the Ojuelegba Roundabout told the ferocity of the street battles led by the National Union of Nigeria Students.
When the JAMB results were released, I was not successful or so the JAMB officials who went through the result sheets informed me. I was not perturbed, after all, this was to actually prepare me for the next examinations. Some days later, I was at Yaba Bus Stop, Lagos on my way to seek admission into the Higher School and bought a newspaper. It was serializing the admission list into universities. I read the newspaper but ignored the list. But stuck in the infamous Lagos traffic jam, I decided to while away the time by going through the list. There, was my name, in the University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU) list!
I was confused; the JAMB officials claimed I failed, but what was my name doing on the advertised list of successful applicants? The only way to confirm if the officials who checked my result were right or wrong, was to travel to Ife. The Admission Officer checked, confirmed I was one of the successful candidates and asked for my School certificate results which had just been released. That was how I became one of the pioneer undergraduates admitted through JAMB. The old students mocked us that we were inferior as we were admitted by an untested institution with no pedigree. So they called us JAMBITES.
Now forty years later, JAMB is fully matured and not many challenge its authenticity and relevance. It was a simple examination in which what was essential was a pencil and eraser. That is now gone as it is now a computerized examination. In those days, you were admitted based on the marks scored, but at a point, things degenerated to the point where if you had the required cash, you could be awarded marks and get admitted. So you could have a person admitted based on very high marks allegedly scored in the JAMB entrance examinations but who was totally unfit and incapable of undergoing an undergraduate course. There were ‘geniuses’ who scored very high marks in JAMB examinations, but failed throughout their university years. With such rot, it was clear that unless something drastic was done, it would be ‘garbage in, garbage out’ of the university system.
In June, 2005 Professor Chinwe Onyema Obaji was appointed Minister of Education. Unknown to many, she is the mother of a youth who almost missed being admitted into the university because there were many with far higher scores. Yet in the university, he dazzled like a star while those with very high admission scores, could not cope. She arrived the Ministry with a determination to stop the admission charade. One of her first acts was to introduce a post- JAMB (Post-UME) admission examination by individual universities. She was to argue: “the screening exercise will take care of all kinds of ills in the Universities as it will make sure that it is only those Students who are ready to learn that are given admission.” She might have overestimated the effect of her decision on the university system, but its implementation caused an uproar as many who scored high marks in JAMB crumbled at the internal examinations organised by the universities themselves. Those opposed, argued that it amounted to double jeopardy, as applicants are forced to pay and sit for two examinations for the same purpose. Others said the new policy questioned the very existence of JAMB and might be a way of abolishing it. The forces were so strong that the directive was later reversed but it brought some sanity into the admission system before JAMB self-corrected. Perhaps in this era of complete computerisation of the examinations, the body might have eliminated criminals awarding marks to applicants as the marks are computer-based. Also, technology has made it easy for JAMB to use multiple or different questions at various stages of the examination.
At the January 9, 2017 JAMB Stakeholders Meeting in Abuja, the Registrar, Professor Is-Haq Olarenwaju Oloyede who is credited with the complete computerisation of the examination, singled out Obaji for her courage. She in turn acknowledged the advancement JAMB has made from the period it took months to release the examination results, to this day when it takes just a day.
Oloyede who is credited with saving and remitting about N8 Billion to Government coffers out of JAMB’s N12 Billion revenue, is leading the organization in a serious fight against examination malpractices in a digital age. This includes how to eliminate the extension of examination to ‘VIP Rooms’ for examination malpractices and “the deliberate disruption of examination, usually through power outage, to extend examination time till night to pave way for malpractice”
Although he said JAMB has introduced anti-examination malpractice gadgets such as “CCTV camera in the Examination Server Room at the CBT Centre” but the cheats continue to fight back. Such was the case of an official who used a piece of cloth to cover one of such cameras.
In order to curb these and further engage the public in the monitoring the process to further give it credibility, Oloyede established some committees including one for the “High Powered Opinion Leader’ Into this body people like Professor Obaji and I have been appointed to amongst other duties, “Monitor the Monitors” JAMB needs our support to build the tertiary education system.
Written by Owei Lakemfa.
