Analysis by Sherman C. Seequeh
Liberian comical folks have the slang, “Two girls are friends, dinning and winning together; they don’t know they are mates”—loving to one man. It can be said about former ruling Unity Party (UP), “two pals are warring together against one target; they don’t know they are enemies”. That’s what critical thinkers would say about the current Unity Party, given the little known but clear fact that within the party’s hierarchy are two grimly determined cleavages of people, each planning against the other, laying booby a trap for each other, yet they pretend to be comrades and allies in arms. What is happening in the UP does have the potential to consume the peace and harmony of not just within the party but also the entire Liberia should they, God forbade, ever see the light of power.
The first group of coup plotters were tacitly unveiled to public attention, but very subtly done, which is why many did not take notice. Sometime in May of this year, at the Joint Chambers of Capitol Building, officials of the former ruling Unity Party – deposed Liberia Action Party’s Political Leader Youngblee Karnga Lawrence and UP Vice Standard-Bearer Jeremiah Koung – told some strayed legislative staffers endorsing the former ruling party that the two of them would send Standard Bearer Joseph Boakai away while they campaign. That was when Lawrence and Koung said they would send Old Man Boakai to Foya to rest while they would be leading the party’s campaign efforts.
Since that statement was made by the duo, shrewd pundits immediately began decoding the message: that the stage was literally pre-set for a coup d’état in a Unity Party’s third term should it works – God forbade! Why would both powerful persons in the UP campaign, who have often argued that the former VP is well and strong think of sending the supposed healthy political heavy-weight into oblivion – far away in his Foya village, during a serious campaign time? Is that what they plan to do even after elections?
A lot of pundits and politicians, both within and without the Unity Party, missed the pronouncement by Senator Karnga Lawrence and Senator Koung. Even before campaign was announced open by the National Elections Commission, there they stood in the full glare of public unveiling plans as to what they would do to, and how they would treat, their standard-bearer during the campaign—and perhaps after. Not only did they confirm rather indirectly the incapacity of their leader to lead, they were tacitly confessing to what they had planned in the dark. Decoded fully, the assertion would amount to this: “We will send the old man to Foya to lie down since he’s sick, frail and unable to talk and walk. And we will take over the Unity Party and everything that comes after the campaign.”
So, the Prince Johnson leaked audio in which he is heard suggesting a “Nimba victory” and that “Nimba will benefit” in Koung’s vice standard-bearership should not be a surprise. Ever since Koung was picked, even the unsophisticated mind had sensed the aftermath—that old man Boakai had dug his own political grave. The narrative is clear and widely known and discussed, and therefore needs no further analysis.
The bare fact is that Prince Yormie Johnson still carries in his veins those uncouth and unconventional form of engagements that he maximized during the war days—guerrilla tactics. And if one keenly listens to his leaked comments, one would notice that those instincts of engagement, using “human shields”, ethnic sensibilities, extortion, con-artistry to score victories in war and in politics are clear in his throat.
Thus, the Johnson assertions in the leaked audio corroborate the Youngblee-Koung plan—that lying beneath the “Rescue Liberia” platitudes and all noises of politics is a booty trap – a coup d’état to retire and park the “old man” yet again as a racing car, should there be victory.
But while the coup motive seethes at the back of the minds of Johnson, Larwence and Koung, long before their victory which is so far illusionary, the Boakai inner circle has its own backup plan or counter-coup that is also a crude awakening for the PYJ-led plotters and Liberians at large. With their one eye closed and the other open, Mr. Boakai and his cleavage of ace advisors look upon the vote-rich Nimba County for the flush harvest in wait, and after the perceived victory, the doors will be closed on PYJ’s Koung and Nimba as a whole.
In the counter-coup plotters’ view, PYJ and his Nimba folks are cunning and shrewd and very capable of messing up Boakai’s administration and by and large in messing up the ambitions of all Boakai apologists and advisors.
Though old and frail, Boakai may not be a novice lying there for reckless use—to allow himself be treated as the jetsam and flosam in the UP scheme of things. Even assuming without admitting that he were actually a novice, it must be known that Boakai has got some of the most sophisticated strategists, militarists and propagandists in his arsenal than anyone would imagine. There in Old Man Boakai’s arsenal are some remnants of Liberia’s “progressive elites”, some with solid credentials going through communist classes in Ethiopia, Cuba, Romania, Russia, and with much acumen in the “Green Book”. They are closely having their fingers on the trigger, watching the play as it unfolds, and waiting on the right time to unleash their toxins.
At the moment, the interest of these communist-trained Boakai advisors and a horde of Lofa intelligentsia for now, as they lie cool and alert like a viperous tiger disguised awaiting a herd of deer to prey on them, is to court and obtain the “Nimba Vote”.
In fact, as the ruling Coalition for Democratic Change and its supporters run with the leaked audio, as if it will help dissuade pro-Boakai voters outside Nimba, serious UP strategists are applauding the move. They want the audio to spread far, fast and wide in order to accentuate the message and further propel the Nimba Vote.
To the hard-core Boakai inner circle advisors, spreading the PYJ audio is one sure way to make a huge Nimba vote harvest possible. It appeals to Nimbaians, since their son will be Vice President, and he will run the show because Boakai is sick and dying. So, the more Nimbaians are amused by the PYJ sweet words in the leaked audio, the greater the number of Nimbaians expected to come out to vote Boakai, and the better it would turn out for the Boakai advisors who desperately need it so.
The big question is, even assuming the illusionary victory conceived by Upists were the case, would Jeremiah Koung run the show? Would he be the one to go all over the place acting like President as Prince Johnson is insinuating in case Boakai is incapacitated?
In other words, do vice presidents in republican forms of governments, let alone Liberia, run political shows? Aren’t they lame ducks, and errand boys or girls for the President? Isn’t it true that once a president is seated the “big guns” barricade him, and even a protocol office in the executive give the VP a push around?
Besides, where will those experienced, vicious and ever-alert progressive forces and political think tankers behind Boakai be to allow a Prince Y. Johnson or his protégé Koung to run a government in which they are cabinet officials and advisors?
In other words, PYJ and those who share his “Nimba will win” theory are in the dream land, drowning in the ocean of illusion about their “Koung will run this thing” talks, just as they bask in the illusion of victory in the pending elections.
Let truth be told: As soon as, God forbade, Joseph Boakai wins the presidency, immediately the hard-core progressives and Lofa intelligentsia who are investing so much time and resources for his election will take firm possession of their “man”. From what I am hearing, they will iron-fence their president. They will quarantine him from anything or anyone that looks like Nimba or PYJ and Koung.
Thus, it will be imprudent and folly on the part of PYJ, and those thinking like him, to expect that Boakai will be left vulnerable to Prince Johnson and his Nimba County.
Folks I am looking right now at, who are behind the old man, will not surrender their “man” to PYJ and his hyenas. No, they won’t. The well communist-trained folks in UP and behind Boakai know better to do that. Once they get the Nimba vote, and victory comes, they will effectively put “quarantine measures” into place around the old man, and it will take months if not years before the Vice President comes near, smells and sees his boss.
Here is where the nasty scene could come about: The illusionary Vice President and his PYJ ideologue and their Nimba County will resist the illusionary president’s political divorce of them. And make no mistake: PYJ is bold and audacious, so are most Nimbaians. They just may not let a Boakai president and his communist progressive advisors elbow and exclude them from the political prize that came at the expense of their numbers.
What will ensue in this country will be nasty. It will be an Armageddon, a cataclysmic battle which has already started in the form of quiet counter coups that are conceived and planned between two grimly vicious rival Unity Party cleavages.
Take it or leave it, they certainly do have the potential firstly to rock the UP regime into the political wilderness and, secondly, to consume national peace and stability of the country and decimate the huge progress on the books from the Weah administration in the last six years.
Though they are not yet birthed, and far from the presidency, are beginning to bask into their illusionary victory, the two cleavages within the UP acting like-minds, are actually locked up into such a potentially vicious post-victory counter-coups. And it all portends doom for them and for the nation.
The good thing is that the seething and quiet coups and wars between the two UP forces are happening in the delusional and illusionary victory realm. Victory is far above their reach. Liberians have already deciphered their evil game plans, however cracked, and the people of this country are not prepared to shove their nation into harm’s way by giving political power to two vicious enemies planning the devour the other in case, God forbade, they come to power.
