MONROVIA: In his new year’s message to the nation, Dr. Togba Nah-Tipoteh, former Minister of Planning and Economic Affairs, now, Ministry of Finance and Development Planning, was keen on assessing “mistakes” that have led to bad governance and endemic poverty in Liberia.
Dr. Togba-Nah Tipoteh, former Head of the International Monitoring Fund (IMF), and former Chairman of the African Governors of the World Bank (WB), is a globally respected Liberian economist, educator and politician, having been a presidential candidate in three elections in Liberia.
For more than three decades, he has been actively involved with democratic activities in promotion of human rights, liberty and justice and constitutional rule.
Dr. Tipoteh who is also former Chairman of the Movement for Justice in Africa (MOJA), said the history of Liberia and other countries shows that ruling and non-ruling political leaders make a lot of promises while soliciting votes from eligible voters but fail to deliver on promises made.
“At election times, these leaders make plenty promises about getting on the ground running to correct the mistakes and make conditions better, but these promises are not implemented and conditions get worse, leading to the continuation of violence,” he noted.
He averred that people who steer the affairs of the state fail to accept criticisms and the powers that be consider the critics to be “devils in human form.”
Dr. Tipoteh: “Ironically, the leadership of the non-ruling political party to become the ruling party shortly insists that it is prepared to sleep with the devil to gain State power. What a contradiction! What should one expect from the non-ruling political party that is about to become the ruling political party on January 22, 2024?”
Dr. Tipoteh asserted that the people who love Liberia are informed about these “ironies and inconsistencies” and remain motivated to work together to raise awareness among the people of Liberia.
“It is due to this awareness raising that people witnessed locally and globally the minimization of the unfair practices of the National Elections Commission (NEC) of Liberia, the minimization of the violence and the maximization of voting on the basis of the good records of candidates during the voting at the election of October 10th.
It is on account of this awareness raising that that the election results were accepted and the powers that be received commendations from local and global sources,” he asserted.
Dr. Tipoteh highlighted that the only way to make conditions better for Liberians is through non-violent actions within the Rule of Law, because the ordinary people are experiencing the workings of the Truth.
“Witness the results from elections in Liberia during the 52nd, 53rd and 54th National Legislatures. Most of the Legislators who wanted to be re-elected were not re-elected because of their bad records. They were not re-elected because they repeated the same mistakes. They were not re-elected because of the continuous awareness raising. It is only when persons with good records are elected that they can bring in the system of Justice, the indispensable ingredient for Peace and Progress in Liberia and in any other Country,” he asserted.
Dr. Tipoteh lamented that the longstanding and widespread poverty in Liberia has become the pretext for violence that has taken on the forms of coup d’état and civil wars in Liberia and elsewhere, “In Liberia, these forms of violence have taken the lives of at least 300,000 people and injured many more people. In the face of the foregoing reality, people are hoping that the same mistakes would not be made.”
