No One Is More Liberian Than I Am

Posted August 28, 2022

By Tewroh-Wehtoe Sungbeh

I love Liberia.

I don’t think anybody loves Liberia more than I do.

After all, Liberia’s where my ‘nabor strings’ are buried somewhere in the deep trenches of that country’s pristine landscapes of swamps and endangered species, beaches, forest, sand, mud, the Atlantic Ocean, and vast resources of lakes and rivers.

The notion that I have to build a canoe, an airplane, a house in Liberia, or live there before I can open my mouth to say or write anything about the presidency, in itself is fuzzy and intellectually lazy.

Are you kidding me?

In this age of technology and a 24-7 news cycle, do I have to hunker down in Liberia to research and write and speak about events there?

I don’t think so!

No one is more Liberian than I am.

And the Liberian presidency is not an aristocratic inheritance that was willed to a Liberian who occupied the Executive Mansion so that the individual can govern the country like a fiefdom, and do as he or she pleases.

That’s why some of us who see ourselves as bold and blessed dare to do what we do and are never discouraged by the insults and putdowns, and even the occasional death threats that activists are exposed to for doing what is right.

As the grandson of the late Paramount Chief Sungbeh Doeyan of Narkay Chieftain and the son of the late former Commissioner Sungbeh Doeyan Wleh, both of whom are proud sons of Sinoe County, political activism is like a family business.

As a trained Pilot in my previous life, I could have remained in that profession and become just that, but I took the other route – the thankless route of political advocacy most people are advised not to travel – just to be of service to the oppressed and marginalized.

Why?

Because I love Liberia.

I could have allowed myself to be another ‘brilliant’ Liberian intellectual who is comfortable with my life in the United States and my body of work and academic degrees, and relaxed in the shallowness of my own ego.

Painfully aware that Liberia’s dying gradually in the hands of some, and the Liberian people are cut down by their own corrupt and insensitive leaders, there is no other way I could have given my service to Liberia than to be an advocate for justice.

It is a darn shame that Liberia, a country over 100 years old, remained an underdeveloped country whose successive governments continue to steal away every dollar depriving its citizens of a way forward and the opportunity to live the proudest moments of their lives in a country they always called home.

See, as the Liberian people always say, “God doesn’t sleep.”

As churches and other places of worship sprout across the land, the phrase “God doesn’t sleep” reverberates across the nation and rings true the day the nation’s preeminent losers, the criminals Nathaniel F. McGill, Bill Twehway, and Syrennius Cephas, were finally exposed.

So, if Liberia is my country like it is to many others, isn’t it honorable and worthy of my time to be another voice among many voices that wants to see Liberia thrive as a ‘wholesome, functioning’ society where every Liberian can live in peace, and prosperity, and survive to be successful and see their kids grow up to be somebody in their own country?
My love of Liberia compels me to boldly write and speak about Liberia’s recurring leadership problems which pre-date my birth to Liberian parents who proudly molded me to be who and what I am today.

‘Sweet’ Liberia, ‘Mama’ Liberia cannot and will never be that prosperous giant country by the Atlantic Ocean that we want it to be if we remain quiet and our political leaders continue to steal our resources and treat us and our people not as first-class citizens, but as no-class citizens.

This is a call to fight and take our country back!

dorbioh@hotmail.com
www.theliberiandialogue.org.