The Chairman of the Collaborating Political Parties (CPP), Alexander Benedict Cummings, says the state of the Liberian nation under President George Manneh Weah is “weak.”
Addressing the nation recently in Monrovia, Mr. Cummings pointed out that “too many Liberians are suffering while a culture of moral bankruptcy is being promoted with a determination to destroy the last piece of the moral fabric of the society.”
While asserting that “Our ship is sinking,” the CPP Chairman characterized the situation, which according to him, threatens Liberia’s long-term peace and security as “wicked and immoral.”
“Rather than delivering basic services, fostering a unified and productive nation, and care for the citizens, those given the mantle of national leadership are busying themselves with dividing Liberians,” he added.
“They are so busy enriching themselves that they have either forgotten, do not know how, or just do not care, about the most important duties for which they were elected,” Cummings said.
Describing the Weah regime as the “most corrupt,” he added that the root cause of poverty is corruption. Where corruption thrives, as it is currently, poverty will rise. This government is very corrupt. In fact, it is the most corrupt we have had”, he emphasized.
According to the CPP political leader, “This is not only the opinion of the Liberian opposition, but “it is the result of a global assessment.”
Quoting the 2020 Report of the World Bank, he disclosed that under the administration of President George Weah, over half a million Liberians are expected to drop below the poverty line this year.
Further elucidating, the CPP National leader, who is also former top executive of Coca Cola international said the actual number is 526,000 Liberians- “friends, relatives, neighbors, people we know, and some we may not know; people we went to school with, or pass by in the streets every day will live on less than one dollar and ninety cents or less than 380 Liberian dollars a day. This will put our poverty rate at 65% up from 54% in 2016.”
He also branded the CDC-led government’s Pro-poor Agenda as, “Make Liberians Poorer Agenda.”
“We know our country deserves better. Our people deserve better. This is why we will make this failed Weah Administration a one-term presidency. We know they will try to cheat, and as they have already begun, will try to use fear and intimidations to keep themselves in power. We promise you: None of this will work,” he told CPP supporters.
Added Cummings: “We are not easily frightened. We will not be provoked into violence. We do not have to be violent because our cause is just. We stand not for ourselves, but for our people who have suffered too much. Mr. Weah has failed the country. He has failed our people. He knows it, and the Liberian people know it. The CPP desires to build up our country, and lift our people. We are not interested in destroying our country. We will democratically defeat you because our people deserve better!
“While you are trying to be violent, too many Liberians cannot afford to buy food, or pay school fees; too many cannot pay their rents, or pay their medical bills. While you are trying to be violent and display ill-gotten wealth, homes are being washed away in West Point and the Borough of New Kru Town, and in many other places, families cannot sleep when it rains. While you are trying to be violent, mortuaries are overfilling with unclaimed bodies because families cannot afford to pay to take possession of their dead loved ones. It is a shame that our country has become a dog-eat-dog zone with everyone trying to hustle on each other,” Cummings pointed out.
The CPP Chairman narrated that “in just three years, President George Weah and his administration have shown that they lack the ability to lead us to peace, prosperity and development.”
“All they have succeeded in doing is leading our people into abject poverty and destitution. More children are now crowding the streets and risking their lives to provide for themselves and their elderly parents. At street corners, the elderly, disabled, and other vulnerable Liberians are queueing up in increasing numbers to beg for help. All across the country, our people are losing their dignity as they struggle to take care of themselves and their families.”
He asked rhetorically: “How can anyone claim to love our country and pillage, destroy and disrespect it like this? How can a leader claim to love his people and suffer them like this? How can ‘Change for Hope’ create no positive change, and engender such hopelessness?”
According to Mr. Cummings, the CPP cannot suggest that all of the problems we face today are the making of this administration.
However, he told the nation, “by their incompetence, lack of vision, extortion, and appeals to division and lawlessness – by the overwhelming evidence of their lack of leadership and duty to care – in only three years, this George Weah-led Administration has quadrupled the problems they inherited. Where it was bad, they have succeeded to make worse, and where it was good, they have effectively destroyed. They have reversed the gains our country struggled to make, and for which we were recently considered a good example of a developing post-conflict nation.”
He maintains that “Like many before him who our people honored with the duty to lead our country, President George Weah has carelessly and selfishly abandoned Liberians and Liberia. Wastefully bleeding the country, by his bad examples, President Weah is encouraging a few of his friends to generate and display wealth they did not have, and were not able to declare, before assuming public offices.
Rather than investing in making our young people productive and ready to lead our country into a better and brighter future, this government is investing in militarizing them, inciting them to violence, and teaching them that it is acceptable to lie, steal, cheat, be dishonest, and intolerant of others. Our young people, desperate to improve their lives, are being misled into thinking that such despicable acts are formulas for success and a measure of successful leadership.
In the CPP, we are worried about our young people, and deeply concerned about the future of our country. Thanks to the lack of leadership of Mr. Weah, our young people, who are the future of our country, are being wrongly impressed that education is not important; that without taking personal responsibility and making sacrifices for a greater cause, somehow their circumstances and the conditions of our country will miraculously improve.
We are also worried about women political participation under this government. In this age of inclusion, any government, political party or coalition which marginalizes women and does not value their participation enough to include them for consideration in the electoral process, is a joke. That party needs to re-examine their commitment to women inclusion and participation.
According to him, the current all-male candidates roster of the Weah-led ruling party is an insult to Liberian women! I promise you that the CPP will not only include women in leadership as it already has, but will also support them for elected offices on CPP tickets for all elections!”