Obsessed by a quotation reflecting the lifestyles of Edmund Burke who underscored that “A nation without the means of its own reform is without the means of its own preservation,” as construed in international human rights law, buttressed by an axiom of Madison who argued that change run amok would destabilize a polity,” upholding further that “If the text and larger order are to command continuing respect, they cannot become like “an excursion ticket, good for the day and trip only.”
Not in any way a pure theorist, but been very practical over the decades at mechanized and scientific agriculture, this columnist does not need any advisor in determining what impacts the lives of ordinary citizens resident in the interior.
Heraclitus’s claim that “we never battle in the same river twice applies to constitutional politics only if the polity long intervals between showers presents itself as a case study in the full realignment of the Liberian nation.
Unarguable that former Interim President Dr. Amos Claudius Sawyer had sacrificed his life in serving the Liberian nation, though with power seekers describing the process as having been protected by the Economic Community of West African States Peace-Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) in a military Mowat, at least whatever may have been performed during the period has immensely contributed to what is today regarded as peace, stability and democracy in the country.
Indeed considered continuing contributions to stabilizing Liberia through democratic concepts long pursued during period of the 19770s, as exhibited through the participation of Dr. Sawyer in a Mayoral election that had been slated for the City of Monrovia, in spite been considered a “country boy,” whatever metamorphosis have occurred in the life of the nation becomes true lessons to borrow from.
Having been danced on the “so-called” political floor for so long until he has been rendered grey, just as some forebears would have since loved to see their siblings become at home, rather than abroad, due to their resilience at preserving a culture granted not by human but the Almighty God which many may attempt stealing just through spark of an eye, Dr. Sawyer deserves every credit for helping at the institutionalization of the present society, moreso been very god at not wearing titles but through actual performances.
To have therefore in recent days become very forceful at calling for reduction in the tenures of the legislative, executive and judiciary branches of government, having envisioned such processes based on the Constitution that he tremendously helped revised during the early 1980s before the eyes of even this columnist, though later accused of attempting to cause chaos that did not occur, but simply saving the unacknowledged in both the higher and lower brackets, it is at all not strange for him to be calling for reform in the tenures of individuals serving at the legislative, executive and judiciary branches of government.
Purely a constitutional problem that can be resolved through a democratic process, it becomes even more convincing that Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes of the United States, concurring that any political system is legitimate,” noting that without it, no system is legitimate,” underscored that the best test of “truth” is “the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market.”
Indeed not a competition but learning from the past, moreso with the Liberian Constitution photo-copied from the Constitution of the United States, Dr. Sawyer’s apparent suggestion for the reduction of the tenures in the Legislative, Executive and Judiciary requires sobriety in supporting the call since, in actuality, governments coming to power and hating others to serve therein will have to sit for six or nine years before venturing into job-seeking is not only outrageous but violation of international human rights.
From the backdrop of what has since obtained from the six years tenure of the Presidency, evil-minded as it has been of some in subjecting others to incivility, yet expecting the international community to crown them with undeserving laurels, the Republic of Liberia is for all true and hardworking citizens and not the few and self-seeking at the detriment of others.
Quite a dramatic situation in which all cannot be exposed to the public on account of upholding ethical standards, one would surely see the mess that some have created of the nation, yet pretending to be doing good, something that Liberians are fast gaining consciousness and may develop in unmanageable explosive situations.
“Eat and let me eat and not eat and let me go hungry” becoming the fix in the “so-called” democratic environment, perhaps thinking that the affected are unacknowledgable, one can only say that “no man has monopoly over power,” especially that which comes from the Almighty God.
Where were they when the late Auditor General Sayon Brown squeezed our man to the wall, with nobody allowed to publish anything on his audit? Where were they when the house of Dr. Sawyer was almost burnt in Caldwell, forcing Cllr. James Laveli Supuwood and this columnist to dare visiting the Political Science Professor when government had banned all from visiting him? Is it today that having undergone through all of the evils that one should be left stranded through rendering him a “walkathon” with extreme poverty experienced simply to paint government wrongly by individuals who think they know it best?
The sensibility of Dr. Sawyer has now come to light and it is up to the National Legislature to think it right, without which the reintroduction of strange forms of governance processes are likely, with many not prepared to been part.
