By Joe Bartuah
Boston, MA: 09/04/10:Just imagine a scenario in which you went to a hospital for a major surgery and you have already been taken into the operation room and all the sophisticated electronic medical devices have been mounted, indicating that your surgery is imminent. While anxiously lying on the operation bed, you are then informed that the doctor that is about to perform your surgery had been a member of a graduating class comprising 500 medical students and he was the very least of his class. In other words, you are told that the professional credential of the guy who will shortly be in control of your life is highly questionable. Or consider another scenario where you are on the high sea and a turbulence erupts and someone sneaked a reliable piece of information to you that the captain of your ship had over-stayed his academic sojourn at the navy academy to the extent that the faculty senate had to let him graduate after reluctantly reaching a consensus, just to let him off the hook, simply because he fanatically loves the profession, even though he didn’t have basic aptitude for it.
In any of such scenarios, one is bound to be extremely apprehensive; one’s adrenaline will mercurially rise as one is most likely to be overwhelmed by fear and anxiety. In the case of the surgical theater, some radical patients would muster the courage to resist, walk away and further seek excellent, satisfactory expertise and services rather than risking their precious lives to sheer mediocrity. Even in the high sea scenario, some passengers might panic and resort to using life boats to get away instead of sitting supinely to allow any idiot run them aground.
It’s similar situation in which Liberia finds itself at this point in time; our common patrimony is like a patient in a surgical theater; it deserves a highly rated, experienced surgeon to carry out its operation so that its recovery, its recuperation can be guaranteed. This particular “patient” has perennially suffered from the debilitating melancholy of under-development, backwardness so much that it now needs the meticulous expertise of a topnotch physician, not the mediocrity of a charlatan, in order to avert any tragedy. Leaders, the sages had told us in centuries past, are like torch-bearers who are guiding a multitude of people on a dark path. A leader must therefore have the foresight, conviction and capacity to consistently uphold the torch for the benefits of his or her followers. Not only that a leader must have foresight, he or she must also be farsighted, not someone that can hardly see beyond his nose.
Liberia, a country which brags about being the oldest independent country in Africa, yet pathetically lagging behind most of the countries in the sub-region in terms of literacy and infrastructural development, cannot afford to have another virtually blind captain at the helm of the ship of state. In my humble estimation, a George Weah presidency that some misguided elements are toying with, for selfish, demagogic reasons is a perfect recipe for disaster. If George Weah opts for the chairmanship of the Liberia Football Association, I’ll readily understand the motivation, even though he is yet to convince me that he does possess the rudimentary administrative acumen to lead a national sporting organization.
For those who think that I am being too harsh in my assessment of Weah’s potential, just tell me how far has Junior Professionals, his maiden pet project advanced. By the way, is the Junior Professionals football team still in existence? If so, when last did it participate in an African competition? How many national and international accolades have they won?
For me, Junior Professionals’ standing, its success on the Liberian sporting terrain would be indicative of George Weah’s potential as a national leader because the formation of this team was his very first national enterprise. Moreover, it was through the sporting medium that Weah came to national and international attention. In other words, the game of football is the singular human endeavor that has given Weah a lot in his life time and therefore, he needs to give football a lot in return. Whatever Weah thinks that he’s worth now were lavished on him, or gained through football. It’s therefore needless to say that football ought to be the exceptional domain through which George Weah must first exemplify the sterling leadership qualities which he deludes himself that he possesses, before contemplating taking over the mantle of national leadership. Without the sensational, scintillating phenomenon of football, George Weah is virtually nothing; he would have probably been an obscure high school dropout languishing on the streets of Monrovia drenched in abject poverty, yet he miserably failed to distinguish himself when opportunities abounded in the 1990s for him to convince the world that indeed, he possesses some modicum of leadership qualities.
I have lately learned from reliable sources that Weah resorted to scape-goating Professor Wilson Tarpeh during the Montserrado County senatorial by-election in Liberia, claiming that Mr. Tarpeh as Finance Minister in the 1990s, had refused, or was very reluctant in allotting funds for the Lone Star football team during the African Cup of Nations and the World Cup 1996 campaigns. Anyway, to some extent, Weah got away with such fallacies, since the candidate representing his party eventually won, even though Weah had initially opposed the candidacy of Geraldine Doe-Sheriff in favor of his cronies.
The relevant issue here is that George Weah was not honest in those outlandish comments against Wilson Tarpeh at the time, because he was cunningly tryingly to save face and camouflage his own reckless leadership and resultant failure. Had he been honest, he would have conceded that as a coach-player of Lone Star, he used to draw the team based on his selfish whims; that he was intermittently paranoid and used to begrudge fellow players to the extent that he was known for passing over talented players, simply because he didn’t want them to outshine him, or because he had a personal score to settle against some of the players involved. Most dishearteningly, as a coach-player, George Weah engaged in acts that were clearly inimical to the interest of the nation during crucial international competitions.
That is, when decisive games were scheduled the next day in Monrovia, Weah would take many of his intimate friends, most of whom were Lone Star players, to his “Old School” night club near the intersection of Gurley and Carey Streets for overnight boozing. The result was dismal performances by the national team on many occasions. Reporters who followed the team to Ghana and other African countries said Weah and his cohorts’ pregame intoxications were worst in those countries. For me, those were unequivocal signs of ineptitude, because Weah conscientiously knew that those acts he engaged in and encouraged other players to follow suit were gross infringements of the rules of engagement of all the European teams such as A.S. Monaco, Paris Saint Germaine and A.C. Milan, among others that he had either played for, or was playing for at the time. Simply put, Weah treated Liberia like dirt when he served as coach of our national team and induced players in committing sporting suicide by boozing on the eve of crucial games.
In my estimation, Weah has not demonstrated those exemplary leadership qualities that would be inspirational to the nation in case he becomes president. His inconsistency at best, smacks of a confused state of mind; he seems to have compulsive identity crisis. At some point in time in the 1990s, he labeled himself Ousman and claimed that he was a Muslim. However, on occasional visits to Monrovia, his deeds were not reflective of any religious conviction. Although he later married a Jamaican woman after flirting with countless Liberian girls, the sustained intimacy subsisting between him on the one hand and many other young, curly-haired dudes on the other hand during the ‘90s, triggered multiple speculations and left many keen conservative observers wondering about his actual sexual orientation. Interestingly, a media outlet in Monrovia is said to have recently published one of his bizarre photographs of yester-years when Weah’s embarrassing activities were at their peak.
Not so surprisingly, some of his followers and even some government officials raised qualms about the publication. What most of those protesting failed to realize is that we are no longer in the age of Julius Caesar, Brutus and Mark Anthony. In this electronic age, the “evil” that men do are no more buried with their bones. Instead, such evils rather haunt them continuously while they are still alive and Weah is no exception. Now, the question is: In this sensitive electronic age, do we need a president whose checkered past, shady deeds would occasionally raise the specter of scandal and recurrently dissipate the integrity of country? Your guess is as good as mine.
