Weah The Weird Presidential Candidate

Much has been made of George Weah’s so called magnanimity toward Liberia and its people. During the 2005 presidential and general elections in the war-ravaged nation, the international media, perhaps not knowing all the facts, portrayed Weah as a savior without whom more Liberians would have died during Liberia’s 14 years of brutal civil war. Reports of the “Liberian soccer millionaire” bankrolling the Liberian national team, the Lone Star, among other flowery comments, filled the airwaves and print media.

However, Weah’s own teammates – some of his old, trusted friends then but “imagined enemies” now - had since denied that the “soccer millionaire” bankrolled the Lone Star, clarifying that whatever underwriting Weah shouldered on behalf of the national soccer team was carried out as a ploy to fleece Liberia by ballooning repayment vouchers. And since officials responsible for repaying Weah feared a backlash, the “soccer millionaire” went away with the cheats all the time, every time.

But all that was to change when the late G. Baccus Matthews introduced Weah as presidential candidate to partisans of his (Weah’s) Congress for Democratic Change (CDC) at the Monrovia City during the 2005 presidential campaign. That occasion placed Weah before the mirror and the stage was set for all-out, raw scrutiny, something Weah had never known as a soccer player who flew on the wings of lavished glorifications such as “King Weah”, “King George”, among others. The local media, in a sustained manner at this time, held candidate Weah’s feet to the fire over questions of qualification and experience.

That Weah had had no experience in any kind of office work and that he had admitted falsifying a high school certificate sent the media on a colorful field day, with the public relations pendulum swinging heavily against the man used to nothing but praises, even where he failed to die a little harder for the home side. Candidate Weah’s honey moon with the media was effectively over, and threats of killing journalists who were “negatively writing about me” profusely spewed out of the mouth of the presidential candidate.

It may not have been surprising, probably, to see this presidential candidate pick fuss with journalists at election time. First, it’s widely known that Weah lacks the capacity to weigh the consequences of engaging in such a reckless behavior. Second, the man is naturally arrogant, over-assumingly power-obsessed, and heavily burdened under the illusion that Liberia is his personal fiefdom. Diplomacy? Forget about it; respect for others? Not in his vocabulary. After all, the man played football, even though he didn’t take Liberia to the West African Football Union (WAFU) competition, useless mentioning the African Cup of Nations, and if you need some amazing amusement, just add the World Cup. So, what’s really the big deal, since it’s not football? Love by mouth?

Former presidential candidate, George Weah

The Biamba Mutombo hospital built by basketball superstar from DRC

You see, what you say does not matter but what you stand for. George Weah has built no hospital or clinic in Liberia; he has built no school, no road, no playground, nothing. The only structure the retired soccer player has put up in Liberia is the house he built for himself. So the much publicized Weah’s assistance to Liberia is actually the assistance that isn’t. Yet, this presidential candidate has become boringly monotonous in claiming, “I love Liberia and I love my people.”
But as a “soccer millionaire”, why does Weah need the presidency so desperately to prove his love for Liberia in the first place? Congolese American professional basketball player Dikembe Mutombo did not ask to be mayor of Kinshasa when he demonstrated true love and compassion for his people. Mutombo simply researched and discovered that a modern medical facility was badly needed on the outskirts of Kinshasa in the town of Masina, where a quarter of the city’s 7.5 million residents live in poverty, and set out to build one.

Through his Mutombo Foundation, the professional basketball player constructed a $29 million, 300-bed hospital, the Biamba Marie Mutombo Hospital and Research Center, named after his late mother, to serve the poor in his homeland. Opened in February 2007, the well-equipped hospital now has full telemedicine capabilities with the United States and Europe through the network established by Medical Missions for Children, a United States-based charity with a global mission to “transfer medical knowledge from those who have it to those who need it.” Support for the hospital project poured in massively with empathy, but only after it was established that the only motivating factor behind the project was love for humanity.

To honor Mutombo for his outstanding humanitarian work, the United States National Basketball Association (NBA) last year appointed him the NBA’s global ambassador, to help do for others what he has done for his own people. Mutombo’s responsibilities include working with Basketball without Borders, the NBA and International Basketball Federation’s global program that uses the sport to create positive social change in the areas of education, health and wellness.

This is one clear example as to how a celebrity or a “soccer millionaire”, not a shrewd, leverage-seeking politician, can make a difference in the lives of his people and others in need. When one uses his career to help others on genuine humanitarian grounds, the story transcends success – it becomes one of a role model. But when a man uses the popularity garnered from his profession to demand what he simply does not deserve, the issue degenerates beyond failure – it becomes one of a mean character bereft of sanity and integrity.

But what’s really driving Weah to such an extraordinary obsession with power, crying for and chasing the presidency with insane passion? Someone says “the man now virtually dwells on the fast lane, rushing through courses to be president, learning how to speak as president, and perhaps even learning to walk as president.”

You see, my late father used to say “If you hear a little boy talks about making his farm on top of the hill, he probably heard it from his father.”

Many Liberians strongly believe there’s no mystery behind what’s fueling the retired soccer player’s presidential ambition. Some say if Weah were a national of any of Liberia’s neighboring states, he won’t muster the courage to join a presidential race. “But this is Liberia, we voted for Charles Taylor because he killed our parents (a reference to the song supporters of Charles Taylor sang during the 1997 Special Elections – ‘You killed my ma, you killed my pa, I will vote you’) so Weah read our faces well,” a Liberian in Boston, Massachusetts, said on condition of anonymity.

The frustration of the Liberian this writer spoke with in Boston is well grounded. While Weah may have gotten little or no support if he were a citizen who ran for president of Sierra Leone, Guinea or the Ivory Coast in 2005, the former footballer got the endorsements of two former Liberian foreign ministers - one as his running mate and the other his spokesman. “By their endorsements, the two statesmen told the diplomatic community that George Weah is the best Liberia has to offer,” an angry voter told a local daily at the time.

Weah also enjoyed the “unflinching support” of some of Liberia’s most respected legal practitioners, while hundreds of Liberians in the Diaspora returned home to campaign for the man widely known to lack every bit of presidential credentials. That level of deception, regrettably, brought out the worst in some Liberians and exposed the nation’s political hypocrisy. And what’s more troubling is how people can engage in such a disservice to their country and not even know it.

The complex nature of modern governments, engendered by issues such as emerging technology, global warming, globalization, and international terrorism, demands for leaders with experience and intellectual capacity to make their countries useful partners in tackling these concerns. Can any one really convince the Liberian electorate that George Weah presents an alternative here?

For Weah’s main allies who are mostly failed politicians, clinging to the “let’s spoil it attitude”, there’s nothing wrong sending George Oppong Weah before the Joint Session of the United States Congress to say he loves Liberia. They didn’t have a problem in 2005 when he flatly refused to appear for a debate, and they didn’t have a problem either when he threatened to kill journalists for alleged negative reporting against him, if elected.

And what is hurting Liberia in its democratization process is the impact of the sycophantic politics on a huge number of voters who look up to these chameleon politicians as mentors. Observers say this was how the former soccer player turned presidential candidate got some of his votes during the last elections.

Although many considered Weah’s premature participation in the 2005 elections as an affront to the nation’s highest office, he emerged from first round of voting as the candidate to beat, but failing to secure the required percentage of the votes to be declared winner. As one political commentator noted, the runoff election, which put Weah against Unity Party’s Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, was a “divine intervention” to save Liberia from shame and international ridicule. The rest is now history.

But that was then and this is now. Liberia is expected to hold general and presidential elections later this year, and like he did in 2005, Weah is again leaving no stone unturned to be elected president, demanding the removal of the National Elections Commission chairman, James Fromayan, to be replaced by someone “I trust”, and forming alliances with some top but gutless political players who, in normal circumstances, would not even consider Weah for a filing clerk position in their own offices.

While no Liberian is more Liberian to question the patriotism of fellow compatriots, every Liberian has a patriotic responsibility to stand up and to speak out when people, driven by narrow partisan considerations, deliberately set out to take this already war-wrecked country further down the hill. When unscrupulous politicians foment trouble, it is the common people who suffer, so failing to act is not an option.

Newly seated Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown needed a double shot of record snow in the United States capital to slow down and to learn that there’s no “fast lane” in Washington. But Liberians do not need another “divine intervention” to put their country in the right direction. We have the mind; we have the power - all that we need is to use them in the best interest of our nation.

By James Seitua
Contributing writer and commentator
seituajim@yahoo.com