allAfrica.com: Liberia: Clearing Kendeja Mess Appropriately (Page 1 of 1)

PRESIDENT ELLEN JOHNSON-Sirleaf has fulfilled her threat that heads would roll in what she considered misinformation from officials of the Ministry of Information over Government's attempt to provide alternative school building for students relocated from Liberia's only cultural shrine, Kendeja.

But so far, it is only one head that has rolled, an assistant minister for culture. If the President's threat was that "heads" and not "head" would roll, and if she would remain spirited to actualize the threat as made, then it is only a matter of time before more heads begin to roll. And, surely, if an assistant minister, pursuant to Liberia's bureaucratic norms, is least in the decision-making and action-taking process then, indeed, the President's first axe is only a tip of the ice-berg: the big fishes shall follow soon.

THE PRESIDENT'S VENOM, as others might see it in the prevailing matters, is more than for Kendeja students' ordeal, their displacement and forceful relocation to an untidy school facility. It has also or meanly got to do with the riotous public opposition to what amounts to the uprooting and dismantlement of the Kendeja Culture Center in favor and in pursuit of expatriate capital interest. Since it announced an investment of millions of United States Dollars on the spot that used to be the breeding ground of Liberia's culture artists, the government of Liberia has come under sustained public criticism not only for desecrating the nation's only cultural center when there are alternative localities for the investment, but also for the spontaneous and haphazard process of relocating the inhabitants or former inhabitants of Kendeja.

MANY CRITICS OF the government's decision to mortgage Kendeja to United States billionaire Bob Johnson to construct and manage a four-star hotel contended--and still contend--that there are many other scenic and ideal spots along the Roberts International Airport route where Kendeja is located, as well as other beautiful areas in the country that government could have given its billionaire partner instead of the only Culture Center in the country. The critics maintain that by its dismantlement of Kendeja, the government demonstrated obsession for the Mighty Dollar at the expense, disrespect and desecration of the nation's cultural heritage. Still, there are others who are critical of the fashion the dislocation of the inhabitants of Kendeja took, a fashion that reminisced the days of war when Liberians coming under the firepower of one warring faction or another ran helter-skelter with whatever personal effects they were able to lay hands on and sought refuge anywhere considered safe at the time. It was reported that following a nighttime meeting organized by the Ministry of Information which ended with the ultimatum of 12-hour relocation, throngs of Kendeja residents hurried out of the area as if pursued by enemy forces. Some sought refuge in Church premises while others found shelter in cramped huts along the Roberts International Airport route.

THE DESECRATION OF a cultural heritage and the tears of its forceful evictees, including impoverished students, could not have come to pass without a collateral injury; there's got to be some amount of fatality upon those who bullied their way on a relatively sacred land and homeless people. Incidentally, the first victim is an assistant minister at the Ministry of Information. But the junior minister, now regarded a sacrificial lamp, could not have acted alone. He must have taken instruction or benefited from the complacency, if not a conspiracy, of some masters. And the public is poised to see who comes after the junior minister.

NOW THAT THE ghost of Kendeja has begun to haunt those who are vanquarding the defilement of the cultural heritage, it is only necessary to urge government, particularly President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, not to limit her anger to the whirling and wielding of the presidential axe in the rather selective way she is proceeding. Firstly, if the President was misinformed about the situation regarding the relocation of the school-going population as she claims, then she must have been grossly misinformed on a number of other critical issues about Kendeja, including making the cultural center the only suited spot for the construction of Bob Johnson's four-star hotel. Thus, whatever committee is set up to probe the misinformation about the relocated school project, the President should ensure that the mandate of the committee include all other variables of the Kendeja saga which led to holding nocturnal meetings, the spontaneous eviction of residents from the Center, the dishing out of US$1,000 to a select few, amongst others.

SECONDLY, THERE IS the urgency in going to the root of the President's anger: the incompletion of a school building to which a horde of Liberian children were relocated in the aftermath of the Kendeja relocation. Granted the president was misinformed. Granted that the building is incomplete and virtually uninhabitable for academic purposes, what's next? Will government wait on findings from the special committee set up to probe the relocation irregularities before the children start school? Will the students continue to sit for teaching under the conditions they protested? Do they deserve another unfit facility for school?

IN OUR OPINION, the first step in clearing the Kendeja mess and to keep a promise to the displaced students is for government to order a massive rehabilitation and refurbishment of the new academic site. Whatever is promised as a temporary relocation is no different from other conditions which resulted into protest. The students protested because the first temporary site was not fit for human habitation. The President acted because she agreed with the students' grievances. If this is actually the case, then the anger of the President leading to the axing of a junior minister and probably more to follow would remain unjustified except the government moves with the speed of light to give the dislocated students what they desperate need and justly deserve: the promised well-furbished school facility--urgently.

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