The Liberian traditional community Friday warned the Constitutional Review Committee not to discard their views or suggestions as the CRC launches its nationwide suggestion box on the review of the Liberian constitution.

The head of Liberia's traditional council Chief Zaza Kawor, who was being accompanied by several traditional chiefs at the CRC's suggestion box launching, praised President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf for including the traditional community in discussions surrounding the review of the 1986 constitution of Liberia, but however warned that their views must not be tempered with.

"On behalf of all the traditional people (native people) of Liberia, we want to thank the President for including us into these discussions. We are happy because this is the first time that we have been invited to form part of constitutional discussions," he said.

Chief Kawor added: "We want to tell you people (CRC members) that whatever we (the traditional people) put in that box should remain just as they are. Do not take anything from there and put it somewhere else. We want you to understand that this is a serious point we're making."

The traditional chief also promised to rally his people to cooperate and vowed to create awareness that would allow everyone to participate in towns, villages and cities across the country. It's not clear what steamed Chief Kawor's warning to the CRC members, but his statement came in the wake of nationwide debates over several sticky spots within the Liberian constitution, while many suggest the constitution must be reviewed to reflect a broader spectrum of the Liberian society that would be inclusive of all its citizenry. The Constitution of Liberia, which is considered to be the organic law of the state, has come under intense public scrutiny in recent years, underscoring key areas such as tenure of the president, appointment of National Election Commissioner(NEC)officers by the president, tenure of lawmakers, contempt power of lawmakers, tenure of judges on the Supreme Court's bench, amongst others.

Legal luminaries have argued in the last decade that, for example, in order to free the National Elections Commission (NEC) of any presidential influence or biases during and after election, its officials must not be appointed by a sitting president, whose vested interest may be tied to the commissioners, but that election officials be appointed or set up by an independent electoral body comprising of civil society actors or an Independent Election Commission.

As a way of dissolving the Liberian constitution of ambiguities and identifying and reviewing areas which serve as potential conflict spots within the Liberian constitution, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, on August 27, 2012, set up a constitutional review committee with the objective of addressing these and many other challenges facing the country's post-conflict democracy. "We decided to launch this box because July is a special month in Liberia. Many people have begum expressing lots of interest in the process already," Cllr. Gloria Musu Scott, head of the Constitutional Review Committee, said at the Friday's launching ceremony. The launching, she said, "Is part of civic education on the process leading to the solicitation of suggestions from the people across the country."

In the coming weeks, she said CRC would distribute several suggestion boxes in all 15 counties across Liberia in order to have the people's views on those things that need to be changed in the Liberian constitution.

"I urge you all to come out and participate in this process," Cllr. Scott pointed out, and rallied government's continuous financial support to ensure a positive outcome of the entire exercise. "The government of Liberia must take this exercise serious by supporting it because the outcome of it could either carry us forward as a country or put us back into conflict depending on how we handle this thing," says Nathaniel McGill, Secretary General of the opposition Congress for Democratic Change political party.

Mr. McGill cautioned President Sirleaf not to listen to any ill-advice from her kitchen cabinet that would potentially derail the exercise and called on her to fully lend financial support for the committee to gain independence and effectively carry out its mandate.