The Sirleaf Administration and even its critics agree that Liberia has moved a great distance away from the international pariah state it was a decade ago. They agree also that challenges – both those surmountable in time and those seemingly insurmountable – face the nation. Not surprisingly though, both agree in aspirations but they do not agree on methods and timing as they angst to make Liberia a middle-income country in two decades. However, the critical, enduring question remains, "Is the country on the proper trajectory towards eliminating the causes of the decade-plus civil war in efforts to prevent a fall back into chaos?" This year's Independence Day Orator, Cllr. Varney Sherman, has his doubts, and he is raising national consciousness through tough new questions. The Analyst has been looking at his Independence Day address to the nation.

This year's Independence Day national orator, Cllr. Varney Sherman, says Liberia is still in the woods despite the enormous resources and man-hour the Sirleaf Administration poured into the nation's reconciliation, recovery, and reconstruction efforts and despite the administration's unmatched success.

He addressed the nation on July 26, 2013 in Monrovia on the theme, "Consolidating Peace and Reconciliation for Transformation".

According to the 2013 national orator, who is also the National Chairman of the ruling Unity Party, the nation is in the woods where wishful thinking abounds and where the political class seems divided on just about anything national. It is in the woods where the youth, feeling betrayed and abandoned, remain war-nostalgic and violence-prone; and where some of those in leadership scarcely stop to evaluate the impacts of policies and programs upon the daily lives of the people.

The learned counselor-at-law, who was once a presidential candidate under the banner of the defunct Liberia Action Party, is raising national consciousness by asking enduring questions. Not only that, is also recommending steps that the administration must take immediately and periodically to avert a return to chaos, mayhem, and destruction of the proportion the nation experienced for more than a decade between December 1989 and August 2003.

"But just what are those questions?" is the question many are asking. But first, the orator's reflections.

The reflections

Cllr. Sherman said the nation needed to review its recovery and reconstruction agendas by reflecting on the reckless abandon with which elements of the various Liberian tribes embraced the violence of the war era and the viciousness with which combatants marauded the cities and countryside, leaving untold casualties in their wakes.

In accomplishing this, as the nation celebrated its 166th year of statehood, he said, Liberians and their leaders must honor their visionaries who, faced with all odds and difficulties, declared this land a sovereign state, by learning from the power of their examples.

"We must not only honor them, but for the future of our country, we must learn from their vision, courage, and boldness. For it is only through well-defined vision, mixed with courage to take decisions and boldness to implement those decisions can Liberia be transformed to a safer and better place for all Liberians," he said.

That the absence of gunfire connotes not peace, reconciliation, and security, he said, must guide the steps Liberians take in the march back to sanity and greatness.

"Even after two circles of general and presidential elections, the social and development challenges which face our people are still very daunting; some of our people appear to give up all hopes for the betterment of their situations during their lifetimes. Restoration of our patrimony appears so overwhelming that we, as a people, cannot afford to merely remember those who sacrificed for July 26, 1847; we cannot merely rejoice in the tremendous benefits of their actions," he said. Instead, he said, Liberians must be conscious of the internal challenges and external circumstances that compelled them to declare independence against all odds.

But it was helpful to recognize that most of what prompted the founding fathers to take such daring action, tossing aside all personal and collective dangers, he said, still exist today.

"We celebrate Independence Day at a time when we have successfully moved our country from a fifteen-year civil war, which almost destroyed it," he said, noting that the civil war had rendered the nation wretched.

Raising consciousness through enduring questions

But the ruling party chairman said there was no point for Liberians to continue brooding over the devastations of the civil war.

It was time, he said, to address the fundamental questions of the war and strategize for the way out by addressing questions long ignored and considered taboo.

"Does the mere absence of war in our country constitute peace? Have we really reconciled our differences among ourselves? Have we carefully examined the ethnic, religious, and economic schisms of our society and bridged them in order to enhance genuine national unity and integration? If not, do we have the quality of peace and reconciliation that we could consolidate for transformation of our common patrimony?" he said were some of the fundamental questions.

While Cllr. Sherman said these questions in no way suggested that the Sirleaf Administration has been on virtual holiday, he said the point they make was that whatever success the administration made has not been sufficiently communicated to the people.

"The absence of information to the Liberian people about these achievements and accomplishments is a serious deficiency that must be remedied immediately.  It should be acknowledged that these accomplishments and achievements contribute to peace and reconciliation in our country. I therefore recommend very strongly that the information dissemination structure and process of this Government be revamped and adequately supported to provide all information about the accomplishments and achievements of this Government; a dissemination of information in a way that it permeates every sector of our country," he said.

The learned counselor's recommendation for information improvement drew critics' anger with many of them expressing cynicism about his intent, given the existence of the Ministry of Information, Culture, and Tourism and the Liberian Broadcasting System (LBS), which propagate government policies and programs.

But the ace lawyer-cum-politician seemed not perturbed, arguing that the quality of performance, not mere existence, mattered in Liberia's march back to sanity and progress.

"I submit that all of these achievements and accomplishments, including the many others which I have not mentioned, are not enough as a foundation to transform our country. I believe that some of those things which made it possible for us to go to war against one another are still simmering; and I rush  to suggest that at every Independence Day we, especially the leadership of Liberia, should examine ourselves and every aspect of our country and ask whether enough of the  fundamental differences and long-standing problems which caused our civil war were addressed during the previous year and we should evaluate the extent to which our success or failure in addressing those differences and long-standing problems may have enhanced or affected our country's progress," the tough-talking orator said.

What this meant, he said, was that the administration's numerous achievements aside, it must assume the role of and surpass the courage of the Founding Fathers of Liberia with valor unpretending.

"Your [President Sirleaf's] Government, like our founders during the years of 1845 to 1847, has a singular responsibility and obligation to be just as visionary as they were or even more visionary than they were, to be just as bold and courageous as they were or to be even bolder and more courageous than they to tackle head-on our fundamental problems and differences so that genuine peace may be used as the foundation to restore our country to its pre-war status and genuine reconciliation may be the fulcrum for its transformation," he said.

Addressing President Sirleaf directly, he reminded her that the Liberian people elected her twice because she was the best qualified and most experienced of all the candidates for president and that with that preferment came responsibility and enormous expectations from the people.

"This means that as much as you have done, it is imperative, absolutely imperative that your Government engages in one, two or three policies and programs which make significant difference in the lives and livelihood of ordinary Liberians – policies and programs for which your Government will be long remembered and many of the people of this country would be able to say that it is because of you that our country is where it then is or they are where they will then be," he said.

This, he said, brought the discourse on the future of Liberia to the specifics of national recovery, peace, and reconstruction.

Diagnoses, evaluation, recommendations

Contending that the Liberian civil war was not an extension of a feudal war between two Liberian tribes from the East, as some commentators think, the UP national chairman said true peace demanded true reflection and true actions based in selflessness.

"The major cause of our civil war that is too often ignored is the abject poverty, socio-economic deprivations and drudgery that too many of our people suffer from; they considered themselves to be the disadvantaged of our society and they therefore distinguish themselves from the rest of us," he said.

He said the existence of these vices a decade after the formal cessation of hostilities in Liberia made the nation a "fertile grounds for unrest".

"It is abject poverty, socio-economic deprivations and drudgery that unscrupulous people take advantage of when they employ violence as the instrument to make a difference in the lives of a people. Let us make no mistake that the greatest unspoken cause of our civil war is the extreme poverty, socio-economic deprivations and drudgery that too many of our people suffer from; it is the reason why a civil war that appeared to have started on the basis of differences between two counties or tribes eventually involved and engulfed the entire Republic of Liberia and affected every nook and corner of our country," he emphasized.

"Some of the things which need to be done are not too expensive or too difficult to be done," he said, suggesting that providing pipe-borne water and installing workable sewage systems would go a long way in addressing the health needs of millions in Monrovia and other large cities in the country.

"Too many of our people have never had the comfort of electric light; and I need not tell you the transformation that the electric light brings to any community. As much as we all appreciate the big infrastructure development projects carried out since an appreciable level of peace returned to Liberia, I suggest that small projects such as the installation of water pumps and solar lights in all the villages of Liberia – projects which directly impact the lives of the greatest majority of our people - be implemented as one way of alleviating the extreme poverty and drudgery that they live in," he said.

This recommendation of the chairman of the ruling party, coming at this time, prompted critics to wonder why he was speaking out now, when it seemed too late. But the UP national boss seemed to be saying that 'it was better late than never'.

He continued, "These undertakings, even though insignificant in their appearances, will make tremendous difference in the lives of the Liberian people and will cause them to renew their loyalty and commitment to the Republic of Liberia. If our Government were to invest in such things, we will be considered a pacesetter and a trendsetter; this is what the Liberian people elected you for, Madam President."

By heeding his recommendation during this midterm, he believes, the Sirleaf Administration would make a "difference in the lives of a majority of our people".

The UP chairman's recommendation – about repairing and constructing major infrastructures just as the Sirleaf Administration boasts that it is doing exactly that – has baffled observers who had thought that given his role as head of the ruling party, he was privy to the administration's development plans supposedly drawn from the party's manifesto and election promises.

But Cllr. Sherman said he did not doubt the wisdom of the administration but that taking extraordinary administrative actions now would lay a strong foundation for the transformation of Liberia.

"Some of the things on which genuine peace and reconciliation after our civil war are dependent are factors, such as reconciliation of all our people and rehabilitation of the victims of our civil war, new and robust approach to political governance, emphasis on nationalism and our social and cultural values and promotion of individual initiatives and Liberian entrepreneurship," the UP national chairman said.

Regarding corruption, which he described as a cancer of society, Cllr. Varney said the way to root out graft and corruption from all sectors of society is for the administration to ensure that public service ceased to be a "place where corruption exists, persists, and is practiced as a matter of course and with impunity".

Warning that corruption would be the undoing of the Sirleaf Administration, the counselor-at-law admonished the Liberia leader to remain resolute and take actions, not minding the lackadaisical attitudes of the Legislature or members of the cabinet, to stamp out corruption or minimize its incidence.

The way to go, he said, was for lawmakers to give the Liberian Anti-Corruption Commission (LAC) prosecutorial powers as a way of fighting corruption vigorously. He did not say where he stood in the debate that granting LACC prosecutorial powers would undermine the function of the constitutional prosecution arm of government – the Ministry of Justice.

But he said granting special powers to agencies for extraordinary effects was not unique to Liberia.

"Something similarly new, different and aggressive must be employed to tackle corruption in Liberia, Madam President, or else the 'talk and talk' about corruption will overshadow all our achievements and accomplishments since the guns were silenced in 2003," he said.

While he agreed with administration insiders who believe that the decentralization of the government requires constitutional amendment, he said such simple actions as having nominated local officials endorsed by local councils would instill a sense of power and ownership within the local populations. The government, he said, could temper local councils' endorsement powers with defined responsibilities such as taking charge of a portion of revenue generated locally for administrative and development purposes.

The government having tackled corruption and reconciliation by empowering the local communities politically and economically, he said, the next place to look was the consideration of the implementation of the recommendations of Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).

The government of President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf said it has begun implementing some of the recommendations, but that it would refrain from implementing those that wantonly violate the Constitution and laws of Liberia.

In a recent public statement, President Sirleaf did not bother to name those recommendations, even though they have been the bottleneck to the holistic implementation of the body of recommendations that critics insist will reconcile Liberians and bring about genuine peace.

The UP chairman agreed with her and recommended that the administration "legally discard those recommendations which are unconstitutional and in conflict with our laws, and implement those recommendations which will foster the unity, integration and reconciliation of our people," noting that ignoring the report because a few unconstitutional recommendations would continue to make peace elusive.

"It should be recalled that some of us have already offered our services to challenge in the courts of Liberia, if necessary, the unconstitutional and illegal recommendations of the TRC Report. We should seriously pursue implementation of the legally and constitutionally implementable recommendations of the TRC and we should make sure that the Liberian people know that we are doing just that. I submit that we can never claim to have accomplished genuine peace and reconciliation in Liberia without appropriate disposition of the TRC Report; and every day that we delay in the disposition of the TRC Report, we give the false impression that we are afraid of its content; and you know that we are not. Therefore I recommend that serious and consistent attention be paid to the systematic disposition of the TRC Report; it is a facilitator for genuine peace and reconciliation which could be used for the transformation of our country," he said.