One of the leading daily newspapers in Liberia published the lead story on last Friday titled Power Versus Wealth.
The Constitution of Liberia places power in the people. This is the basis of the expression All Power rests with the People, as seen in Section One Article One of the Constitution which says that All Power is in the hands of the People. Power is the inalienable right of the People.
Most unfortunately, the powers that be hold the view that they have the power. The newspaper came out to educate people on the point that power is with the People and not with the few wealthy ones. The main societal problem in Liberia remains the holding of wealth by a few persons while the people remain poor. National Legislators have access to at least LD200,000 a day and their foreign partners have access to at least LD300,000,000 a day while the people have access to at most less than LD300 a day.
This is the reason for the people of Liberia saying that Liberia is headed in the wrong direction (Afrobarometer. 2022). The wrong direction is poverty generating. But this direction is changing because the people are against violence and poverty has become the pretext for violence. The experience of the people of Liberia includes valence in the forms of coup d'etat and civil war that took the lives of at least 300,000 people and injured many more people.
Fortunately, the prevailing situation is changing for the better/ The raising of awareness in ways that motivate people to take actions within the Rule of Law is changing the societal situation from the bad prevailing poverty generation to the good enduring poverty alleviation. The raising of awareness includes the exposure of the corrupt practices of the National Elections Commission (NEC), the Supervisory Entity for Elections in Liberia.
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Such exposure explains why the cheating in the Election of October 10, 2023 was considerably less. resulting in the establishment of a world record of 76.86 per cent of the voting age population in Liberia. 40 per cent of the voters fell within the range of the Youth, comprising of the ages from 18 to 35, 60 per cent of the voting age population in Liberia. In the voting, almost all of the National Legislators who wanted to be re-elected and the candidates who wanted to be elected were not re-elected and elected, respectively.
The only and best way to change the bad situation into the good situation is through the raising of awareness within the Rule of Law. Through this change, persons with good records can get elected to bring in the system of Justice, the indispensable ingredient for Peace and Progress in Liberia and in any other country.
