- Deputy Information Minister Daniel Sando told Gbarpolu County Sen. Amara Konneh on Monday to seek Allah's forgiveness for the suffering of Liberians, answering the senator's call for independent drug investigations with an attack on his faith and his political record.
The exchange has pulled the debate over President Joseph Boakai's nominee to run the Liberia Drug Enforcement Agency away from how the agency will be fixed and onto who is to blame for the drug crisis.
Sando, deputy minister of information for public affairs, spoke on Class Reloaded, an online nighttime talk show, after Konneh said replacing the LDEA's leadership would not by itself resolve the crisis. Sando questioned whether the senator could separate himself from the political decisions that produced former President George Weah's election, and said political actors should answer for failures in hospitals and schools.
Konneh replied in a Facebook post. "The lazy man blames the sun for the unfinished work!" he wrote.
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He said he is a "proud Liberian Muslim who prays five times a day, fasts, and donates charity to the poor," and added: "I am not a perfect man, but I try. I respect the Christian faith and silently sit through our daily Christian devotions at the Senate, listening to powerful messages from our Senate prelates. I don't need an unskilled sycophant riding on the back of an aging President to tell me to go to the mosques and pray."
The exchange began after Boakai nominated retired Maj. Gen. Daniel Ziankahn Jr., a former defense minister, to head the LDEA. Konneh welcomed the nomination in a Facebook post, describing Ziankahn as a security professional with extensive military experience, but said changing the agency's leadership alone would not resolve Liberia's narcotics and security problems.
In the same post, Konneh called for transparency, independent investigations and accountability for senior officials allegedly connected to narcotics investigations. He said institutions facing allegations of corruption or links to drug trafficking should not be permitted to investigate themselves.
Konneh, who led a political operation supporting Boakai during the 2023 presidential election, said he had earned the standing to criticize the government he helped install.
"So far, we are struggling to fulfill that promise," he said of the Unity Party's pledge to rid the country of drugs. "I have earned the right to speak up, especially as a national leader and a voice for those affected by illicit drugs whose voices may not be heard. Silence would be complicity. I am doing my job. You do your job, too, so we can make Liberia a drug-free country and a better country than it was two and a half years ago. Everybody wins!"
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