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‘I Knew Nothing of the Opposition Meeting’- Says Dr. Tipoteh

Monrovia – The head of the Movement for Justice in Africa, Dr. Togba-Nah Tipoteh has clarified that he did not walk out of last Thursday’s meeting between President George Manneh Weah and members of the opposition community as is being reported in some quarters.

Shortly before the start of last week’s meeting, Dr. Tipoteh was seen rushing out of the meeting hall at the Bella Cassa Hotel, leading some bystanders and media on stakeout to conclude that he was boycotting the meeting.

Speaking to OK Communications at the weekend, Dr. Tipoteh said: “I knew nothing about the meeting, as I was not invited to the meeting. I went to the Bella Casa Hotel to meet with the Owner of the Hotel, Mr. Amin Modad, who is a Member of The Ecumenical Economic Policy Committee, which I Chair. We met upstairs in the Hotel and after our meeting I left the Hotel. Although the Media was after me to make some comment during my entry into and exit from the Hotel. I made no comment whatsoever!.

The purported walkout of Dr. Tipoteh came in the backdrop of the walkout from the meeting of Mr. Abraham Darius Dillon, head of political affairs in the opposition Liberty Party.

In a Facebook videocast to address his walkout controversy, Mr. Dillon alluded to Dr. Tipoteh and others who also reportedly walked out of the gathering. Said Mr. Dillon: “Dr. Tipoteh observed all of these things, he left. Why is it not news? Honorable Blamo Nelson refused to even talk and decided that he would leave. I don’t know whether he left after me. There were people who left that hall – even after I left. Maybe there’s something about me they know that I don’t’ know about but I know that God knows it. That for me to leave a hall quietly and my departure becomes the news over that the president met with political parties with UN observers and all there. It only tells you nothing came out of that meeting, nothing came out of that meeting and it’s sad. It was a complete waste of time.”

Added Mr. Dillon: “Some of us don’t need to sit with the president. The president frowned and he pointed to political leaders. He said the political leaders in the country don’t have any problems but their people behind them, meaning some of us, we are all on social media posting. Does the President see his people? His minister of information telling people to shut up on Facebook, his minister of finance, his minister of information and his people. Does he see them, telling Liberians to shut up when they ask them questions? Does he see them?”

Mr. Dillon, who has been a vocal critic of the president says it is unfair for the President to be calling for reconciliation when key officials in his government are baiting critics and telling them to shut up. “I’m sure he does. For him, once it is his people attacking Liberians in the name of attacking opposition, it’s ok but when we respond we are supposed to be enemies of the state. I don’t need to sit down with the president for him to hear me because the president tells me that he hears me. Because we on the radio talking. So it means he’s not listening because if he was listening the wouldn’t do the Eton deal the way it was done. Everything we said about the Eton and Ebomaf deal came to past. When we spoke about due diligence they refused but the minister of finance is now announcing that they came back to do due diligence. You failed to do due diligence but sign a serious loan agreement and get the legislature to sign it in a 5-G fashion.”

Mr. Dillon frowned on the President was for wasting money on an elaborate program announcing loans that are unlikely to materialize. “They wasted government money only to come back and say, we coming to look at this deal again and we need to do due diligence. This same due diligence we were demanding for which we were labeled enemies of the state. Everybody can’t bow down to the Gold Image, Shadrach, Meshack and Abenego refused to bow down to King Nebuchadnezzar. They said even if we will get burned in the furnace fire, we will burn but we will not worship another image because we believe that there is a God. Why are we making it a rule, a law to worship a president  – if you don’t’ do it then you don’t belong in the country.”

Mr. Dillon recalled that the chairman of CDC Mulbah Morlu recently took to the microphone and said “we will deconstruct the opposition, the will fight our ability to even live economically until we join them and he said that fight will be led by the President. I haven’t heard the President one day frown on that statement.”

The LP officials said he was disappointed that the President failed to retract his statement that opposition and critics were enemies of the state. “You bringing noise, you calling people enemy of the state. You have meeting today, you don’t even have the courage to say I want to unite the country, I think our citizens are not enemy of the state, they only see things differently, how I see it. The president did not have the courage to say his critics are not enemies of the state.”

Mr. Dillon then praised Senator Prince Johnson for being honest during his talk at the meeting.  “Call him anything, refer to him any way you want – in that meeting, in my view, he was the most honest, frank and courageous person. He spoke with candor, when they gave Prince Johnson the microphone, he said: Mr. President, I’m the political leader of my party. Me and my chairman here, we have access to you, so I’m not going to waste time to say I have anything to say in the public here. Anything I see I don’t like I will come to you. So, let the other serious opposition talk.”

Mr. Dillon said if the President is serious to hear the hard truth, it is the main opposition he should be listening to. “But instead they filled the room with praise singing choir to mess everything up. The whole world watching to see what happening in Liberia today, the only thing even the international wire can get is that Darius Dillon walk out of the meeting. What is that? Must everybody praise you? Don’t allow it, you will fail if you do that and by the time you realize that they all will be gone. Benoni Urey stood up and said fight corruption – even if you will come for me, establish war crimes court, even if you will come for me. You say to fight corruption it’s hard because all of us we are related. Where’s the change? Where is the change?”

 

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