Singling out Joho for probe is discrimination by the State

My friend, Samuel Kofi Woods III is an activist of no mean repute.

As Liberian Minister for Labour, he installed the first independent trade union at Firestone Rubber Plantations Company in 2009, one of Liberia’s most important economic pillars.

Kofi is also a gifted story teller, who tells terrifying, fearful or amazing stories adorned with massive doses of humour.

One of my favourite ones comes when Kofi was running the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission (CJPC), during the Charles Taylor regime.

TAYLOR SUMMONS KOFI
The CJPC was a leading critic of the Taylor regime, documenting atrocities, and doing wonderful advocacy work in Liberia and internationally.

Charles Taylor was insecure and thin-skinned, and did not take criticism well, meaning that Kofi had to adopt survival tactics to stay alive.

But the CJPC kept doing its work diligently and fearlessly, attracting support and acclaim both nationally and internationally.

A critical report on Charles Taylor that aired on international media got under his skin.

He summoned Kofi with the Catholic Bishop of Monrovia to the presidential palace one evening.

REPRIMANDED

Kofi tells how worried and uneasy he was with this late night summons, and had long discussions deciding whether to leave Liberia for a while since such summonses often led to disappearances and elimination.

But he was convinced by the Bishop that God was with them, and after all it is not often that Bishops get disappeared.

They were made to wait for a while, sweating and wondering what was going to happen.

When they were eventually sent in, they found Taylor in an awful mood.

He proceeded to lecture them for half an hour or more, not allowing any interjections.

RESPECT THE PRESIDENCY

The more he lectured and pontificated, the angrier he became, turning to personal insults and conjecture against Kofi, like any good dictator.

Finally, he turned directly to Kofi and asked him who he thought he was to “spoil” Liberia’s name internationally.

Kofi replied that he was simply doing what the law allowed and holding the regime to its obligations under national and international law.

Taylor looked at him for a minute in total silence. Then he shouted; “young man, if you cannot respect me, then you should respect this seat”, pointing at the presidential seal on his chair.

“You must respect the presidency. Whatever the presidency does is right and lawful!”

ABUSE OF POWER
Now this is at a time when there were killings, torture, jailing of opponents and massive corruption in Liberia orchestrated by the presidency.

This story has played in my mind as I read social media comments on the spat between President Uhuru Kenyatta and Mombasa Governor Hassan Joho, and the witch-hunting that Mr Joho is being put through, to the extent of verifying whether he went to primary school.

I do not hold brief for Mr Joho, but this smells like pure discrimination, for it is happening after he challenged Mr Kenyatta, who seems determined to abuse his power to teach Mr Joho a lesson.

For this to avoid being discriminatory, then the same fervour and scrutiny must be done on every public official, starting from Mr Kenyatta, with disclosure of what he attained at CPE, O and A level examinations. We know that won’t happen!

EARN HONOUR
Jubilee trolls have been insistent that Mr Joho should “respect the presidency”, whatever that means.

How does one respect inanimate objects like presidency or chairs? What have “presidencies” done to deserve respect?

Respect is something earned by a person for their personal qualities or abilities, and after exhibiting something profound.

Thus we respect someone’s integrity, consistency, fairness, intelligence, nationalism, patriotism, effort, skills, etc.

LEAD BY EXAMPLE
You can’t respect a chair. Sure, you can admire it, but on its own it is simply a chair.

I suspect the idea of respecting the presidency comes from feudal and monarchical times when subjects — not citizens — were forced to respect “the crown”, to ensure their subservience, and to entrench the legitimacy of the monarch, who was basically a dictator.

So if anyone says “respect the presidency” they want us to be subservient as they lord it over us.

And of course, if the holder of the seat does not respect the position — by looting, lying, insulting, killing, and being a tribalist — how can we lesser mortals respect him?

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