When Liberians speak of security threat, we often refer to invasion by a band of rebel forces from across our borders to wrest political power, leading to the plunder of private and public resources for personal gains. However, seldom does it cross our minds that our national security encompasses the provision of protection of our nation and people against all forms of potential harms and threats. These could be health-related as is the case with the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) today; hunger arising from lack of adequate supplies of food; international travel and trade isolation owing to air, land, and sea embargoes as experienced following escalation in the high incidence of EVD since its outbreak; lack of control over our economy as a consequence of perpetual reliance on exports of natural resources and commodities that are susceptible to price fluctuations on the world market; perpetuation of an obsolete educational system that is not in sync with present-day development needs of the country; and the ever-present corrupt practices fuelled by uncontrollably personal greed underpinned by a dull national moral compass.
As Ebola continues to ravage our country and take away scores of lives, it thankfully exposes the vulnerabilities of Liberia as a nation. It has shown that our perpetual over-dependence on outsiders for our national existence and survival is the wrong course. It has likened us unto a 167 year-old child who refuses to be weaned from its mother’s breast. Today, we are hungry because our land borders are closed on all fronts: we are therefore unable to access basic commodities linked to our food chain, despite the fact that these grow in our backyards. We are cut-off from air travel because our health system is so poor that every Liberian is considered a high-risk carrier of the EVD, although it is common knowledge that fever, malaria, diarrhea, etc. have long been recognized as common illnesses of ours before the EVD outbreak. To put it simply, we are a nation ostracized not only because the EVD is vanquishing us, but because we woefully failed to promote and sustain ourselves over the years; we have failed to appreciate what it means to be self-reliant, and therefore have not been forthcoming in introducing national security measures to protect us from outside shocks such as the EVD epidemic.
Come to think of it, why have we not been able to ensure that our national staples such as rice, palm oil, cassava, locally-grown vegetables, etc., are not only produced mechanically to feed us nationally, but also available in commercial quantities for export? The lack of fertile land and of water should not be the problem as we have both in abundance. Why should we, year-in and year-out, allow foreign merchants who import these commodities to enrich themselves while being fully aware that our financial resources are dissipated through capital flights? Why would unemployment not continue with impunity when we fail to put into place the mechanisms to empower our own nationals? Time and time again we speak of Liberianization; however, we lack the political will to organize a regulatory framework that would make such a program viable and enforceable! In the absence of a Liberian entrepreneurial class, most foreign merchants enriched with Government contracts at the expense of our people have fled the country, only to wait and return to business as usual when things get better. Foreigners hired by concession companies have all left.
The problem therefore that Liberia continues to face is a lack of vision underpinned by love for country. As the great Book of Books (i.e. the Bible) puts it, “without vision, the people perished”. And that vision is the ability for people to see far ahead into the future and prepare for all eventualities in support of national survival!
Now is the time to put in place policies that take care of Liberia and Liberians instead of feathering the nests of others. Take for example, the Ghanaians to whom we continue to award businesses; yet, they are often the first to treat us with disdain and contempt in times of crises. It is time to review our interactions with others on the basis of reciprocity! It is time for quid pro quo inter-relationships. It is time to put Liberians first! Probably it is about time we make it a crime punishable by a minimum of 25 years in prison for those found to be in violation of our national economic regulations and laws.
If we have not learned anything from the Ebola experience, we should learn from the US what it means to take care of one’s own – the dispatch of a plane thousands of miles to evacuate just two of its citizens who were infected with the EVD as our people perished in scores! This, indeed, is what caring for a country’s citizens means! What exactly is our problem as a people? This is the question that each and every Liberian needs to be asking? What is wrong with us? And my thinking is, we are our own problem except someone can prove me wrong to the contrary.
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