There is a Limit to God's patience

The Perspective
Atlanta, Georgia

December 17, 2002

On Sunday, December 15, 2002, His Excellency, Dr. Dahkpannah Charles Ghankay Taylor had a prayer session at the Executive Mansion. As mandated by the president, all cabinet ministers who wish to keep their portfolios had to be in attendance. His cousin, Mr. Jonathan Taylor, who is also Presidential Affairs Minister was the officiating clergy.

When Mr. Charles Taylor went to the pulpit, he told his congregation that there are Liberians outside of the country who are enemies of the state. He went on to say that the suffering that Liberians are going through is due to the "negative" propaganda that the "enemies" of the state are spreading around. He further said that there are some assassins in the country from a powerful country who came over to kill him. Ghankay impressed on his audience that if people think that killing him will solve Liberia's problem, then they are making a big mistake. On the contrary, he said that if he is killed, Liberia will explode with far reaching consequences than what the country had experienced in the past. Taylor informed his congregation that it is God who put him in office, so, He is the only one who will take him from the presidential seat.

Taylor and his associates have always blamed their failure as a government on imaginary enemies of the state who are supposed to be telling the international community not to support Liberia. The implication in this case is that the international community is assumed to be ignorant of what is obtaining in the country. What Taylor and co. fail to realize is that no one will tell a particular country that the government of Liberia is not interested in development or providing basic social services for its citizens. If one does good work, it will be seen.

The money that Taylor uses to maintain his many wives and dozen of concubines could pay all civil servants in Liberia for a year. Yes, the international community has representatives in Liberia who see the wastefulness of our resources on these women and other useless ventures that have nothing to do with up lifting the lives of ordinary Liberians. It is not the so-called detractors that told Taylor to have all the forest of Liberia as his exclusive property using proceeds from OTC and other logging companies as if they were his father's property that were willed to him.

One thing I know is that God is just too patient minded. Otherwise, how can someone whose hands are soaked with innocent blood stand at an altar and be calling His holy name with impunity. When Taylor said at his inauguration that he was not going to be a wicked president, he meant just the opposite. Here is a man who was "elected" with a big margin, yet, the thank you for those who voted for him is endless hardship while he and cronies continue to live in extreme luxury. And this man is supposed to be a Baptist deacon. God will surely have to save Liberia by first redeeming some of our mainstream churches from the iniquity that has engulfed them.

As we are about a week from Christmas, civil servants are yet to be paid. Government owes some of them for ten months. Does Mr. Taylor and his cronies really have hearts to know those poor civil servants and their families deserve happiness on Christ's birthday? The average salary is nothing but peanuts. Why would people who call themselves leaders be so callous and insensitivity to the needs of others? A source close to the Executive Mansion Sunday worship told this paper that Taylor just think that every Liberian is stupid. He will continue to blame others for his own short-coming. If Taylor had made up his mind to improve the lives of all Liberians, it would have been possible. Whenever he decides to buy three or four vehicles for a concubine or build a house for her, we can see it happen. So, why can't he use some of the country's resources to buy drugs for JFK and other public health centers? The very international community that he spends all his time castigating is the one that is providing drugs and save drinking water for Liberians all over the country. Let Mr. Taylor point at what he has done for the people of Liberia besides catering to his wives and concubines?

Here we are with an abnormal person, brought up in the village of Arthington, who lacks everything that civilization calls for. If this man can be a deacon in the Baptist church, do I really have to associate myself with that church? There is a limit to God's patience. Taylor will realize that sooner than later.


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