Confusion In Charles Taylor’s Political Party In Liberia

By: Charles Crawford

 

The Inquirer
Monrovia, Liberia

Distributed by

The Perspective
Atlanta, Georgia

Posted October 17, 2003



There seems to be bickering and confusion within the former ruling National Patriotic Party (NPP) regarding the filling of slots in the newly inducted National Transitional Government of Liberia(NTGL).

According to reports, some NPP partisans calling themselves "Concerned NPP Partisans", have accused the party’s standard bearer, former president Moses Blah of nominating unqualified individuals to fill Cabinet slots allotted to the former NPP-led government under the Accra peace Accord. Others are said to be pointing fingers at the party’s national chairman, Cyril Allen, whom they claim has sold slots to individuals they considered as non-partisans thus not qualified.

Speaking to The INQUIRER yesterday, the Concerned NPP Partisans said the nomination process of unqualified individuals to fill the former GOL cabinet slots in the NTGL has the propensity totally divide the party.

Mr. Edmund Gibson, Jr., spokesman of the group, explained that a forth-night ago, the National Executive Committee (NEC) of the party met ex-president Moses Z. Blah to select names of qualified partisans to fill the slots allotted to the former GOL.

Mr. Gibson, who is also the NPP vice chairman for mobilization in River Gee County, said that after the selection process, the list was sent to then president Blah for onward transmission to ECOWAS.
He disclosed that surprisingly to the NEC members, names that were not on the list were "unscrupulously" inserted by non-partisans who worked in former president Blah’s office, thereby replacing those names that were agreed upon by the NEC.

Providing what he called a cogent evidence to this paper, Mr. Gibson said "a former special assistant to then president Blah, whose name was not on the original list for a ministerial position is said to have replaced the incumbent.

According to him, based on these facts, the Concerned NPP Partisans were calling upon the party’s National Chairman Cyril Allen and Secretary General John F. Whitfield to immediately intervene by halting the nomination process, as anything short of this may lead the party into total confusion and divided, adding that the bulk of the NPP partisans are now disgruntled.


© 2003: This article is copyrighted by The Inquirer newspaper (Monrovia, Liberia) and distributed by The Perspective (Atlanta, Georgia). All rights reserved.