Teahjay and The Sinoe Legislators

The Noise to Nowhere: The Tragedy of Sinoe Politics

I have just learned that the people of Sinoe County are up in arms again. This time is about the appointment of Mr. Milton Teahjay as superintendent of the county. Or maybe it is fair to say that the legislators from Sinoe County are up in arms over the appointment since I have not heard that their constituencies are enraged about the Teahjay’s appointment. I am also not sure if the legislators have garnered some feedbacks from their constituents before going awry over the Teahjay’s appointment. In fact, the other day I was reading a piece from the Tarjuowon Association which applauded President Sirleaf about the preferment. So while the representatives of Sinoe County are enraged over Teahjay’s appointment another facet of the county is applauding the President over the same matter. So as I observe this entire episode as it unravels, I sit and ponder: really? And this is the ebb to which some us have descended our thoughts and energy? Do we have to bicker about nothing all the time? Do Sinoe people have to wrangle about everything? When will this county learn to move forward?

I still remembered maybe twenty years ago when Sinoe County was chosen to host the Birthday celebration of President Samuel Doe. A committee was constituted to plan the programs. Then the feud began over the chairmanship. The battle was raging between Oscar J. Quiah and the late Fred J. Blay. At last the President stepped in and canceled the entire thing. So Sinoe was finally left with nothing. There was no winner but inevitably bunches of losers.

The latest brouhaha like the Quiah-Blay fight is a fight over nothing again. It only demonstrates the shabbiness of Sinoe’s politics and the antagonism about nothing. It demonstrates a kind of ghetto mentality in which people who are denied the basics of life scramble for the crumbs that is dropped to them by humiliating themselves. It also portrays the conceited attitude of Sinoe politicians over the years: “when it is not me it will never be you; over my dead body.”

Another thing to draw from the Teahjay’s ruckus is that some people from Sinoe are right where Ellen Johnson wants them to be: the battle or celebration field. She wants to be seen as the goddess. She is aware that Sinoe people will have mixed reactions about Teahjay or anyone whose background they know, for better or for worse. They will launch a big fight. Finally she will step in as the peace maker, the lover all, and the blazer of the trail. She will then appoint her own and the dust will descend. So all of these reactions are ultimately playing in Ellen’s playbook, the divide and rule game mastered from the ‘pioneers’ playbook. And by the time we come to fathom the hard truth, it will be too late. We will by then destroy ourselves.

By the way was it not Senator Joseph Nagbae of Sinoe County who appealed the initial motion that rejected Willie Knuckles by the Liberian Senate as Presidential Affairs Minister? Why did he, Nagbae, think Knuckles was best suited for the job? Now it is Teahjay as superintendent, Nagbae is up in arms. Such is the tragedy of the common. And to put locally, such is the ‘crab mentality.’

The most polite thing that the Sinoe Legislators could have done was to remain neutral about the appointment and let Teahjay’s confirmation hearing proceed. After all they are not different from Teahjay. By them being the representatives of the county does not in any way make them more Sinoe than the rest of us. In the same way they need employment to survive the global hardship so does Milton Teahjay. He needs a job and he is offered one. Why not give him the benefit of the doubt to see what he can deliver for the people of Sinoe?