Monrovia, Liberia– One of Liberia’s foremost news organizations, Front Page Africa has reported that amid the allegations that one of the strongest opposition leaders in Liberia, Mr. Alexander Cummings of the Alternative National Congress of Liberia (ANC) altered the Collaborating Political Parties (CPP) Framework Document and that he should own up to it; Mr. Cummings, the man being pressured at the center of the allegation, has challenged the CPP chairperson Senator Nyonblee Karnga-Lawrence to refrain from the “act of deception and submit the investigative findings and ANC’s dissent to the CPP lawyers for validation as agreed in their leadership meeting.”
In a statement released by the ANC on Sunday, the standard-bearer of the party was quoted as saying “If the lawyers confirm that the provisions of the Framework document submitted by the ANC to NEC are materially and substantially different from the amendments made by the lawyers and approved by the parties, then I will apologize to the Liberian people and take full responsibility. However, if the lawyers find that what is filed at NEC is materially and substantially the same as the provisions in their Amendments, Benoni Urey ( a former confidant to Charles Taylor and UNSC sanctioned individual) and Nyonblee Karnga-Lawrence must apologize, not only to me but also to the Liberian people for intentionally misleading them and threatening to destroy the CPP.”
Mr. Cummings open and forceful challenge to the chairperson of the CPP Sen. Karnga-Lawrence was in response to her last Thursday, October 7th press conference in which she “directly accused Mr. Cummings, the standard-bearer of ANC of deliberately altering portions of the CPP Framework Document” as alleged by the political leader of the All Liberian Party (ALP).
Mr. Urey had claimed that he received intelligence that some “nefarious individuals” within the hierarchy of the CPP had “dubiously, viciously and purposefully” altered portions and clauses of the Framework document and replaced them with “alien clauses” to engender ulterior motives.
According to media reports from Monrovia, Senator Karnga-Lawrence press conference squarely alleged; “there were a number of ‘significant’ procedural lapses and content changes in the Framework document leading to the submission of the Framework Document with the National Elections Commission (NEC) under Cummings leadership as chair of the CPP” but this conclusion provided to the Liberian people did not go through the validation and confirmation process of the legal minds involved and as such resulting to a serious breach of trust within the CPP. The Chairperson is yet to read out to the public the full and actual findings of the lawyers to the Liberian public.
Sources within the ANC, UP, and LP including some permanent Liberians and former officials both at home and in the diaspora have all come up to say that they are “deeply concern” about the happenings in the affairs of the CPP and that the lack of trust and agile collaboration among the actors is causing ordinary Liberians anxiety and fear for 2023.
Many young intellectuals and ordinary rural Liberians in the country feel that the blatant absence of a clear consensus and the dirty political fight ongoing within the CPP have the potential of setting back many years of gradual progress on the issue of building trust and purposeful vision in Liberia’s Multi-part collaboration.
