Police has reportedly charged and sent to court one suspect in connection to the stone-throwing incident, during the anti-corruption rally held by the Liberian People’s Party (LPP) last Wednesday, July 19, which was chaotic in Monrovia.
As a result, many attendees, whether partisans of the LPP or none-partisans, were wounded from the event, believed to have been instigated by some unscrupulous individuals whose identities are not yet known.
But a female suspect only identified as “political Patience”, who was arrested by bystanders and handed over to the police in the aftermath for further investigation, which concluded on Friday, July 21, might be charged with “disturbance of public peace” and sent to court.
Patience is neither a student of the University of Liberia nor a member of the Student Unification Party (SUP), but she is believed to be a registrant for the pending entrance and placement examinations of the University of Liberia, scheduled later this month.
Because of this, perhaps, the accused was frequent on the University of Liberia’s main campus, where she got inspired, thereby becoming a sympathizer to either Kwein W. Kwein or Kelvin Abag-Tuah’s faction of the Student Unification Party (SUP).
Both Kwein and Abag-Tuah, are contestants for supremacy of SUP’s leadership, following violent conduct of its congress which was held late June (last month) and has made SUP to not have a recognized leadership amongst the University of Liberia’s campus student based political parties.
The congress, which should have ushered in a new leadership, ended in chaos, coupled with the destruction of properties on the University of Liberia’s main campus, a virus which spilled over to the public thereby affecting the LPP’s rally last week.
A ranking official of SUP told this paper over the weekend in Monrovia, that it was the Gongloe Youth Movement (GYM), one of the auxiliaries and anti-corruption rally planners of the Liberian People’s Party (LPP), which instigated the disturbances on their own program.
The official said instead of GYM organizers of the rally directing its invitation to Kelvin Abag-Tuah, believed to be the legitimate chairman of SUP, it was sent perhaps to a quack side Chairman of SUP, Kwein W. Kwein.
This allegedly made followers and supporters of Kelvin Abag-Tuah to be annoyed with LPP’s rally organizers, thereby causing the disruption last Wednesday, July 19, on Ashmun Street in Monrovia.
There and then, when the rally got underway and one member of the organizing committee serving as the master of ceremony, Fatumatta Kamara, recognized the presence of Kwein W. Kwein as SUP’s Chairman, this allegedly infuriated the followers and supporters of Kelvin Abag-Tuah who were present.
The official said the first stone thrown at LPP’s Standard-Bearer, Tiawan Saye Gongloe, who marched to the podium, and took the microphone to speak to the almost 300 persons who gathered, allegedly came from loyalists of Kelvin Abag-Tuah, but this paper could not verify these comments independently.
The official narrated that the aggrieved followers or supporters of Abag-Tuah arrived at the site of the rally far ahead of the organizing committee, chaired by Jessica Morris.
Because of the disruption, some invited dignitaries from civil society organizations, diplomatic corps, the opposition bloc, amongst others, took to their heels for their own security.
Gongloe and his LPP’s officials were somehow whisked away from the scene to safety by their own security. However, SUP’s violence nowadays should not be a strange thing because it cannot be compared to those days of the 1970s and 80s when intellectuals used to organize street or public education.
Last month (June), a batch of SUPists led by its immediate past Secretary General, Jusu Kamara, Bill Saye and others, pledged support to the election bid of Unity Party(UP) Standard-bearer, Joseph Boakai, in the pending general elections in October.
In recent times, SUP has been used by many political parties, politicians, civil society organizations, amongst others, as a conduit for their political message to the status quos or regime.
