Nimba County’s Senator Prince Y. Johnson is urging his fellow Nimbaians to “reject” Tiawan Saye Gongloe at the polls during the presidential and legislative scheduled for Tuesday, October 10, 2022.
Gongloe, one of the founding members of the Liberian People’s Party (LPP) is seeking the party’s nomination through its national convention expected to be held any time soon to enable him contest the Liberian presidency next year.
Johnson alleged that Gongloe, former president of the Liberian National Bar Association (LNBA), is targeting him and other former combatants from the county who took part in Liberian civil war for prosecution upon winning the elections.
He told residents of Bahn Town in Nimba County, during the commissioning ceremonies of the street lights that Gongloe is leading a political campaign with a promise of ensuring prosecution upon winning the Presidency.
Johnson said the LNBA of which Gongloe is a member made this a priority in a resolution adopted when the Bar met in 2020 in Kakata, Margibi County adding that, that will be the first priority of Tiawan when he ascends to state power.
“Gongloe is a Mano. He against Gio people by wanting to prosecute them including me upon winning elections in Liberia next year therefore, do not give him your votes because once he becomes President and prosecute me it means he has prosecuted you as well,” Johnson lured the minds of his kinsmen.
The Senator is being listed among over 100 individuals, institutions and organizations in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s (TRC) final report of 2009 as being “notorious” bearing the greater responsibility of the Liberian civil war.
Johnson, the leader of the defunct Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPFL), a breakaway from Charles Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), captured and killed then President, Samuel Kanyon Doe, on Sunday September 9, 1990 at the Freeport of Monrovia.
He once served as Third Deputy Speaker of the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) Parliament in Abuja, Nigeria, as Liberia’s contingent to the regional body but has been placed under sanctioned by the United States.
As a result, he was also forced from his position as Chairperson of the Senate Committee on Defense and Intelligence from 2005 to 2021 due to his alleged role in the civil crisis.
Johnson, a strong alliance of the governing Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC) might be a third term senatorial aspirant in next year general polls in his native Nimba County.
What is happening between Johnson and Gongloe should not be described as “personal” on grounds that both men do not have anything common to fight for therefore their fight is purely based on “political differences” between the two.
