By David K. Dahn
On September 14, 2022, you left in your trail broken-hearted colleagues , mentees, students, friends, children and other family members. Of course your professors and admirers, all were crushed in spirit upon hearing about your demise from this troubled world.
Surprisingly you never took an appeal to the high court of the Almighty to plead for longevity in life unlike other legal luminaries would pursue their final battles of litigation to the chambers of the Supreme Court. Instead you accepted the final verdict of the Almighty when He beckoned to you, “Come home and take your rest, my son.” By that invitation, solemnly, you rested your final case.
You fought the battle within your limits to remain strong and kicking. But the battle was much more stronger and the terrains appeared rougher and stranger. One thing remains soothing, the tougher the battle, the sweeter the victory. PNW, indeed so it was with your battle, you won. You won from pains to rest. You won by leaving the torch of media enlightenment to your mentees and students. You won by leaving behind a legacy of hard work and integrity. You won by being remembered by the needy that lined the front of your private office but never called them beggars.
They still remember that you were genuine in your meager sharing and never pretended to be a political philanthropist who gave and waited in expectation for political reward. They still remember that you grew up from the ‘borough’ of Kru Town and your lifestyle was never a contradiction when you called them your people. You left behind a practical reflection of the American Business Philosopher, Kelvin Cruze’s believe that life is not all about making income but, impact. From your private earnings, you impacted your economic, cultural, educational, political and professional environment.
Was there a balm in Liberia, to heal you when you were sick? Yes, I think there was and still there is. But you had to go, Philip. And the reason was simple; because the God of your ancestors watched over you and thought your pains were so much incrementalized that you needed to then take your rest. I am not sure whether it is rest from agony to elation. But what is certain is that you transitioned from this troubled world to a new world-the only place your burden of pains, your burden of loneliness, and your burden of rejection could be lifted. Where else could that be, but to the Lord.
Two years down the road we are still counting the value of your contributions to humanity but yet such value in numeral terms remains imbalanced. You were a militant non-combatant. Yep! I call you a militant non-combatant because you fought but without a lethal weaponry.
You fought with the pen to correct the political mavericks and iconoclasts who sought to pervert the norms of civility in our governance system. You refused to be silenced by the fleeting glamour that life has to offer. There was no silencer to your determination that made you raised your voice against injustices along all strata of our society. More than those, you emerged as a pacifist who believed in a harmonious peaceful loving society where everyone is supposed to treat others as they would want to be treated.
But I also remember you were an astute advocate of the libertarian doctrine of the press; believing that if the collective aggregate of a people are intelligently informed they will arrive at a sound choice. So you wrote advisoral and not adversarial essays as was possibly allowed in an unfettered democratic space. Have the issues for which you wrote insightfully and not incitefully been resolved? I am not sure brother! Are there solutions in sight? I am not sure brother! Are there signs of goodwill to solve them? Because ours is a world of probability, I leave that answer to the future.
What I can say for certain is that nothing has changed. Just where you left us two years ago is where we are grounded for now. But the good news to our historical antecedent is that the press you left behind is still free of authoritarian control, at least for now. We are counting your years, and this is the second with the Lord, as your case has been finally rested.
