Some concern and prominent residents of Sinoe County, particularly of the Sarpo tribe have expressed serious dissatisfaction over the new family of Liberian dollars banknotes in the country.
The group through a communication sent to the Executive Governor of the Central Banks of Liberia (CBL), Aloysius Tarlue, under the signature of its chairman, Kpanyoun P. Wakocco indicated that their attentions have been drawn to the new one thousand dollar Liberian banknotes which carry the sixteen tribes leaving the sarpo tribe out.
“We the eminent Sarpo citizens’ attention have been drawn on the newly printed one thousand bank note being advertised, and profoundly noted that there are sixteen human specimen therein as a representation of the sixteen tribes of Liberia. If this is truly your interpretation of the sixteen human specimen on the one thousand dollars’ bank notes, then we beg to differ and state categorically that this embodiment is a gross distortion, misrepresentation, and misplacement of historical and demographic facts,” the group noted in their communication to the CBL governor.
The group communication furthered that empirical evidence of the 2008 census of Liberia clearly indicate that Sarpo is the 17th tribe of the nation, thus, leaving Sarpo out was a complete disservice to the people of said tribe.
According to the group’s communication, tribal data are purely and solely dwelled on demographic and anthropological interrogations or findings and not predicating findings on political interpretations or mere histories of human memories.
The group indicated “as you may know, many of the writers of the early Liberian histories are not dialectologists and linguists and hence, there’re shortcomings and or inability to adequately understand and write about the early tribesmen and their contributions. Additionally, knowledge is provisional and therefore subject to change based on research and technology.”
Recently, the group indicated in their communication the CBL governor that when the Bicentennial was being launched, the Chair of the committee, and former Chair of the Department of history at the University of Liberia, Professor Dr. C. William Allen made it publicly and unequivocal that owing to the 2008 population and housing survey conducted in Liberia, the nation now has recorded seventeenth tribes with their various population.
“Sarpo accounted for 1.2% of the Liberian Population with forty-three thousand, three hundred and twenty seven (43,327). With this, Sarpo has been added as the seventeenth tribe of Liberia thus having population supremacy over the Belle and the Dei tribes of Liberia,” the group asserted.
Meanwhile, the group stated that as a consequence of all of the historical facts and evidence, the CBL should kindly and hastily adjust the human specimen of sixteen to seventeenth on the one thousand bank notes being advertised to vividly picture or embody the true demographic and historical representation as evidence and reflection of the 2008 population and housing census conducted in Liberia.
“Hon. Governor, please be informed, and as earlier mentioned, histories are not stagnant but dynamic, and left with men as time evolving to change the course of histories grounded on evidence and unfolding. It is in view of the foregoing, that we are seeking a modification to the newly one thousand bank note been printed and or an amendment to reflect the true tribal representation of the nation,” the group concluded.
However, the group noted that it would soon be writing the Ministry of Education in order to update the country’s tribes from sixteen to seventeen and be thought in all schools across the country.
