Latest revelation from members of the Council of Patriots (CoP) and the Collaborating Political Parties (CPP) points to the direction that recent protests held under their auspices had deeper intent than what was showcased during the showdown in little Monrovia.
Recently, a former executive of the CoP and member of the ANC, Representative Yekeh Kolubah, accused the Chairman of the CoP, Henry Pedro Costa, of receiving US$200,000 to cut off the January 6, 2020 protest, and for this reason he insisted that they leave the protest scene because he allegedly received an intel that the Liberia National Police (LNP) would raid the place.
In response to the allegation, Costa has admitted that Representative Kolubah took guns with him at the protest scene, and when they asked him about it he could not tell them anything. However, he said when the police raided Yekeh’s car and found the two pistols, they stood their grounds that the guns were planted by the police officers and did not belong to Yekeh.
Costa disclosed that they played hard and accused the police of not having a legal search warrant to search the car of the lawmaker.
But more than a year since the protest, Costa is now confessing that the guns actually belonged to Representative Kolubah, and admitted lying for Yekeh during the protest. He appealed to the Liberian people that the police was right about the allegation, and they lied for Yekeh at the time.
These scaring revelations are being made amidst the Secretary General of the Alternative National Congress (ANC), Cllr. Aloysius Toe, accusing the Political Leader of the All Liberian Party (ALP), Benoni Wilfred Urey, and the Chairman of the COP, Henry Costa, of wanting to destabilize the Weah administration through undemocratic means.
In his press statement issued Monday, Cllr. Toe said, “The genesis of Urey’s hatred for Cummings is steeped in Cumming’s consistent push back against Urey’s plans to use undemocratic means, through the CPP, to destabilize the Weah’s Administration. Ladies and Gentleman, as you will recall, the ANC participated in the June 7, 2019 peaceful protest, and facilitated its success. A few days before the protest, it became clear that Urey and his wayward mercenary talk show host had ulterior motives: they wanted a simple peaceful protest, intended to call attention to government’s ills, to be used to call for the resignation of President Weah. The ANC, supported by other colleagues, vehemently objected to the language of the Resolution for the protest having anything to do with President Weah’s resignation. This disagreement led to the CPP having no single position for the June 7 protest and no resolution was read. Unhappy and dissatisfied with the ANC and Cummings, Urey programmed and financed his wayward mercenary talk show host to unleash a radio onslaught, denigrating Cummings and the ANC at every opportunity. This was seen in the massive attacks against the ANC and Cummings by Costa concerning the Cape Mount bi-election seat allocation between Dabah Varpilah and Simeon Taylor.
“Urey again, in collusion with Costa and under the canopy of the now dead COP, decided to plan another protest in January 2020. Urey wanted to use the protest to remove President Weah. The plan was to keep protesters in the street for as long as was possible, diverting the attention of state security. Immediately, upon hearing all these, the ANC withdrew from the COP and, in October 2019, the ANC publicly announced its disassociation from the
“January 2020 protest to remove President Weah. The ANC argued then, and still maintains, that the unconstitutional removal of an elected president, however incompetent and corrupt, was not a way of life for those of us in the ANC. We informed the world and the country that the ANC would not be part of the protest intended to remove an elected president and called on the organizers to halt and abort their plans. The ANC worked in communities and on a radio stations to discourage Liberians not to attend that protest, and as God would have it, the protest was a complete failure. This action by the ANC is what has precipitated the anger, hate and vengeance of Urey and his wayward talk show host.
“Ladies and gentleman, Urey and his wayward talk show hosts are agents of death and violence – all for wealth and political power. As you may know, during the long political struggle involving Senator BotoeKanneh of Gbarpolu, Urey and his wayward and Indian talks how host used his henchmen to reach out to us, particularly me, begging the ANC to use radical means (that is to use violence) and intimidate the government so Botoe Kanneh would be seated as Senator, as he Urey and Costa were doing clandestinely, without being caught and without accountability. Again, we refused to yield, and simply told them we are not like that.
“Again, and despite the unwarranted vitriolic attacks, Mr. Cummings and the ANC are even more inextricably tied to a commitment of peaceful, constitutional democratic change in Liberia through the conduct of democratic elections consistent with the rule of law, and this unchangeable dedication will continue to honorably inform our politics and quest for political offices.”