Alexander Benedict Cummings, the Political Leader of the Collaborating Political Parties (CPP), has been criticized for recruiting a number of politicians from the old order on his first appointment of members of his Team Cummings 2023.
Over the years, Cummings has been making frantic efforts to distinguish himself and his ideology from the old political order, thereby impressing Liberians, home and abroad, that he is a new specimen of a Liberian politician who does not subscribe to the old way, but rather one of change. Because of this, he often emphasizes, “One cannot keep doing the same thing and expect new results.”
Surprisingly, on Tuesday, October 4, 2022, Cummings announced to Liberians and the world at large a provisional listing of Team Cummings 2023. The Hot Pepper cannot conclude that the team is Cummings’ campaign team for the 2023 general and presidential elections, as the National Elections Commission (NEC) is yet to declare campaign officially open, and Cumming made no mention of campaign purpose when appointing the 44 members of the team.
The appointment of Team Cummings arguably puts Cummings one step ahead of many politicians and political parties as they enter the preparation stage for the next year. However, what caught many by shock was the names that surfaced on the team, making them to wonder whether Cummings agenda of “real change” is something to believe or whether he has been initiated in the old order of Liberian politics.
The Team Cummings 2023 lineup is made up of mostly recycled politicians of not only Liberia’s dark days, but individuals linked to some of the most repugnant violations of human rights abuses and public debauchery.
Since the naming of the Team Cummings, the CPP Standard Bearer has been accused by political pundits of recruiting past thieves, murderers and human rights abusers on his team, which allegedly proves how desperate he is for the presidency. They say the Liberian people expected that Cummings would name a team whose character is preceded by, at least, integrity, transparency and respect for rule of law, and not one entangled in war and economic crimes, crimes against humanity, corruption and lineage to the hegemony of the old order.
Team Cummings 2023 includes Dr. Togar Gayewea McIntosh, Ambassador Lewis Brown, George Wisner, Dan Morias, Julia Duncan-Cassell, Daniel Chea, Yekeh Kolubah, Representative Larry Nyanquoi, Senator Jonathan Boy Charles Sogbie, Aloysius Toe, Elder Jallah, etc.
Making a case that Team Cummings 2023 is by far less than a representation of “real change”, political observers have described the first person on the list, Togar G. McIntosh, as the facilitator of the most nefarious diplomatic passport scandal in the foreign mission history of Liberia. McIntosh is the former Foreign Minister under the Sirleaf Administration.
In 2011, a Danish Film actor and investigative journalist, Mads Brugger Courtzer, allegedly bribed McIntosh with US$150,000 to be handed a diplomatic passport to reside and work in the Central African Republic. This saga became even more embarrassing when the journalist, who was on a mission to expose the vulnerability of Liberia Foreign Service, filmed his experience in a movie, titled, “The Ambassador”, a movie that took huge sales globally.
Another person on the list, Yekeh Kolubah, has continued to rain insults on President George M. Weah and the Liberian presidency. On May 6, 2019, the US government issued a special statement condemning Yekeh’s call for war, something he walked back on few days later.
Kolubah is an ex-warlord who rose to the rank of a General, allegedly recruiting Child Soldiers for Charles Taylor. He was rewarded as a para-military agency commander under Charles Taylor’s government, a government internationally accused of exploiting the citizenry, carrying out arbitrary arrests and torturing of peaceful civilians.
A TRC indicted individual and a former Security Advisor to Charles Taylor, Ambassador Lewis Brown, is also on the list. Brown has an ill-reputation of selfishly badmouthing administrations that he would normally be called into to serve later.
A classic example of his avarice for leeching on tax payers monies is when he remarked, “No President ever in the history of Liberia has ever desecrated the presidency than President, Candidate, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.” A few months later, Brown became Ellen’s mouthpiece and Minister of Information, defending some of the worst of her administration.
Daniel Chea, another Team Cummings member, is the former Senior Military Commander of the NPFL and Defense Minister of Charles Taylor, and a TRC indictee. President Taylor suspended Daniel Chea in 2000 because Chea had ordered a massacre around Massadou, 25km inside the country border, when he went on assessment of the creeping LURD invasion.
Dan Morias, another old time ally of ex-President Taylor, is also on the team. Morias served as Taylor’s Interior Minister and Superintendent of Maryland under President Sirleaf. Morias was mentioned in a TRC 2008 interview, where he was evidently accused of collaborating with General William Smith to massacre 369 persons of the Glaro region, in and around different places around River Gee in 2003.
Morias’ name has always been mentioned in several ritualistic killings in Maryland. In 2009, he was arrested along with several other persons after he was accused of facilitating the ritualistic killing of a woman whose fetus was removed on December 4, 2008 and her body was later located in the Lake Shepherd.
Random interview by the Hot Pepper has proved that a number of persons are becoming frustrated about the manner in which Cummings is threading his political ambition toward 2023.
Mark Blar, a used clothes seller, said he saw Cummings as an alternative to Weah’s “bad governance” and Joseph Boakai’s “failed” Unity Party leadership, but expressed dismay that Cummings has begun to recruit some of the topnotch of “failed” and recycled politicians.