BUSH & AmeRICA COULD NOT HAVE BEEN MEAN TO LIBERIA

THERE ARE CERTAINLY good reasons why, which no feigned and perverted justification can help, the United States of America represented by President George W. Bush had to donate so, so books and desks while standing on the war-tattered soil of Liberia after promising other African countries hundreds of millions of U.S. bucks. Varying theories of the stunning contrast of Bush's gestures are emerging, but there is only one that seems to stand the test of manipulation: the new political dispensation is yet to prove itself pro-people, and therefore yet to merit additional cash donation.

THERE ARE ANALYSTS who believe that Bush's donation, limited to only books and chairs, is not a surprise because the United States of America has often betrayed Liberia 's hopes and aspirations in crucial times: its failure to militarily intervene in 1990 when Liberia was turned into a slaughterhouse, amongst others, being incited. Other analysts say the United States, being Liberia's biggest funding country since 1847, is hit by donor-fatigue and Bush cannot just go beyond the elastic limit. There are, or might be, several other conjectures, but there is only one that is firmly holding in many places and in many minds; and that is the fact that Liberian money, or money donated to Liberia, is never meant for the impoverished majority; it often short lands in, or is often hijacked by, private hands; hands of a modicum of the population blessed with high public positions.

OTHER COUNTRIES AROUND us, such as Tanzania , Ghana , etc, though having their own blemishes and kleptocrats, have learned over time to let the crumbs of their National Cakes trickle down to the paupers. These trickled down crumbs are manifested in an array of public infrastructures such as elegant airport facilities, good roads, safe drinking water, and electricity, amongst others. And these countries ensure that every dollar raised at home or donated from abroad multiplies in two or three dollars, if it does not produce something physical and elegant directly for the poor.

BUT THIS STYLE of leadership was hardly the case before 2006 and has never been the case nor improved since. Even though the nation is rich in valuable natural resources and lucky with huge bilateral and transnational donations, it is unlucky with pro-people leaders; leaders who would not lick their hands to the elbows. We have only been lucky, very unfortunately, with presidents, ministers, legislators and managers who first think about themselves and their families before thinking about the country as a whole. And before their pockets get filled and family satisfied, they often come to the end of their tenures; only to turn over the national “bounties” to another band of selfish leaders who perpetrate the vicious cycle of denial and exclusion.

IF LIBERIANS THEMSELVES are yet to decipher the debilitating scam, outsiders do. And, certainly, the Americans, noted for their political and economic sophistications, are not unaware. And it should not be a surprise when Bush and probably others to follow would disappoint many by detouring from cash pledges to books and school chairs and desks. It is a way of telling this generation of Liberians that it is useless--it is like filling a basket with water--to keep making cash donations to a country which concurrently records more poor people and a highly stagnant, if not regressive, nation. It seems Bush and probably others to soon follow are sending the message which, in effect, says, “We can only invest in a new generation of Liberians with books and chairs as a means of developing a set of revolutionary and pro-people leaders rather than continually swelling the guts of scoundrels that will never change.”

WHEN BUSH SAID he felt more at home and safer in Liberia (probably more than he felt in the other three countries visited), he meant every word. He wasn't being rhetorical. Bush and other Americans, as he rightly put it, hold it more to Liberia , because “to whom much is given, much is expected.” And, more so, President Sirleaf is right when she said, there isn't any Liberian president who had met an American President four times in two years. But this is not only that. Of all the countries and presidents that Bush visited on his recent African tour, none of the presidents did visit the White House so frequently in the last two years than Sirleaf. So, for God sake, which of the Bush-visited Presidents and countries most deserved a watershed donation?

LIBERIA HAS GOT to ponder the unarguably disappointing gains of the Bush visit. Particularly, Sirleaf and officials of her government need to pause and ponder on the donation. Only a million books and a few thousand chairs for Liberia pledged by Bush who is not only Ellen- or Liberia-obsessed, but who also donated so much million dollars to other less-American countries? Something got to be the reason. Bush is not happy with what he saw on the ground here firsthand. Probably more disillusioned faces. Probably cramped infrastructures. Probably orchestrated welcome. And all of these conditions after so much had been funneled to Liberia by his country in a short period. Let's plow the minds for the answers, starting with the urgency of using public money for public good; for Bush or America could have not been so mean to Liberia .