Prof. Dew Mayson Accepts New Deal Party Nomination

At its February12, 2011 convention held at the YMCA on Broad Street in Monrovia, the New Deal Party nominated Prof. Dew Mayson as Standard Bearer. Below is full transcript of his acceptance speech.

Men and Women of the New Deal Movement Party;
Men and Women of our Beloved Country, the Republicof Liberia;
Dear Brothers and Sisters:

Inspired by the burning desire to serve our beloved native land and in profound gratitude for the honor you have bestowed on me, I accept this nomination to lead our party and our people to victory in the forthcoming presidential elections.

And I accept this nomination with a promise:  That I, Dew Tuan-Wleh Mayson, will devote all of my resources, talents and energies to our campaign for victory so that our people will be lifted out of the poverty-stricken conditions with which they are saddled. Our people need to smile again.

As you know, our Party is bound in a coalition with other parties under the umbrella of the National Democratic Coalition.  We want it to be known that we remain committed to the protocols of this Coalition which guarantee that the parties constituting the Coalition will elect a single slate of candidates for the Presidency and all other positions.  As your Standard Bearer, I shall continue to struggle for the unity of the opposition parties because we know that it is only through the progressive unity of our people that we shall be able to defeat this government which has promised so much but delivered so little.

Let me therefore, once again, raise my voice to plead with those parties which have not already done so, let me say to these parties:  put aside the unnecessary hesitancy and join the National Democratic Coalition in a united front for the victory of our people.  Those parties who do so will receive the gratitude of our people who are tired of our disunity and are clamoring for our unity.  Those parties who fall prey to the inducements of the ruling party and those parties who manufacture all kinds of spurious excuses to frustrate the unity of the opposition will, in the crucible of time, be exposed, and they shall receive the wrath and indignation of our people.  We can be sure of that.

Already, under our very eyes, our people are making their feelings heard.  Just yesterday, the people of Egypt, after 30 years of dictatorial rule, jettisoned in the waste basket of history their leader and his cohorts, duplicating in that African country the Jasmine Revolution which a few weeks earlier had seen the Tunisian people overthrow their own tyrannical and corrupt leadership. Next door, in La Cote d’Ivoire, a different scenario is being played out but make no mistake:  the will of the people will eventually prevail.

We in Liberiacannot think that we are in any way outside this orbit of history.  The forward movement of history beckons us to effect a change of leadership so that policies will be implemented to change the horrible statistics which define our poverty stricken existence:

 We need a leadership that understands the importance of putting our people back to work.  Because when our people are unemployed, they cannot provide enough food for their family; they cannot pay their children’s school fees; they cannot pay the hospital bills when they and their children are sick.  And most importantly, our unemployed people lose the dignity and pride to which every Liberian is entitled.

We need a leadership which—by deeds—not by words and a fingerful of examples—will empower Liberians to fully participate in the development of their country.  Is it not a matter of national shame that in the concessions granted for the exploitation of our mineral and petroleum resources, the present Government has given no thought  to reserving a portion of these resources for Liberians or at least getting Liberians to partner with the foreign concessions?

And while this Government promulgates an investment code with huge incentives for foreign businesses, what incentives and help are being given Liberian businesses?  What meaningful assistance is there for the Liberian business person—the market women, carpenters, masoners, shoe shine boys, restaurant owners, et al? Tell me, what meaningful assistance is there for the farmers who constitute an overwhelming majority of our working population?

 And what initiatives are being launched to train the Liberian engineers and other experts to man the mines and petroleum operations?  Are Liberians to be employed only as domestic servants and in other secondary positions?

We need a leadership that will give priority to the special requirements of young people who need to be educated, trained and gainfully employed.  Our women, the bearers of our children, need to be respected and assisted so that we can achieve gender balance in elected positions and in all other spheres of national life.   We shall assist the handicapped and prove to our people that disability is not inability by appointing a qualified physically-challenged person to the cabinet.

In almost six years of governance, this Government continues to ignore its responsibility to repatriate the large numbers of Liberians who are stuck in refugee camps in Nigeria, Ghana, La Cote d’Ivoire, and in Guinea.  This Government continues to treat with benign neglect former soldiers and the widows of former soldiers.  It gives the same treatment to ex-combatants and former child soldiers.

This is bad governance and bad leadership. That is why we need a leadership that leads—a leadership that leads with competence, honesty and with compassion for our people.

And when the leadership has compassion for our people, that leadership will not destroy our people’s markets and homes—under whatever pretext—until alternative markets and homes are provided for the people.

When the leadership has compassion for our people, they will not throw people out of their jobs in this already difficult economic environment; they will not refuse to pay just compensation to people they have retired or thrown out of work; they will not use so much of our capital expenditures to buy luxury vehicles because the money used to buy those vehicles could be used to build a school, equip a clinic, provide seed rice for the farmers.

During this period of voters’ registration, if this leadership had compassion for our people, they would not be asking them to walk three, four, five hours to get registered.   Why couldn’t Government have used some of its vehicles to go to the people and register them near their villages?  Why?

 “If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich”—so warned the late American President John F. Kennedy, many, many years ago.

Today, I join our people in saying to this Government that enough is enough. At this juncture in our history, the forthcoming election gives us the opportunity to change this Government and install a Government of our people, with compassion for our people. The challenge to our Liberian people is this:  Show love for our country by not permitting the next six years to look like the last six years.  Six is enough—quite enough.

But let us remind ourselves that the change we seek in October will not be easy to achieve.  We know that already the Government is using its position of incumbency to bribe its opponents and to slander its critics.  Read the latest report of the National Democratic Initiative where there is documented various acts of fraud and illegalities being committed by the Government and its employees during the present voters registration campaign.  Let us note a few:  

- the use of government vehicles, equipment and personnel to perform various tasks on behalf of the Unity Party.

- the transfer of a voters registration center to the home of a Unity Party partisan who is running for representative from MontserradoCounty.

All of these illegal acts—though widely reported in the press—have not attracted any action or reaction from the National Elections Commission which is charged with monitoring the conduct of the forthcoming elections.

The international community which has invested so much to ensure a fair and transparent election should not close its eyes and its ears to these acts of illegalities.  They should make their voices heard in whatever way they deem expedient—but their voices and their concerns should be made known. For, as it has been said, silence encourages the oppressor, never the victim.

And so, in spite of the difficulties ahead, let us go forth, brother and sisters, confident in the righteousness of our cause and energized by the determination  of our people to achieve victory so that they can attain a better life for themselves and for their children.

Let us therefore come together, Fellow Liberians—young men and women, old soldiers and former combatants, Christians and Muslims, the handicapped,  market women and business persons, shoe shine boys, pen drivers and wheel barrel boys—all of you, let  us come together. Ours is not a caravan of despair.  It is a ship of hope.  It doesn’t matter if you have not done well in school or in the society.  Still come, and yet again, come.

Make yourself available, and we shall make you capable. With your support, we shall see the invisible and then do what they consider the impossible. Instead of a breakdown, we shall achieve a breakthrough. We, the people now rejected, will certainly become the people selected. Let us therefore, in the words of that Biblical passage:  Let us “Be strong and of good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed.”

Brothers and Sisters:  If we are able to maintain a solid unity, by the time 2011 ends, we shall look back with joy and ahead with great hopes and expectations.  For people like you and people like me—with God’s help, the word failure does not exist.  Our success is non-negotiable.

And so, like our brother, President Obama, Yes, we can!  Vero possumus—as they say in Latin.  And as our people say in Kpelle: GwehFeh Kpeh—the struggle continues.

And as we Catholics would say:  Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum:  The Peace of God remain with you always.”