Who will unite this community?

By Staff Reporter PNN

OLM.Pres. K. Dwanyen	Board, Arthur Zakama

It is often said, harmony is the heart of success for any social environment. Mohandas Gandhi once said, "Always aim at complete harmony of thought and word and deed. Always aim at purifying your thoughts and everything will be well." And harmony means that the relationship between all the elements used in a composition is balanced, is good.

There is therefore no substitute for peace, unity and harmony, if a community is to move forward. This analogy has been true for OLM for quite a while. However, contrary to positive expectations about peace and development following the inauguration of Mr. Kerper Dwanyen as President, the OLM continues to sink in disunity.

As I therefore, sought to find personalities of our community who could mend fences, the known fact about the level of divide in our community kept lingering in my mind, knowing that the longer a conflict lasts the likely it is to become personal.

No doubt the campaign that elected Kerper Dwanyen followed a pattern of aggressive strategy. Many in fact believe that this is also a factor to the continuing conflict within our community. This is why many, including myself decided to give support to Mr. Dwanyen after he was declared winner of the 2007 Elections, aware that campaign efforts sometimes take the unexpected.

Before long however, the agenda of vendetta has already been established by Kerper, forcing a parallel formation of the St. Paul group of the Liberian Community and other forms of withdrawals. To Kerper, those who responded to his campaign in like manner soon became perceived as enemies.

As a consequence, there are several people that both him and many members of his leadership does not, the least, speak to. Then came his threatened court action against all opponents, including former President Martha Sinoe. Others on his list of court action were Mr. Wynfred Russell, Benoni T Grimes and Dr. Emmanuel Dolo,  among others.

Georgette Gray	Emmanuel Dolo	Beatrice Wisseh	Wynfred Russell	Francis Zazay	Jackson George	Steve Wilson

Kerper dropped his plan after realizing, through efforts by the Liberian Ministers Association, that the claims were factual. But Kerper finally threw the ach when he took Mr. Francis Zazay, the former OLM 2007 Election Chairman to court for what he called accountability issue, regardless of the level of clarity in the commission’s report. The case is currently pending mediation before a Federal Judge.

The paradoxical about Mr. Dwanyen accountability crusade is he preached accountability on the one hand, and pays himself rent for the office space he volunteered to the community, without the knowledge and approval of the board or the community! Not only that, e-mail exchanges between kerper and members of the board revealed that he had been manipulating for a kick back from the $250,000 negotiated for by Sen. Mark Dayton for the proposed community center, plus other massive misappropriation and mismanagement.

The other fact that pillaged the Dwanyen administration is the inner fighting on how to manage the community. Reports now suggest that the corrupt and autocratic behavior of Kerper is a factor that led to many resignations of his committee members and heads.

The other issue is the persistent conflict with the Board of Directors, where Kerper has on many instances, refused to neither submit a budget or program nor make report. As if to add insult to injuries, Kerper Dwanyen and his treasurer are regularly publishing financial reports that do not make sense and one replete with misrepresentations. Reports also came out quite recently that Kerper’s appointed Vice President is now working on a constitution that will keep him and his rubber stamped Board in power.

As you take an inventory of the current OLM administration, it is clear that the hope of a united community lies in the hands of the next OLM administration. With an election that is right ahead, time is not on our side to keep procrastinating. Now that it is no secret that the Kerper Dwanyen administration has miserably failed to unite or bring about unity in this community, the time is ready for the search of a new leadership.