Comrades and commandos, fearless and restless agitators of an egalitarian society, sons and daughters of the slums of Soniwein, West Point, Gibrata, Clara Town and New Kru Town, struggling conscious men and women in pursue of highest education, resilient cadres and militants, ideologues, veterans, well-wishers, and sympathizers of the Vanguard Student Unification Party (SUP). We bring you warn bountiful revolutionary greetings from the zenith of political enlightenment and true revolutionary consciousness.
The Vanguard Student Unification Party strongly warns the Administration of the University of Liberia against the ongoing ill-advised and disorganized eLearning program and calls on the President of the University of Liberia, Dr. Julius Sarwolo Nelson to immediately open the University for the Normal Traditional Classroom Activities. We unapologetically maintain that the purported eLearning program introduced by the UL Administration is very untimely, grossly disorganized, and academically insensitive to its primary beneficiary – the students of the University of Liberia. The current eLearning program is a product faulty administrative rationality and its remains totally unmarketable on the campuses of the University of Liberia at this time.
SUP is not against innovative steps and administrative creativities that will place the University of Liberia on path with other institutions around the globe. However, SUP will not accept the imposition of unrealistic and flaw filled policy that pays dead ear to the concerns of the primary beneficiaries. Dr. Nelson and his lieutenants must be informed that they are not the primary beneficiary of the eLearning rather, the economically challenged students of the University. Henceforth, ignoring their concerns is tantamount to the rebirth of bad administrative practices that has kept the University unimproved for decades.
SUP is concerned about the cost and reliability of internet connectivity, the stability of electricity, the economic adversity as well as via majority of the University lecturers who don’t have a simple computer knowledge. Liberia is ranked among the top five courtiers in the world with most expensive mobile data for internet according to Alliance for Affordable internet. Additionally, only 25% of the of approximately five million people in Liberia have access to electricity as per the World Bank 2018 Development Index report.
SUP wishes to inform the public, particularly students of the University of Liberia that the UL Administration has blatantly refused to listen to some genuine recommendations proffered by students of the University on the eLearning. In the case of SUP, we have recommended to the University that in the midst of the current health crisis and economic hardship, it is insensitive to introduce full online classroom at this time. It is therefore prudent to pilot the entire eLearning program with a department or college rather than the entire University. In a University where many of the instructors don’t even have the idea of how to simply boot a computer, it is ill-advised to hastily entrap such institution with a policy that will undermine its credibility and integrity. Not many of the faculties of the University have simple computer knowledge as well as the students. Hence, both the faculties and the students of the University need to be well orientated before entirely moving the University to an eLearning program.
Comrades, members of the press, SUP wishes to inform all students of the University of Liberia that the eLearning is a NOT a well-crafted policy of the University but a plan to justify donor funds and maintain the University on the recast national budget. If the University will introduce a policy or program with the sole intend of justifying salary and benefits of few individuals rather than building the capacity of its lecturers then we are prepared to give our lives for academic freedom and justice.
Additionally, SUP calls on the UL Administration to stop selling defective third-class Chinese laptop to teaching staff of the University at a very exorbitant cost. Our TPA has informed us that instructors at the University of Liberia have being coerced to buy a single substandard Chinese laptop for a very high cost of US$740. SUP see this as an exploitation and a sign and symptom of administrative failure – Dr. Nelson must be on the alert.
Therefore, SUP calls on the Government of Liberia through the Ministry of Education and the Commission on Higher Education to immediately open all universities and colleges as well as vocational schools across the Country. It is wholesomely questionable and unacceptable to selectively open schools. The action by the Ministry of Education to partly open grade schools and keep institutions of higher learning closed clearly demonstrates that the Weah Administration is using ten pound hammer to do dental surgery on Liberia. Other countries in Africa like Cameroon, Tanzania, Senegal, etc have opened all schools. Why is the government of Mr. Weah refusing to open all schools when market places, entertainment centers like the Jamaica Resort and beaches are opened and crowded!
Comrades, for almost 50 years, SUP has soldiered on the burden of Academic Freedom, Social Justice and Peace throughout the length and breadth of the Republic of Liberia and Africa at large. This historical legacy inherited from generations of the past must be uncompromisingly and fearlessly upheld and transferred to generations yet unborn even if it will cost us our blood to do so. The ideological footing for which SUP has risen against brutal dictators, tyrants and thuggish regime in Liberia and on the continent of Africa cannot be thwarted by any man born of a woman not even an illiterate and corrupt footballing president like Mr. Weah and his stooges.
Fellow compatriots, sons and daughters of the working class, it is appalling to note that the Government of Liberia led by a semi-literate ex-footballer has crowned itself with the duty to heartlessly expand the untold Hardship of the Liberian people, ransacked their hope and subject them to unimaginable hardship. In the mist of economic, social and environmental impediments caused by the COVID-Pandemic, Mr. WEAH and his gang of thieves gathered to celebrate what they called an Independent Day. In the midst of unbearable poverty, SUP continuously denounces the extravagant lifestyle of Mr. Weah and his officials.
Therefore, SUP categorically Condemns in the strongest terms the cliquish and quasi celebration of Liberia's 173rd independent day. The 173rd Independent Day celebration was a jamboree to celebrate Mr. Weah and his officials two and half years of successfully looting the States resources and turning it into a thuggish Republic. It is unreasonable and logically unbalanced to celebrate when nearly all hospitals and clinics around the Country are lacking drugs and equipment, It is indefensible to wastefully spend poor tax payers’ cash on Independent Day celebration when civil servants are being paid unsustainable wages while thousands of Librarians hardly afford a meal a day.
SUP also wants to use this medium to call for the immediate dismissal of Madam Paulette Findley, the Officer in Charge of the Central Agriculture Research Institute (CARI) for gross human right abuse and massive corruption. Madam Findley who was earlier dismissed in 2018 as Administrator for persistent gross breach of duty, misconduct and acts incompatible with CARI policy was reappointed by the President Weah through the influence of Mr. Nathanial McGill as Officer in Charge of CARI. Documents in the possession of the Student Unification Party clearly informs us that Madam Findley is using ex-combatants to go after employees of the entity who disagrees with her corrupt and bad administrative practices thereby threatening to take away their lives. Not only that Madam Findley is going after her critics, she is also looting funds and assets of Institution. The refusal of Mr. Weah to dismiss Madam Paulette Findely clearly demonstrates that corruption under his Administration is a rewarding venture that he Mr. Weah take pleasure in. SUP therefore calls on all donor partners of the Central Agriculture Research Institute to withhold all funding to the institution till Madam Paulette Findley is dismissed by the President Weah.
Long lived the struggle for social justice, academic freedom and peace; the struggle continues and SUP remains supreme!
Done and sealed on this 3RD Day of August, A.D. 2020 by the 29th Central Committee and Politburo Concomitantly.
Signed: __________________ Approved: _____________________
Cde. Ephriam T. Nyumah Cde. Charles M. Songha
Secretary General/ SUP Chairman/SUP
Critics fear Togo reforms leave little room for change in election
Flooding: Obey weather warnings – NADMO to general public
Fire in NDC over boycott of Ejisu by-election
NDC to outdoor Prof Jane Naana Opoku-Agyemang as running mate today
Ejisu: CPP seeks injunction to stop April 30 by-election
Dismiss ECG, GWCL, GACL bosses over losses – United Voices for Change tells gov’...
Submit 2023 audited financial statements by May – Akufo-Addo order SOEs
Current power outages purely due to mismanagement – Minority
ECG hoists red flag to fight Ashanti Regional Minister over arrest of General Ma...
Mahama’s 24hr economy will help stabilise the cedi; it’s the best sellable polic...
