Serving as Keynote speaker and launcher at the launching ceremony of the Liberia Council of Churches Election Situation Room, the former General Secretary of the Mano River Union Ambassador Medina Wesseh commended the LCC for the launch of an Election Situation Room; recognized the gains made by the religious community but called for more involvement in Liberia’s 2023 General and Legislative Elections.
Ambassador Wesseh lauded the efforts of the Liberia Council of Churches and the Inter-Religious Council of Liberia for their significant efforts at restoring peace in Liberia following 14 years of Civil War from 1989 to 2003. She noted that religious leaders, both Christians and Muslims, before the arrival of the International Community have never hesitated to avail their good offices to facilitate conflict resolutions.
She lauded religious leaders as been very proactive in raising their voices every time to avert crisis amid the alarming flashpoints of protests against corruption, shortages of essential commodities, high cost of living, extrajudicial killings and challenges to the rule of law over the last five years.
Ambassador Wesseh described Liberia to be at a crossroad pending the October 10, 2023 Presidential and Legislative Elections and called on religious leaders to be actively involved amid the recent celebration of 20 years of uninterrupted peace in Liberia since the signing of the Accra Comprehensive Peace Accord in 2003 which brought an end to the Liberia Civil War. She stated that the launch of an election situation room is one of the most important ways to get the LCC involvement with the electoral process and guide their conversation while also calling on the LCC to engage and ask individuals making hate speeches and provocative statements to refrain.
“The whole world appears to want Liberia to succeed, Liberians themselves must want to succeed also.”
The former General Secretary of the Mano River Union stated that hundreds of International Observers will be deployed to monitor the elections to ensure that it is free, fair, and transparent.
She urged the LCC and its constituent member churches and denominations to get involved with the electoral process in playing the role of a shepherd as the Bible instructs a good shepherd to lead and guide his flocks and not the leave his sheep astray.
The guidance religious leaders should give to their followers should not be a one that should subject them to a particular candidate but instead be a one that should speak to the consciousness of their followers that will direct for the greater good of nation building in the sense of vision, plan and development.
Ambassador Wesseh in an effort to promote and enhance the work of the LCC Election Situation Room promised to provide 20 gadgets.
