By Henry Mamulu
By now, I have come to suspect that Liberia’s tragedy did not begin solely in misguided policies or competing political philosophies. It germinated much closer to home. Maybe even between the sheets.
Liberians like to explain our history through ideologies. We speak of the True Whig Party, the Progressives, socialism, capitalism, indigenous rights, Americo-Liberian privilege, military rule, and democracy. Those things undoubtedly mattered. But after watching Liberia for nearly seven decades, I have begun to suspect that another force has shaped our politics just as profoundly.
Relationships, families, school rivalries, old friendships, old resentments, who married whom, who lost whom, who embarrassed whom, who became President, and who did not.
Liberia is a very small country. We often discuss its politics as though the principal actors were strangers meeting for the first time on some ideological battlefield. I believe they were nothing of the sort. More often than not, they were classmates, cousins, neighbors, drinking companions, football teammates, church members, former lovers, or rivals who had known one another since childhood.
Once one begins looking through that lens, our history starts to read differently.
Take, for example, Dr. Henry Boima Fahnbulleh.
In one of his recent essays, he recalled meeting Ian Yhap in the office of one of Yhap’s uncles. According to Dr. Fahnbulleh, Yhap looked at him with disdain. Yhap sneered at him. Not knowing who the young man was, he inquired and was told that Yhap was related to the Tolberts. It was then that he understood why Yhap looked down on him, as it were. At that moment, he wrote, everything became clear.
At that point, I stopped reading.
It was clear there was no difference in policy or philosophy that caused Dr. Fahnbulleh to feel this way. It was simply what, and whom, Yhap epitomized to him.
Whether the encounter occurred exactly as remembered is almost beside the point. What is fascinating is what each appeared to represent to the other. Ian Yhap was no longer simply a young man standing in an office. He had become, in Dr. Fahnbulleh’s mind, a symbol of the Tolbert family and everything that family had come to represent to many Progressives. Conversely, Dr. Fahnbulleh represented, to many within the Tolbert orbit, the movement determined to dismantle the political order they knew.
Neither man had to utter a single political word. History had already spoken for them.
But history can be ironic.
At the same time, Dr. Fahnbulleh served in the government of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Was one of the most influential figures in that administration Ellen’s Minister of State, Varney Sherman? No. It was Bobbin McClain.
Bobbin was even closer to President Tolbert than Yhap. Bobbin was Tolbert’s nephew. Bobbin’s brother, Wesseh McClain, another of Ian Yhap’s uncles, was himself closely connected to President Sirleaf from their high school days at the College of West Africa. They were classmates.
Dr. Fahnbulleh’s combative posture, it was rumored, often led President Sirleaf to sentence him to visitation time-outs, periods during which she would neither take his calls nor welcome him into her office. During those time-outs which could last for up to three months, he still went to work at the Executive Mansion and spent a considerable amount of time in Bobbin’s office, giving the outside impression that he had access to Ellen.
He did not.
But Bobbin’s office was so close to Ellen’s, and like hers sufficiently secluded, that no one could really tell whether he had actually met with the President or not.
But whether he saw her or not is not the point.
The point is that if these episodes actually occurred, and I have it on good authority that they did, then he used Yhap’s uncle during these periods for pacification and to maintain the persona of remaining in the President’s good graces when that was not, in fact, the case.
Maybe it was during one or more of those occasions that he encountered the evil, sneering Yhap, the True Whig Party apologist Yhap, the Tolbert-connected Yhap who represented everything he believed he stood against.
But that is what I find so strange.
While he believed Yhap viewed him with disdain, and while he himself was equally suspicious and offended, his consolation and comfort during those difficult periods came principally from Yhap’s uncle, a man even more closely related to President Tolbert than Yhap himself.
Bobbin was the son of Tolbert’s older sister. A direct nephew of Tolbert.
Yhap is not Tolbert’s nephew. Yhap is Tolbert’s grand-nephew. How does one reserve such disdain for the more distant branch of a family while collaborating on matters of national policy and security with one of its closest members?
Now, you might say that, as Minister of State, Bobbin must have been a trusted comrade of Ellen’s and therefore shared the same ideology. If that were the case, then Bobbin and Boima might naturally have been in synchronism on the issues.
But I do not see it that way. Politics, it would seem, is capable of separating men ideologically while requiring them to trust one another professionally.
When Charles Taylor first entered Liberia, everyone was united. All of the Progressives came as one. As Taylor advanced, the BBC regularly interviewed Ellen, who gave updates on the progress of the rebellion. This continued all the way until Charles Taylor reached Monrovia. When Doe’s resistance proved stronger than anticipated, Ellen ordered Taylor, on the BBC’s Focus on Africa program, to destroy the Mansion and “we will build it back”.
They were all united in their quest to remove Doe, all the way until Taylor reached Monrovia and the Executive Mansion. Many young people do not know that.
But then something happened that only the likes of Dr. Fahnbulleh and Ellen can reveal.
Until that time, there was no ULIMO, no INPFL, no MODEL, nothing. There was only the NPFL, which included all of the principal actors, with Taylor leading the campaign inside Liberia and Ellen serving as the spokesperson, together with the rest of the company, dealing with the international community and the press, especially the BBC.
Then there seemed to be a severing of relationships between Taylor and his handlers (all the progressives), who were still outside the country waiting for him to succeed.
Was it because Taylor refused to attack the Mansion and kill Doe? We will never know until someone like Ellen or Dr. Fahnbulleh tells us.
But the leadership that remained outside the country split. Some stayed with Taylor and later served in his government. Others joined Ellen in Côte d’Ivoire. Bobbin went with Ellen.
Ellen established an office in Côte d’Ivoire, and Bobbin worked with her there for many years. Bobbin was an accomplished psychiatrist who spoke classical French fluently and became Ellen’s connection to Burkina Faso, Niger, and other French-speaking countries. Her office in Côte d’Ivoire benefited from his mastery of the language and his mastery of diplomacy, but I have always believed that the unbreakable bond between them came not from his intellect, but from his bravado.
Ian Yhap explains in one of his Facebook posts that Ellen was attacked in Côte d’Ivoire by armed bandits. They apparently wanted to steal her car. In the struggle that ensued, Bobbin stepped between Ellen and the bullet that was meant for her. He took it in the gut before the bandits fled. He saved her life that day. Ideology or not, she now owed him a debt that no lifetime of gratitude could ever fully repay.
Even so, after becoming President, she did not immediately choose him for the position of Minister of State. Her preference was Willis Knuckles. It was only after Edwin Snowe and others introduced the giant sex scandal, complete with photographs in the newspapers, to disgrace and derail Willis, that Ellen was left stranded for support in her office. In her now desperate situation, she turned to her erstwhile personal assistant, Bobbin, and elevated him to the position of Minister of State.
I cannot say exactly what Bobbin’s ideology was. But ideology or not, Ellen seemed to have every reason to trust him, and he had more than earned that trust.
I knew him personally, and I can say definitively that his outlook never seemed to be black or white, Congo or Country, True Whig Party or Progressive, or any other form of divisive rhetoric. He appeared to continue to do what he had always done. Remain loyal to his President.
I bring all of this up because I often wonder what political and security discussions ensued between Dr. Fahnbulleh and Bobbin during that time. How do you carry out the affairs of state in collaboration with your “arch enemy”? Was it a pretense? Another carefully cultivated persona?
I do not know. But I find it very odd that the fate of our nation would be discussed between two men, one of whom despised the genealogy of the other. It would be interesting to hear Dr. Fahnbulleh comment on this.
But I digress. Such are the twists that Liberian politics so often produces.
Then there are the stories that never make it into political science textbooks.
Consider William V. S. Tubman and D. Twe.
Tubman’s first wife, Minty Dent, later married D. Twe. Monrovia was never a city that kept secrets for very long, and stories circulated for years about the bitterness that followed.
Now there are certain men whose women never seem to leave them. My ex-wife doesn’t even call me at Christmas. In fact, I sometimes get the impression that she hates me. But there are other men whose women seem never to stop loving them. George Weah. Charles Taylor. William V. S. Tubman. To name just a few.
The women associated with Charles Taylor still carry his surname as though, if he were released tomorrow, he would return to them first. Whatever history may say about him, they continue to bear his name with remarkable loyalty. If he ever walked free again, the present husband might well find himself moving into the children’s room.
Look at the affection with which Tangie Banto still speaks of George Weah. Think of Finda, Jackie Appiah, MacDella, and the others who have passed through his life. They all speak as though they still occupy a special place in his heart.
The men, in return, believe that they can walk into the life of an ex at any time.
But for President Tubman, arguably Liberia’s most powerful man, it proved dicey.
President Tubman’s first wife, Minty Dent, left him and married D. Twe. Rumor had it that Tubman attempted more than once to visit Minty after she married Twe, only to be chased out of the yard by the Harvard-educated Kru lawyer, who threatened to shoot him if he returned.
Tubman, they say, never forgot the humiliation.
Furthermore, Sister Minty knew exactly who “Vat” was, so why she chose the Kru man over everyone else remains one of those mysteries that Liberian women have never fully explained to us. Perhaps that is where the old saying came from: “Heaven was alright until the Kru man got there.”
Then came 1955. D. Twe, H. Boima Fahnbulleh’s grandfather, Nete-Sie Brownell, Dougba Caranda, Sr., the Colemans, and others aligned themselves with a different political party in an attempt to remove Tubman from power and reinstall Edwin Barclay as President. Monrovia was split almost down the middle. Tubman prevailed.
Determined to prevent what he believed could become civil conflict, he tightened his political grip on the country. The one-party state became firmly entrenched. It served him well, but it also served Liberia for far too long.
Ironically, the issue that eventually brought down the True Whig Party had nothing to do with old romances, bruised egos, or family rivalries. For once it was about political philosophy. The demand for genuine multi-party democracy. Or so it seemed.
Because even then, personalities never remained very far from the politics.
Liberia has always had a curious way of turning political disagreements into family quarrels and family quarrels into political movements. Ideology may have supplied the slogans, but relationships often supplied the fuel.
Then there is the story of Edward James Roye.
Most Liberians know the political version of his downfall. They know that Roye borrowed money. That President J. J. Roberts turned the issue against him, and that politics eventually consumed him.
Yes, all of that happened. But the story whispered in Monrovia’s drawing rooms was far more interesting.
The belle of Monrovia was a high-yellow mulatto young lady named Catherine, a niece of President Roberts. She was being raised, so the story goes, to marry another light-skinned young man from a respectable Monrovian society. Then along came Francis Roye. And if Francis was anything like his father, E. J. Roye, he was blacker than midnight. A real bat baby, as would have teasingly said in those days.
Francis swept Catherine off her feet. Then he got her pregnant.
That single act sent shock waves through Monrovian society. The Royes were never forgiven. Not because of politics. Not because of economics. Not because of ideology. But because, in the minds of many, Francis Roye had desecrated Catherine.
Once again, what lay between and betwixt proved stronger than what was debated from the political platform.
Then there was H. Boima Fahnbulleh, Sr.
I honestly believe he was an honorable man. A man of principle. It was often said that he broke with one of his own brothers because the brother adopted the surname Freeman. To Fahnbulleh, that represented an abandonment of family identity, becoming “qui,” becoming civilized at the expense of one’s roots.
Whether one agrees with him or not, he remained committed to the Fahnbulleh name.
That brother had two sons, Boikai and Feweh. Boikai, by every account, was brilliant. Brilliant in a different way from H. B. When Boikai visited the family home on Snapper Hill, people often remarked that there seemed to be a certain tension in the room.
Then there was another fascinating twist. When Fahnbulleh, Sr. graduated from law school, he was salutatorian. The valedictorian was C. Wellington Campbell.
I met Mr. Campbell myself in the early 1970s and found him to be astute, forthright, and quite different from the figure history would later remember.
Years later, when H. Boima Fahnbulleh, Sr. stood trial for treason under Tubman, the chief prosecutor was none other than Wellington Campbell. According to a story often repeated in Monrovia, Campbell remarked: “I bested you in school, and I am besting you again.”
Was that politics? Or was it an old rivalry that had simply found a bigger stage? Perhaps it was both.
When Tubman died and Tolbert became President, Campbell no longer enjoyed the protection he had once known and eventually fell on difficult times. But then again, so did Tolbert.
Looking back now, it is remarkable how intertwined our lives really were.
We all lived in the same Monrovia. We attended many of the same schools. Children whose parents would not speak to one another still met at parties, danced together, played football together, and became friends.
Boikai Fahnbulleh, Dr. Fahnbulleh’s brother, became the lead singer of a band fronted by one of Ian Yhap’s brothers, Jimmy Yhap. The band was called Purple Haze.
- B. Campbell played the piano. I have no doubt that Miatta Fahnbulleh probably had him backing her on a few occasions, even though he was the nephew of C. Wellington Campbell, the very man whom many in the Fahnbulleh family believed had been responsible for sending their father to prison.
That was Liberia. That was Monrovia. One family arguing with another, only to discover that their children had become friends.
Perhaps that is why I have come to believe that Liberia has always been less a battlefield of competing ideologies than one long family feud.
And if we managed to survive it then, perhaps we can survive it now.
