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Ansumana Jabateh Challenges the
Mandingo Community By: Nvasekie N. Konneh August 21, 2009  On
Saturday, August 16, 2009 on Woodland Avenue in Philadelphia, Ansumana
Jabateh was the guest at the forum organized by the Independent
Intellectual Forum of Philadelphia. He did not come with any prepared
script. So he was at liberty to say whatever was on his mind. For some
people, this was an opportunity for Ansumana Jabateh to clarify the
controversial remark he is quoted to have made sometime ago. That is to
say he’s not “in favor of Mandingo unity.” For all those who wanted this
clarification from him, they were disappointed that he kept repeating
the same phrase throughout his deliberation. No matter how good and true
was what Mr. Jabateh was saying, and even if he had good intention in
saying what he said, all that were overshadowed by the phrase, “not in
favor Mandingo unity.”
Even though this phrase was offensive to our ears, listening carefully to what Ansumana was saying, we all will agree that he made some salient points. What I got from his message beside that offensive phrase is 1. We as Mandingoes here in the Diaspora talk too much but do very little to back up what we say. 2. That we all don’t have to belong to the same organization, what matters is how many projects we are undertaking that are benefiting our people in Liberia? In other words, how are we impacting the social political situation of our people in Liberia?
On any of these issues, we all will agree with Mr. Jabateh. He challenges us to stop talking too much and start doing something. He was right to say so because he has the records to back up what he says. Last year, Limany organized Eid Celebration in Ganta among the Moslems and non-Moslems. A cow was killed. A generator was donated to the mosque in Ganta. Limany organized shoe drive that collected hundreds of pairs of shoes which were distributed in Liberia. He has taken some students and teachers to various schools including the BWI and the University of Liberia on science projects. Through this effort, there are now science teachers and student associations in some schools in Liberia. Now again, Limany is donating 500 bags of rice to the Moslem community as the Ramadan approaches. These are the kinds of projects that give Ansumana Jabateh whatever relevance he has in our community today. While most of us are worrying about the latest shoes and cloths we want to wear or the fancy cars we want to drive, Ansumana thinks about what project he and Limany can undertake that will impact our community at home and abroad. Even if we don’t like what he says and how he says it, we all can appreciate these projects he and Limany have been undertaking over the years. That’s why we even bother to invite him to speak to us. If he was not doing these things we won’t care to listen to him. We would have dismissed him as the man who says he’s “not in favor of Mandingo unity.” So he may be talking “rubbish” but he’s doing something whereby we who can say all the nice thing cannot point at many things we have done that have positively impacted our people in Liberia.
No Mandingo organization anywhere in America has done any of these things. Not that they haven’t discussed many of those things but their members are not willing to pay the money that can make things happen. You can’t count $5000.00 in any of our organizations’ accounts. Individually, we may be doing so well financially but our doing so well is not reflected on the coffers of our organizations. We are all operating on empty coffers because all of us that are making all the big mouth are not willing to support our organizations.
One typical example of our saying too much but doing little is the FELMAUSA Scholarship Fund Drive. Only “seventeen persons” of the hundreds of FELMAUSA’s members have contributed to this fund drive. The contributions range from $15.00 to $500.00 total $2, 250.00. If 100 people had paid $100.00 each, that would amount to $10, 000.00. Don’t tell me we don’t enough people who can afford $100.00. I will tell you we have thousands of people in our community who can afford to pay $100.00 but they are too selfish to spend that money for the Mandingo progress they say they believe.
Let’s take into consideration the total investment we made in attending the just ended convention. On the average, each one of us that attended the convention invested anywhere between $100.00 to $500.00 on ourselves. If you add the money for the plane tickets, the shoes, the trousers and shirts we bought for the occasion, gas and in some cases hotel bills. On the average, we all spend between $100.00 to $500.00. That’s how much we invested just to be at the convention. Compared that to how much we contributed to FELMAUSA during the convention. If you attended all the three days events, $10.00 for the debate night; $20.00 for the Saturday night; $20.00 for the women night on Sunday, your total contribution was $50.00. If you did not go to the Sunday night event, then you only contributed $30.00 to FELMAUSA. On Sunday night, I met group of people complaining why they should spend $20.00 after spending some money on Friday and Saturday? I had to tell these folks “if you spend all the money to be here, spend that $20.00 to support FELMAUSA.”
All this goes to say that we are very selfish bunch of people. When it comes to satisfying our own personal desires, we will spend as much as we can. But when it comes to spending money to support the causes we say we believe in, we are reluctant to pay. That’s what Ansumana was telling us. He was saying to us even if we all come together under one umbrella, if we are not committed to putting our money where our mouths are, we are not going to go anywhere.
Ansu acted like a shock shooter during his deliberation. He was frank with FELMAUSA’s President-elect: don’t come to me talking about unity. If you have a specific project to undertake, we can network to make it happen.
On the issue of FELMAUSA, I have had my share of disagreement with Ansumana Jabateh which I stressed in an article two years ago, “Why Is Ansumana Jabateh So Angry and Vengeful?” In the beginning, Ansumana was unreasonably critical of FELMAUSA. Now he seems to be softening his position on FELMAUSA to the point of saying, “I really like FELMAUSA and I want it to succeed. If FELMAUSA fails, it will be our collective failure.”
He admonished all FELMAUSA members to support the FELMAUSA Scholarship Project. At the same time he expressed his disappointment with those who are trying to prevent FELMAUSA’s president, Richmond Konneh, from executing the scholarship project. According to Jabateh, this effort on the part of the board chairman is nothing short of obstructionism. Abe Kromah’s main reason for his obstructionist campaign is because he thinks the president is “lame duck” and therefore should not execute the project. Since the board chairman could not get any traction with the “lame duck” argument, he has now pulled another argument from his bag of tricks: the president did not submit budget to the board or the president refuses to meet with the board members. This is nothing but hogwash. For the man who in the beginning participated in the discussions about the scholarship project and suggested that instead of 30 students, we must sponsor 100 students and agreed that officials of FELMAUSA pay $150.00 to not back this “big mouth” is very comical to say the least. The board chairman did not bring the issue to the board for discussion for more than six months, only coming now to make himself relevant by demanding that the president come to the board. This is a charade. This is dirty politic does not bode well for the future of FELMAUSA. The board chairman is just acting as an obstructionist on this matter, plain and simple.
Another propaganda that is been spread by the board chairman and his supporters is that the president, Richmond Konneh, is borrowing $5, 000.00 from FELMAUSA’s coffer. This is garbage. People making this statement should be ashamed of themselves. When our counterpart in Liberia, the National Mandingo Caucus is talking about $20, 000.00 scholarship project, we have folks sitting down here in the US arguing whether we should spend $5, 000.00 on similar project. Are we not shamed of ourselves when other people are talking about $20, 000.00 project we are arguing whether to spend $5, 000.00? Do we know that we only need 200 people to pay $100.00 each to come up with $20, 000.00? If we are not thinking big in terms of dollars, how can we achieve the unity we all are talking about all the time? That was Ansumana Jabateh’s core message.
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