By Justice Randall Clarke| FEATURE
MONROVIA, July 17 (LINA) – It all may seem less remarkable to some, but many would note a President, especially in Africa, figuratively tussling with an aide to personalize an umbrella under a heavy downpour – not to own it, but for he himself to hang it over his head, and no-one else.
As he said in his inaugural speech, the Liberian President displayed a “servant-leader” attribute or, say, ‘down-to-earth’ quality before his government officials who had stormed the Roberts International Airport around 10:00 A.M. on Saturday to welcome him back from a two-day State visit to neighboring Guinea.
The rain forced the ministers and other members of his government, who traditionally queued out on the tarmac at the red carpet, to remain under the velarium of the Presidential Lounge, watching the President walk to them for the customary on-arrival handshakes.
So, when the pilot turned off the engine of the plane and opened the main exit for the President to disembark, a senior officer of the Armed Forces of Liberia, tagged “Eastman,” duly and quickly left the tidy platoon he had paraded, rushed with a black umbrella to hang over the President amid the heavy rainfall. Eastman did not succeed in doing that.
There ensued, one would say, a brief ‘conflict,’ and the President, as expected, took the day. Eastman could not easily let the President take the raingear from his hand to use it himself, but the President hung on, surprising the soldier. Then Eastman finally acceded and just remained on the left of the President as they marched pass through the saluting platoon.
The Liberian leader had just returned from holding bilateral discussions with his neighbor, Prof. Alpha Conde, President of the Republic of Guinea, on the consolidation by their nations’ peace, security, and trade to boost human and infrastructural development.
As most of his cabinet ministers watched him approach them under the canopy of the reception building, apparently shocked at his insistence in balancing the umbrella over himself, the President poked them a joke that quenched an acute silence.
“It’s like these government officials are not serious, huh! Why didn’t you people stop the rain and get out there?” he said, as if they could order the rain to stop. That sparked a burst of laughter.
Actually, one would safely say that it was of no surprise whatsoever that President Weah could not let an aide shelter him with an umbrella because the leader has always referenced his root from the slum community of Gibraltar in Monrovia where he learned to be humble far before hitting stardom and subsequently storming the political arena.
It may be arguable but in Africa, it is rare that presidents or heads of State or government would do certain common things as burying amour propre to do such a thing as holding an umbrella in the rain or sun in public spaces. They often leave that to aides.
“President Weah likes to surprise people by doing a lot of things people don’t expect him to do. He would have probably still gotten down from the plane and walked in the rain if there were no umbrella,” one of his fans at the airport, said to me, laughing.
“When leaders make common the uncommon, that’s something that inspires a lot of people,” the lady said.
LINA JRC/PTK
