My generation will contest this claim for we grew up despising his 27 year dominance of Liberian governance and politics. The question that begs lampoons: 54 years after his death, have we moved Liberia beyond the shadows of William V. S. Tubman?
The unanimous and unflattering answer is no. We live in Tubman’s century, 54 years after his demise and, as a generation , have lost the right to demean his presidency or the longevity of his rule.
Fifty four years are plenteous to wreak seismic national transformation. Yet as a country we haven’t. True, we have advanced Liberia’s democracy far beyond the political autocracy of the great old man but we have used almost half the time to arrive at this goal at a heinous cost, making the democratic gain an almost Pyrrhic victory! Plus, the development dividend since his demise pales in comparison to the development he inauguratted.
William V. S Tubman gave us 66 megawatts of capacity at Mount Coffee hydroelectric dam in 1963 when our popularion was not even 2 million. Fifty four years after his death, we have added only 22 megawatts to that capacity at probably 800 percent of the cost he used to build his 66 megawatts, amid a population reaching 6 million. The whole landscape and structure of Monrovia and largely Liberia remains as Tubman left it. Commercial life in Monrovia still largely revolves around the old Waterside-Broad Street -Capital Bye pass triangle, though sinkor is mounting a slow but still fledgling challenge. The power center of the country is still where it was on Capitol Hill and we have barely scratched the renovation surfaces of these premises.
Under Tubman, Liberia had the simultaneously venerated and berated unprecedented economic growth in the 60s, growth we are wont to describe as “ without development’ a la the criticism from a Northwestern University publication. Since then however, Liberia has struggled on the economic growth front.
So to members of my generation born in the year and decade the old man died, and of course to the older generation, we have ceded our rights to criticize W.VS.Tubman in to our inability to generationally surpass his accomplishments.
We have even failed to upkeep the William V. S Tubman High School to the standard he erected it to maintain the beautiful Maryland County he bequeathed!
This is why today should remain a seminal birthday in our national consciousness, if only to remind us of our inability to surpass and exceed his expolits.
Like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington in the United States, William VS. Tubman too had his foibles and blemishes. But blemishes do not prevent great men from accessing the pinnacles of greatness.
Even when we would have finally and ultimately obtruded beyond the achievements of Tubman, by for example , driving on a bridge connecting 12 street sinkor to Kesselly boulevard in the environ of Japan Freeway, (any overpass on Tubman Boulevard remains in the oldman’s shadows) or connecting Bong to Lofa throug a paved road , or taking Mt Coffee to 400 megawatts of capacity, the sheer length of time and cost it would require should and would compel us to remain in awe of the greatest President we have had!
This is why we shoukd continue to celebrate him and to say Happy Birthday to the Legendary President on every November 29!