'Monkey still working, let Baboon wait small'

Liberia Election October 2011

After not posting anything for a couple of years or more, here i am writing something. Many things have happened since the last post and i have visited many African countries.

My prime motivation for creating this blog was to share those experiences with you but i have not been keeping up for many reasons... I have a twitter account @mashanubian, which i think has remotivated me to be updating my blog lol.

I am presently in Monrovia, Liberia, a post-conflict country. After the 2005 polls, President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is seeking re-election for another seven-year term.

The polls are slated for 11 October. Since Friday early evening (16 Sept 2011), downtown Monrovia has been busy with ruling United Party (UP) supporters decorating the city for Saturday's campaign launch.

They have been chanting and dancing to different campaign songs but most specifically to one which praises Sirleaf with the chorus "na her area ohh" (That's her area/field). Actually, the singer refers to the various areas of "achievements" of the UP government like free health and free education, etc.

According to John the receptionist at my hotel, the 4-track album called "Diepie" popularly known as "Ma area" album is the most sold currently in Liberia. He adds that the song "Da ma area" is currently the most popular. The album by singers Junior Freeman aka Tumar Junior and Eddie S. Dougbe aka African Soldier has two songs in english and two in Liberian languages and the album costs US$5.

Also on UP posters, Sirleaf and her running-mate VP Bokai are shown with the Liberian flag in background. One can read on most of them "Education, da their area", "Health, da their area" (meaning health or any other sector cited in a given poster is Sirleaf and Bokai's area/field of expertise).

Another thing i noticed in the UP posters is the fact that the party uses broken english, a lingua franca spoken by Liberians; something i am yet to see on other parties' posters. A way to be closer to the people? could be.

A funny poster, that i love, is the one in broken english saying 'Monkey still working, let Baboon wait small'. There is a saying in West Africa 'Monkey woke, babu eat'.

This means that the baboon doesn't do any efforts but is always ready to reap the benefits of the monkey's labour. Here, Sirleaf and her team i.e. MONKEY apparently achieved a lot since they came to power after 14years of civil war, so why would they go now; people should give them another mandate to complete their work. Only after can the 'BABOON' i.e. opposition come and reap the fruits of the post-conflict administration's labour.

Another poster says "We na finished yet, still working hard". I am yet to yet a good picture of the poster "Monkey still working, let baboon wait small" but you can see in the video below from 2:30 to 3:00.



The video included showing UP supporters heading to the Lynch street mini-stadium is taken from broad a balcony on Broad street.

To make things funnier, a UPP supporter decorated his car with flags and had a monkey doll sitting on his car's rooftop. Is it a reference to TEAM MONKEY i.e. Sirleaf or TEAM BABOON i.e. the opposition.

However, one thing that surprised me was the fact that I saw ruling party posters on the fences of some public institutions like the Public Works or Labour ministries (see pictures).

It could be noted that there was no partisan poster on the Finance ministry's fence just a National Election Commission (NEC) banner urging "Liberians to vote wisely" (see pictures).