Liberia: Buchanan, a seaside densely populated city is our cleanest city of the month of June

Liberia’s founders-all descendants of freed Black American slaves did one key thing after they found a home on the West African coast during the early part of the 1800s and named it “Liberia.” They dedicated the land to God. The key question however remains whether this nation is truly living a Godly lifestyle? Take cleanliness as an example: God being a God of order, and being pure, instructed the Israelites to “wash their clothes” before He could descend upon mount Sanni (Exodus 19:10). This was part of a wider consecration process before God’s appearance. In Liberia on the other hand, most of our cities, mainly Monrovia, now stand as our shame since war ended 2003, so much that even foreign visitors (as in the social media post further down) now pick on the state of our capital. Notwithstanding, volunteer citizens in the coastal city of Buchanan have vowed to keep their city clean-a model every town and city here ought to follow in order to maintain a sanitized environment. Hence, Buchana is our cleanest city of the month of June.    

*Deut. 23:12 “Designate a place outside the camp where you can go and relieve yourself.”

*Exodus 19:10 “And the LORD said to Moses, “Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow. Have them wash their cloths” (NIV).

By James Kokulo Fasuekoi|Editor-Publisher from Buchanan City, Grand Bassa

On Monday, June 8, 59-year-old Oretha, who goes by the name Madea, moved back and forth across Buchanan’s main street as early as 7: a.m, cleaning up piles of litter left behind the night before by local street vendors. She uses a wheelbarrow to move the garbage to a designated site nearby. 

This has been her daily routine except Sunday, as long as she can remember. After that she will return the following morning and perform the same task.   

Drivers of garbage trucks in the city are then dispatched to pick up from where people like Oretha left off: drivers collect the waste, then take it outside of the city and have it dumped into designated landfill, or areas identified by the city for wastes disposal.  

Oretha isn’t the only person or lady doing this job for the city of Buchanan. The city has an army of volunteers, many of them women and single mothers working to keep major streets and thoroughfares throughout Buchanan.

“Are you getting compensation for doing this work?” Ekklesia’s editor asked Oretha Monday, along Buchana’s main street. 

“Yes, they are giving us small thing,” replied Oretha, a mother of several kids who lives northwest Buchanan.

The exercise, she said, is a program set up by the local city council to make this seaside city look decent and attract tourism and travellers. 

The urban population itself has exploded since the last round of the country’s civil war which eventually forced rural dwellers to move south without ever returning upcountry where most had lived from youth.

With little state funding apportioned toward sanitary in cities across the nation amid political pressure from the opposition, waste control has remained a serious problem for every post-war government including the current President Joseph Boakai’s administration.

Under ex-President Sirleaf, waste became so unmanageable that the government even struck a deal with Zoom Lion, a foreign Ghanaian based waste management company, a deal widely criticized by Liberians who were denied such opportunity in their own country.    

Zoom Lion’s contract ended abruptly with no concrete reason given by Sirleaf’s own government. 

President George Weah’s government was even worse off in that the regime’s city mayor for Monrovia appeared more interested in national “politics” than cleaning up the city. 

Editor’s Note: Banner photograph shows Miss. Oretha pushing a wheelbarrow along Buchanan’s main street June 8th. 

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