During rousing Poro graduation feasts, reveling villagers of Fangoda in northern Liberia spontaneously burst into a chorus echoing “Orosonjo-o! Orosonjo-o! Orosonjo-o!” The word orosonjo in the Gbandi language means ‘snatcher.’ Presumably, a lead singer first used the word in the 1970s to satirize woman snatching and stalking, which had become pervasive at such initiation feasts in Gbandiland. Since then, the Gbandi people have invariably used orosonjo as a pejorative term to refer to a compulsive womanizer, a stalker, or simply a sexual predator.
By extension, orosonjo is ‘one who is standing here but whose attention is there.’ The Gbandi villagers dread orosonjo’s ubiquitous presence, which virtually acts as a metaphorical motif running through their social events. They largely perceive this character as a sort of pervert, a chameleon with alternating colors who blends in and swings with the crowd.
Characteristically, orosonjo is a dandy with a sugarcoated tongue who cajoles impressionable women. He is gregarious, persuasive and flamboyant. Dare utter the name orosonjo at a party, and a Gbandi male villager becomes alarmed. He then takes cover, drawing his spouse or companion nearer and casting nervous eyes about. As Joseph Kpator explains, the phobia surrounding orosonjo looms so large that dwellers in rural Kolahun, his Gbandi homeland in Lofa County, tend to be xenophobic and, allegedly, anti-modernization, fearing an influx of unrestrainable orosonjo-like intruders.
The designation orosonjo became increasingly diffused throughout the larger Liberian society, assuming the meaning and usage of another one of those words of ethno-linguistic origin which characterize Monrovia's distinct lingua franca. Thus, while orosonjo may be a social deviant in Gbandi ontology, in urban parlance he is a political flip-flop reveling in opportunism. By analogy, political orosonjo is the quintessential contemporary Liberian politician, bred by the patronage political system which evolved in Monrovia over nearly two centuries.
Orosonjo’s debut on the inchoate Liberian political scene probably dates back to the Tubman era when the much vaunted Unification and Open Door policies were gloriously promulgated. Born and brought up in Monrovia, the sycophantic political orosonjo has an ingrained cosmopolitan mentality; his knowledge about Liberia barely goes beyond the capital and its environs. He is a hedonist with an obsessive survival instinct which drives him in wild pursuit of the carefree life in Monrovia. In fact, the guy’s primary goals in politics are wealth, power and sex. Flip-flopping and cross-carpeting, this latter day Liberian politician was able to maneuver and survive through Tubman’s autocracy, Tolbert’s ineptitude, Doe’s military dictatorship and Taylor’s gangsterism. Political orosonjo is that Monrovian chap, the rock town boy who, basking in the reactionary fervor of the Tubman presidency, subtly pledged support to dissidents while chanting the So Say One, So Say All slogan of the grand old True Whig Party in praises to the autocrat.
Political orosonjo is also the national of a neighboring West African country who, thanks to Tubman’s Open Door policy, came to Liberia and became acculturated in Monrovia. This hustler, who was in Liberia for the almighty American dollar, had no regards for principles, morals, or norms, save his convenience and comfort. Although he had neither a constituency nor any ideological convictions, he was able to navigate the political landscape through masking and scheming. To carve for himself a place on the political pitch, this immigrant flaunted academic degrees which, though fake, aided his bid. With a foot firmly in the door, this indigenous West African christened himself Mark Anthony, Ben Johnson, George Washington and the like, blending in and rubbing shoulders with descendants of the “pioneers.” In Tubman’s Liberia, this naturalized Liberian could not afford to wear ethnicity on his sleeves, but he sometimes served as a conveyor for Liberia’s version of ethnic chauvinism.
When Willie Tolbert took the gavel, political orosonjo was the educated countryman, the mission schoolteacher whom the benevolent Tolbert tapped to work as a civil servant in Monrovia. In his ancestral village, product of a Liberian missionary education, orosonjo was baptized Benedict Johnson, Bill Jefferson or Joshua Sawyer. The bloke was ostensibly religious; he sang his lungs out at religious services - much to the delight of the Reverend President, whose travels around the country turned into religious concerts. Thanks to his Christian upbringing, English proficiency and western name, this village teacher turned deputy minister perfectly fitted into the rank and file of Monrovia’s established elites. No sooner had this assimilated indigene settled down in Monrovia than he cast himself in the vanguard of President Tolbert’s Total Involvement Movement, heralding the Rally Time slogan in the streets of Monrovia. But when cracks set in the façade of Tolbert’s brand of neo-liberalism, the sycophant morphed into a mole within the embattled ruling class – feeding his kinsmen in the then bourgeoning opposition movement with innuendoes and crumbs of useless information.
Political orosonjo was also the erstwhile firebrand revolutionary, the avowed MOJA militant and/or the posturing PAL populist who, having advocated change in the 1970s and masterminded the violent fall of the Tolbert government, flip-flopped and hopped from gravy train to gravy train. This self-proclaimed intellectual articulated the Liberian predicament in grandiloquent speeches, but engaged in self-aggrandizement and narcissism. His trademark was rhetoric.
When the trigger was pulled leaving President Tolbert disemboweled at dawn on April 12, 1980, political orosonjo was in tune with the violent change of command. He was the Congau politician who, on hearing of the summary execution of the ringleaders of the crumbling Congau hegemony, forthwith became Congau-Bassa and dubbed himself Flomo George or Gba Williams. He was also the assimilated countryman who suddenly divulged his indigenous African identity and unabashedly now called himself Katobiapleh or Zamakolo to blend into the emerging indigenes-dominated military regime. This political chameleon landed a cabinet post and became an advisor to Samuel Doe. He was part and parcel of the looting, while masterminding the brutal witch-hunt that was allegedly solely perpetrated by Samuel Doe. When a rebellious gun sound was heard in Butuo, the guy instinctively ran helter-skelter leaving Doe alone to do penance for their collective sins.
Political orosonjo is the Liberian exile in America and Europe who feels entitled to white-collar jobs in Liberia. Having lived and been educated in the west, he is alienated and grossly out of touch with the actual realities on the ground. He has only academic knowledge about his backward country. Yet he speaks bombastically about democracy, social justice and progress at parties in his place of exile, safe in his comfort zone. When the greed-driven Taylor braved the storm by taking to the barrel of the gun to remove Doe, he soon became the apotheosis of political orosonjo's yearning to return home and sit idle in the air-conditioned offices of Monrovia. Not only did he become the warlord’s spokesman or salesman in London, Washington and Paris, but subsequently a factional leader; hence a stakeholder at peace conferences where he got lucrative positions in transitional governments. When the criminal dictator was cast in an unfavorable spotlight, the chap quickly took a flight back to his comfort zone in the western world, from where he badmouthed Taylor.
Political orosonjo is also the counterfeit Liberian feminist, the kutuku turned politician who milked corrupt male politicians in Monrovia while paying lip service to female empowerment. In her longstanding acquiescence to male chauvinism, she is complacent in the face of flagrant abuses of the rights of Liberian women and girls. She literally massaged the autocrat Tubman, scratched the back of the inept Tolbert, shampooed the hair of the brutal Doe and even brushed the teeth of the bloodthirsty Taylor. Like her male counterpart, she has now become a faithful partisan of the victorious Unity Party, parroting women’s liberation as the motto of the day.
If Liberia is to be transformed, we must begin to identify those who personify orosonjo behavior; such people should be exposed for what they are. Indeed, however comical the antics of political orosonjo, he or she defines a particular pattern of opportunism, treachery, and betrayal in contemporary Liberian politics.
