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Liberia today represents the 21st century version of the African state that has with its own hands cut off its own head. When the Ethiopian tragedy occurred several years ago (in the 70s), a foreign journalist, Blair Thomson wrote a book titled Ethiopia - The Country That Cut Off Its Own Head. He was with the beautifully written book describing the tragedy that befell Ethiopia with the murder of the lion of Judah, Emperor Haile Sellasie who had led Ethiopia during the Second World War against Mussolini's Italy.

It is good news that the factions in the Liberian tragedy have now agreed at their Accra, Ghana meeting to set up an Interim government in Monrovia that will administer the country for two years until fresh elections are held and new leaders for the country are installed. Let us hope and pray that this agreement will commence the beginning of real peace in a country that has chased its own shadow and that has been gunning for the headless chicken since April 12, 1980 when the Late Sergeant Samuel Doe of the Krahn tribe led some disgruntled soldiers to terminate the William Tolbert-led civilian regime in a bloody military coup. The Doe military coup had brought to a tragic end the rule of freed slaves from America who on July 26, 1847 had announced the first independent nation in the continent of Africa.

In 1816, historians have reported that a Presbyterian Minister, Reverend Robert Finlay had suggested at the inaugural meeting of an African Society that a colony be established in Africa that was to take care of some of the freed slaves in American. The society later purchased land from the indigenous African settlers called Dey and Bassa. The area purchased was later renamed Monrovia named after the then President of the United States of America James Monroe. Liberia itself means a land of freed people. By 1822, the first settlers in Monrovia arrived in Liberia from America and they became known in the history of the country as America-Liberians. By 1847, Liberia had been proclaimed a free and independent state with a constitution fashioned after the American type. The first African leader to emerge from Liberia was Joseph Jenkins Roberts. The main airport in Liberia - the Roberts- Ville Airport is named in memory of this man. The America-Liberians constitute about five percent of the population of Liberia. For over one hundred years, the America-Liberians provided political and economic leadership for Liberia.

Under a True Whig Party, the America-Liberians were able to subdue other tribes in Liberia. No official opposition to the True Whig Party was permitted until 1978 when a young Liberian Baachus Matthews announced a political party in the country. Matthews was to later emerge the foreign Minister in Master Sergeant Doe's government in 1980.

In 1944, a charismatic politician William Tubman was elected the President of Liberia. He ruled for seven terms until he died in 1971. He was succeeded by his deputy, Mr. William Tolbert (Junior). William Tubman did a lot to bring Liberia to modernity. His charisma was even felt within the African political leadership of his days. Unfortunately, President Tubman did very little to ensure the participation of the indigenous Liberians in the governance of that country.

It is to the credit of Tubman however that he was found to be a very honest and open leader who ensured probity in his governance of the country. Things fell apart after his death as his successors did not only ensure the continued oppression of the native Liberians, they virtually turned the entire country into a corrupt haven where the ruling elite became very much above the law.

By 1979 for example, the world press had circulated a report that the family of the President of Liberia William Tolbert (Junior) had been the largest importer of rice to the country.

Liberia started to see flashes of radicalism in her history when in 1976 some young Liberians who had been educated in America started to challenge the autocratic rule of the America- Liberians.

Sometime in 1977, a childhood friend of mine, Professor Ade Ojo (now head of the French village in Nigeria) came with a visitor to the Students Affairs Office of the University of Lagos where I was then working. The visitor was Dr. Amos Sawyer from Liberia. Ade had brought Dr. Amos Sawyer to introduce him to the Speaker Society of the University of Lagos the then publishers of the Lagoon Echo. Ade believed such a contact could be quickly done through me.

Professor Amos Sawyer who was to later head an Interim administration after Doe's death in Liberia told me in detail his mission to Nigeria. He said he was in the country with a Liberian economist Dr. M. Togbah Tipoteh and the two of them had been mandated by their organisation back home Movement for Justice in Africa (MOJA) to make contacts with the Nigerian comrades so as to let them know the true political situation in Liberia at that time.

A meeting was immediately arranged between the Liberian delegation and the Speaker Society. The meeting unfortunately could not hold as intervening political events back in Monrovia had necessitated the urgent departure of Sawyer and Tipoteh back home to Liberia.

After the coup of April 12, 1980, Amos Sawyer, Togbah Tipoteh and the MOJA became very active actors in Liberia. It stands to their credit for ever that it was under the leadership of MOJA and Baachus Matthews' Progressive Peoples Party that the rice riots in Liberia of 1979 were organised in protest against the oppressive and the rapacious rule of the True Whig Party dominated by the America- Liberians. Over fifty people died in the rice riots and many leaders of the opposition including Sawyer, Tipoteh and Baachus Matthews were arrested and detained.

It was under this cloudy and tense political atmosphere that the military coup of April 12, 1980 took place. Master Sergeant Samuel Kanyon Doe led some disgruntled and highly embittered soldiers of the Liberian Army to terminate the over one hundred year rule of the America-Liberians. William Tolbert (Junior) was assassinated in the coup and twelve other Ministers and opinion leaders of the True Whig Party were later lined up and executed.

Doe came out with an agenda of total liberation for the native Liberians. Doe promised to make Liberia an open country where every tribe was to play a major part.

In May, 1980, Papa Obafemi Awolowo the leader of the Unity Party of Nigeria sent a two-man delegation headed by the Party's National Publicity Secretary Alhaji Abdulkadir Young Sidi to Liberia to find out what was truly happening in Liberia. When Young Sidi read his report to the National Executive Council of the UPN, I still remember Papa Awolowo's concluding remarks on the Liberian situation that day. The old man had said, "It is a pity that Liberians may never know peace for a long time to come. These young men in uniform there will eventually confuse themselves for I can not see any matured leader guiding them in their actions. They have started very badly by killing their leaders. I hope history will exonerate them" Events have proved Awo correct.

I did not agree with Papa's conclusions because they seemed to support President Shehu Shagari's views on the Doe coup. In December 1980, I was given permission by Papa Awo to visit Liberia. I was accompanied on that trip by my wife, and our family friends Engineer Fola and Honourable (Mrs) Tomi Soboyejo. We spent our Christmas of that year in Monrovia. Engineer Fola Soboyejo now lives in Canada.

Contacts with Amos Sawyer and Togbah Tipoteh did not materialise as the two of them were said to be out of the country. We were however received by Baachus Matthews, the Foreign Minister. Our discussions with Baachus were very frank. We warned of the cult of personality being built around Sergeant Doe. We pointed out inconsistencies in policy statements being made by Doe and his deputy Thomas Quiwonkpa. We concluded by warning him that darkness was visible in Liberia. Baachus replied with a kind of cautious optimism that made us know quickly that radicals in the government of Doe were being watched by secret service men.

It was not long before internal contradictions within the Sergeant Doe's military government blew into the open. Popular Thomas Quiwonkpa was executed by Doe having been accused of plotting to overthrow the government. Others within the ruling Military Council were later sent to their graves.

The execution of Thomas Quiwonkpa by Doe gave birth to rebel activities in Liberia. In 1989, Charles Taylor an America-Liberian himself formed a National Patriotic Front to militarily confront Samuel Doe. Taylor and many of his men were trained in Libya. One of Taylor's men was Prince Yormie Johnson. Yormie Johnson was a fanatical follower of murdered Thomas Quiwonkpa. His membership of Charles Taylor's NPF was to avenge the death of his master Quiwonkpa. Prince Yormie Johnson later broke away from Charles Taylor to lead what he called Independent Patriotic Front of Liberia (NIPFL). In l99O, Yormie Johnson had his pound of flesh when he and his INPFL arrested Samuel Doe in Monrovia when the latter was on a visit to the ECOMOG Commander. Doe was later executed by Yormie Johnson who kept on asking Doe until he (Doe) was killed "where is the body of Quiwonkpa? Prince Yormie Johnson now lives in Nigeria.

We thank God that a solution is now being found for the Liberian tragedy. Since year 2000, many innocent Liberians have died in situations they never created. The new rebel movement, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) has sworn to fight to the last man to terminate the regime of Charles Taylor.

We thank the African leaders, Olusegun Obasanjo, Kofi Annan, the United Nations and George Bush of America for helping to bring peace to war torn Liberia. When Nigerian troops entered Monrovia, the people lined up the streets saying "we want peace" and there were tears in many eyes throughout the world.

When Charles Taylor said in his last address to Liberians before he boarded the plane that brought him to Nigeria "I will be back", he forgot entirely that there is ever a thin line between theoretical propositions and catastrophe. His wish to return to power is definitely a theoretical proposition that is laden with catastrophe if it ever comes to pass.

The Americans say "History is written by the winners". May God help Charles Taylor.

Babatope writes from Lagos