NOT A PROFESSOR?

Sherman Maintains Prof. Dew Mayson was An Instructor at Cuttington for Two Years and Not a Professor 

David B. Kolleh, david.kolleh@frontpageafricaonline.com, (231 631 0032)

Dew Mayson

 The Chairman of the ruling Unity Party (UP) Cllr. Varney Sherman says he maintains that a Popular Liberian professor Dew Mayson who was wildly known for his political influence in Liberia in the 70’s must not be considered a professor in contemporary Liberia.

Cllr. Sherman said the Liberian Politician was only what he calls “an instructor” of Political Science at the Cuttington University College (CUC) then, now Cuttington University (CU), but was never conferred upon the degree of a professor by the University Authority at the time, or by practice published a material of his own to merit him the title as required by international standards.

 The Unity Party Chief Scribe told Journalists at the famous Bob Johnson five star hotel that to the best of his knowledge his political opponent taught Political Science for just two years, which is from 1973-1975 after which he returned to Government service.

“Mr. Mayson even got the teaching job at Cuttington at the time, after he was fired by the Tolbert’s government for being a part of a MOJA demonstration at the airport.”  The UP Chairman told Journalists.

MOJA, as it was been called was the Movement for Justice in Africa, a Social and Civil rights advocacy group established on the continent at the time to speak against social injustices and other dictatorial tendencies instituted by regimes at that time.  Movement for Justice in Africapan-African political organization that was mostly active in Liberia, with chapters in Ghana and The Gambia. It was founded in 1973 by Togba Nah Tipoteh, who is to this day its president. Early members included H. Boima Fahnbulleh, Dew Tuan-Wreh Mason, Amos Sawyer, who served as President of the Interim Government of National Unity (IGNU) in 1990-94, and Kukoi Samba Sayang, a Gambian revolutionary who had been one of the leaders of a coup attempt in Banjul in 1981. (MOJA) is a leftist

MOJA played a pivotal role in the struggle for social justice and democracy in Liberia. Through its sensitization work in the 1970s, it raised national political consciousness to an unprecedentedly high level, radicalizing the mass of urban and rural poor and sections of the military. The heightened political consciousness and the agitation it precipitated led to the collapse of the settler oligarchy which had ruled Liberia in a manner not unlike colonialism for over a century.

According to Cllr. Sherman Ambassador Mayson was working at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the 70’s and following a meeting with the Taiwanese foreign minister to Liberia in which he had taken meeting minutes, he was later spotted by one of the foreign delegates among the protesters at the Roberts International Airport protesting against Taiwan for doing Business with the Apartheid in South Africa. Apartheid was a social philosophy introduced by the white minority which enforced racial, social, and economic segregation on the people of South Africa.

The Liberian lawyer said following Professor Mayson’s departure from Government he sought employments at Cuttington at which time he was serving as the Secretary General of the Student’s leadership called “KUKATONU,” but was denied by the President of the University on ground that he (Mayson) needed a clearance from the government to work at Cuttington.

With this condition set by the school’s authority, according to Cllr. Sherman, the student’s leadership paid a courtesy call on President William R. Tolbert inquiring why the President had decided not to give Mr. Mayson his clearance which would enable him to get employment out of government.

“When we met the President he said, he was not giving any clearance that will enable Mayson to get a job, because once Mayson was fired he was a freeman to get employment anywhere he thought necessary. In fact the president said he was not going to follow similar pattern like President Tubman, that once a man is sacked he is free to work anywhere,” the Cllr. Disclosed Thursday.      

Sherman said following their meeting with the late Liberian President, Prof. Mayson began his instructional sojourn at the Cuttington University in 1973. 

Cllr. Sherman “All I can say here is that I knew Dew as Political Science instructor at Cuttington, and he was never a Professor up to the time I left in 75. Who made him a professor? Not the School of course, maybe he may have taken that title from some other place. And I maintain that, I will not call him professor for once, I will instead call him Mr. Dew Mayson.”