Top: Pellokon Town in the Seekon District, Sinoe County. The DayLight/Esau Farr
By Esau Farr and Carlucci Cooper
SEEKON – Two DayLight reporters narrowly escaped a masked dancer last Wednesday in the Seekon Pellokon Community Forest in Sinoe County.
Reporters Esau Farr and Carlucci Cooper were covering a contract-signing ceremony the next day as part of an investigation when a masked dancer, commonly known as “country devil,” approached.
“It was a terrifying experience, as we thought we had come to the end of our journalism careers,” said Farr, a senior reporter with the newspaper. “My stomach stirred uncontrollably when I heard the sound of the masked dancer.”
The reporters ran into a nearby house, but their nightmare was far from over. A few minutes after they arrived, a townsman knocked at the door, calling Farr. The house’s elderly owner opened the door and began conversing with the man in the Kru language.
The man advised Farr and Cooper to leave town in five minutes or blame themselves. The masked dancer was coming to town to get them. Seekon Pellokon was unhappy about the investigation Farr had co-authored, Varney Kamara, DayLight’s senior reporter.
That report found that the Managing Director of the Forestry Development Authority, Rudolph Merab, pushed Seekon Pellokon to sign a logging contract with the Liberian Hardwood Corporation, owned by Jihad Akkari, Merab’s friend.
The investigation reviewed Akkari’s link to Euro Liberia Logging, the largest active logging concession in Liberia, including its murky ownership. The investigation also referenced two contracts in neighboring Grand Gedeh, which Akkari had failed, as well as his debarment from operating in Liberia. Akkari, who denies failing any contracts, did not comment on queries regarding his debarment and Euro Logging’s ownership.
Farr and Cooper were familiar with this history and, therefore, were unsurprised by the retaliation. Earlier that day, Junior Kumah, one of Seekon Pellokon’s leaders, had recounted a tense interview he had with The DayLight. Kumah had announced that the newspaper was not allowed to cover the signing ceremony, though he had no such authority.
Having understood the situation, the reporters switched their attention from an investigation to their personal safety.
As a child, Farr remembered in Bong County how masked dancers manhandled “gbolora,” or non-members in the Kpelle or “saykoue deaenayourn” in the Kru language. In one instance, several men were forced to drink the water with which they washed their dirty clothes. Those memories fueled fear and despair in him.
Back in the house, the reporters’ host, an 80-something-year-old woman, added insult to injury. She had been hospitable to the duo all along. However, after her conversation with the man who knocked at the door, her body language suddenly changed.
“‘Why did you come here? Who brought you here?”’ The elderly woman asked the reporters, her face beaming with disgust, disapproval and disregard. “Where are you coming from?”
Her grandchildren appeared to have maintained compassionate faces. However, while the elderly woman and the man conversed, reporters overheard the children’s discussion about the elders deciding a certain man’s fate. “Let them (elders) wait for [nightfall] to beat him,” said one of them. This deepened the reporters’ fear.
Cooper, the younger of the two reporters, was more terrified. He had read how masked dancers and their followers committed crimes with impunity. In 2020, one brutalized two police officers in a town outside Ganta. Two years later, another judge in Bong County caused the Supreme Court to jail six traditional chiefs for six months.
It was not the first time a DayLight journalist had such an experience but this was worse. In 2022, locals in Grand Bassa’s Compound Number Two threatened to unleash their masked dancer against Emmanuel Sherman, DayLight’s editor-at-large. A townsman intervened and spared the then 63-year-old any blushes for covering a community forest meeting.
Escape
Minutes after the man’s conversation with the elderly woman, he ordered the reporters out of the town. The said the masked dancer did not want them there and it was in their own interest to leave immediately.
Cooper was troubled by that announcement. Unlike Farr, Cooper had not grown up in the hinterland. However, he had heard that it was abominable for non-members to go outdoors.
Farr, on the other hand, believed the man. He had met him on a previous visit to Seekon Pellokon. So, he convinced a reluctant Cooper to trust the man.
In the meantime, the man asked the motorcycle-taxi driver for his key and rolled the vehicle across a creek.
The reporters followed a guardian their host-turned-savior arranged for them. The three and the motorcycle-taxi driver sneaked through the back door, passed several houses and arrived at the creek to safety.
“In the midst of all these in our hideout, we were hopeful that we could be freed, so we did not give up,” said Farr. “It was only God who intervened on our behalf.”
Despite their ordeal, Farr and Cooper continued their investigation into the expansion of the Seekon Pellokon Community Forest. While working from neighboring communities the following day, they learned that locals sealed their deal with Liberian Hardwood.
This story was a Community of Forest and Environmental Journalists of Liberia (CoFEJ) production.
Facebook Comments
