National Day orators in Liberia are usually, if traditionally, hand-picked by the Executive branch of government, chiefly the President, and many turn out to be spokespersons for the selector.

There are few instances the selectee becomes a thorn in the flesh of the selector.

Vision, Counsel – The 163rd Natal Day Orator Brings to the Nation

So, as Liberia celebrates its 163rd Independence Day Monday, at a crucial political turning point of the country, concerns mount as to what the message would be, not merely because the orator comes from the traditionally vocal religious group, the Catholic Church, but mainly because the man taking the rostrum is Father Robert Tikpor who, in the same assignment some 13 years ago, torpedoed the then Government of former President Charles Taylor with volleys of excruciating censure that sparked governmental reaction at the time.

Speaking during the heydays of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s administration, which is sandwiched by criticisms for paying lip-service in the fight against corruption on the one hand and sustained approvals for catapulting a failed state from the valley of international ostracism to the crest of political stability and economic prosperity, the nation looks about to see and hear what the known social critic, the Catholic prelate, has got in store for the nation.

The Analyst has been peeping into Father Tikpor’s files for answers to the lingering questions of message focus and who he is.       

Critics of the Sirleaf Government must have smiling secretly by now for the selection of Rev. Monsignor Robert G. Tikpor of the Catholic Church; the man who is selected to speak at this year’s National Day program slated for Monday, July 26, in Sanniquillie, Nimba County. And the reason might be that Father Tikpor is a no-nonsense orator who, as one of his admirers put it, “calls sin by its name”.

Many have found the Father’s secular and religious comments irking because they pierce the veil and get to the bearer, the hearer. According to the Catholic devotee, he gets his fearless oratory prowess, inspiration and strength, in the Word of God, specifically at Ezekiel Chapter 33 which states:

“Thus the word of the Lord came to me, son of men speak to your country men when I bring the sword against a country and the people of this country select one of their numbers to be their watchman, and the watchman seeing the sword coming against the country, blows the trumpet to warn the people, anyone hearing but not heeding the warning of the trumpet and therefore slain by the sword shall be responsible for his own death.”

The National Day orator further states: “Somebody who heard the warning but didn’t heed it and he dies, he is to be responsible for his own death.”

“He heard the trumpet blast but refuses to take warning, he is responsible for his own death for had he taken warning he would have escaped with his life, but if the watchman sees the sword coming and fails to blow the warning trumpet, so that the sword comes and takes anyone, I will hold the watchman responsible for that person death even though that person is taken because of his own sin”.

Towards a crucial national election next year, critics are scouting for like-minds who will point out crippling faults of the Sirleaf administration so as to get political capitals, and the Catholic prelate who is fearless in denouncing unholy political policies, seems to be a perfect cannon fodder.

In 1997, when Liberia was beleaguered and Balkanized by marauding armed bandits, Father Tikpor disregarded the harms of the day and spoke powerfully against the ills of the time, apparently to the annoyance of the ruling elites, most of whom were factional leaders or representatives of the power-sharing government.

He lambasted warlords and their followers for keeping Liberia hostage, thriving on the blood and precious lives of innocent peaceful Liberians.

In Church, it is said that when he delivers his sermonic message, the Catholic prelate does so fiercely and painfully for wrongdoers, and many unrepentant persons leave with heavy frown on their faces.

But it seems the 84 yr-old Independence Day orator might tune down his temperament on the specter of political mismanagement and economic plunder which he strongly spoke against in the past.

He’s detouring his focus on the soft but critical subject of national unity and social harmony amongst the people of Liberia.

Speaking to the press, he pointed out that the lingering pandemic of division and disunity in the country was responsible for the derailing of political, economic and social progress in Liberia.

Directly quizzed if he would be critical on governance issues, as he’s well noted in the past, Father Tikpor veered, saying that the message and theme of his second July 26 oration would be centered on national reconciliation, healing and unity.

Expressing his view on the question of clergy staying clear of politics, the Catholic prelate maintains that man’s actions are interlinked and, therefore, cannot be divided on political, religious or social lines.

“If your action as a politician hurts a member of my congregation, can the emotions generated be separated from within? I get strength from the Word of God. Every minister who is appointed or ordained to administer the Gospel is responsible to warn his countrymen. This is where we get our authority from God Almighty who has created us and put us in this world to serve him.”

He said his heart was broken as the country he has known from birth descended into an unimaginable level of chaos, death and destruction--a moment he describes as one of the saddest periods in his lifetime.

He, however, remains upbeat that God will restore Liberia to its peacetime position.

“Our position is to develop this country with our natural resources by the help of our friends abroad in the international community, and we’ve got a President who can relate to these people,” he asserted, offering no apologies for his belief in the ability of the current President of Liberia, Mrs. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, to fulfill that objective.

The 163rd National Day Orator

Rev. Monsignor Robert G. Tikpor is 84, having been born on September 12, 1926, in Freetown, Sierra Leone.  He’s no stranger in Liberia’s religious and advocacy history. Though born in Sierra Leone, his parents hailed from Grand Bassa County. His father was a seaman and he grew up in a small village called Ceezon.

At age seven, young Tikpor moved to Buchanan City with his aunt, to commence his schooling, first at the St. Peter’s Claver Elementary School under the tutelage of Catholic Fathers who were serving as missionaries. It was not long when he was taken from Buchanan for Monrovia to pursue his education. That was in 1936.

“Imagine what it looked like in 1935, ’36, a terrible place to be, if the uncle with whom you were staying didn’t have a stable job, and he only had the job of running on the ship, coming back with the ship, going down the coast, and coming back,” he recalled the life his caretaker lived at the time.

Despite the challenges of growing up, the man, who would eventually rise to achieve one of the highest feats in his academic and religious sojourn, had a vision that no matter the obstacles and challenges, he would persevere.

When he was 16, Father Tikpor recalls, “I had no attraction for women in general, to girls in particular, no attraction; that was not my thing. Always, what I wanted to do was to know plenty book, for that is the reason my mother sent me home.”

The disinterest in women and girls seemed to have signaled a calling in the life of young Tikpor, and at age 14, he wrote the Rev. Father Kennedy to say that he wanted to become a priest.

Father Kennedy was then the Vicar General, representing Bishop John Collins, the first Catholic Bishop in Liberia, who was out of the country at the time. It became clear to Tikpor that the dream of becoming a priest could only become a reality with the acquisition of a solid education.

And so, Robert Tikpor went all out in search of a solid educational foundation as a platform for an eventual life in the priesthood.

In 1947, he graduated from St. Peter’s Claver Teacher’s Training College with a high distinction, cum laude, then moved on to other institutions of higher learning, including St. Theresa’s Minor Seminary at Ibadan, now Oyo State, Nigeria where he received the Senior Cambridge School Leaving Certificate in 1952.

Between 1953 and 1955, he enrolled at St. Paul’s Major Seminary, in Benin City, now Edo State, where he read Philosophy and Humanities.  He returned to Liberia in 1956 for a year’s rest from his studies, and to learn about pastoral care in Buchanan, Grand Bassa, his home County.

Father Tikpor subsequently traveled to Cape Coast, Ghana, to study Theology at St. Peter’s Regional Seminary, where he completed in 1961 and was ordained Liberia’s second indigenous priest on December 17, 1961.

From his ordination until 2001, the Rev. Msgr. Tikpor served in parishes in Monrovia, Voinjama, Gbarnga, and Tappita before travelling to the United States on sabbatical, where he studied for an M.A. degree in Religious Education.

Father Tikpor returned to Liberia in 1974 to help establish Liberia’s Major Seminary in Gbarnga, Bong County. He remained there from 1974 to 1978, lecturing in Philosophy and African Traditional Religions at Cuttington University, the Gbarnga School of Theology, as well as Major Seminary.

Following the appointment of Father Michael Francis, in 1976, as Archbishop, Father Tikpor was named to succeed him as Rector/President of the Seminary.  There he remained until he went to Rome in 1978 to pursue his doctorate in Sacred Theology at the Medieval University of St. Thomas Aquinas, earning his Licentiate in Sacred Theology with honors--magna cum laude.

In June 1981, Father Tikpor completed and defended successfully his doctorate dissertation, “Traditional Theism in African Creation Myths,” and returned to Liberia the same year. He has been working in the Archdiocese of Monrovia ever since.

In 2001, when he was 75 years old, the Rev. Tikpor was honored by Pope John Paul II as “Monsignor,” a title by which a Pope recognizes the years and services a priest has rendered to the Church. In other words, Father Tikpor explains, a priest designated as a Monsignor is qualified to be a Bishop but has no territorial (Diocesan) jurisdiction.

Throughout his career as a Catholic prelate, Father Tikpor has remained one of the most respected, influential and vocal voices in Liberian society, never shying away from making his views known on critical national and social issues which have affected the Church and the greater Liberian society.

He questioned the late President Tubman’s “Open Door” Policy without fear, and helped champion the fight against the introduction of gambling in the 1970s during the Tolbert administration.

The emergence of the military in Liberian politics did not prevent the fearless Catholic prelate from exposing human rights abuses under the political leaderships of Samuel Doe and Charles Taylor.