The media in Monrovia, yesterday, played up a sex scandal believed to involve Presidential Affairs Minister Willis D. Knuckles.
• Minister Willis D. Knuckles
The background of the scandal is an obscene photograph showing a male claimed to be Mr. Knuckles in a sex play with two lesbians in what appears to be the privacy of a hotel room.
Observers say a lot of work has to be done to establish whether or not the picture is real.
But already a number of conspiracy theories are emerging with Mr. Knuckles whipping up claims of political machination but yet too stupefied to respond to onrushing questions.
The Analyst Staff Writer was at Knuckle’s hastily arranged press briefing late yesterday and compiled this report.
“A compromising photograph has been in circulation reaching serious proportions since the resignation of former Speaker Edwin Snowe, with distribution on the internet, among journalists, and even on street corners.
“The photograph currently circulating was first brought to my attention two weeks ago by Mrs. Mardea White Snowe, who happens to be a cousin and her husband, Edwin Snowe.
This happened through a mutual family intermediary. Exactly from where or how it was obtained was not explained and I am still at a loss to understand. Mrs. Snowe indicated that she had control over this photograph.”
These were the exact words read from a prepared statement in the Conference Room of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, late yesterday, by the Minister of State for Presidential Affairs, Willis D. Knuckles, Jr.
Mr. Knuckles was flanked by administration insiders, aides, and family members who sat dutifully throughout the press briefing, but that did not betray the aura of dejectedness with which he came to the briefing.
He maintained a brave face, like a hero being led to the gallows, but in the end it was clear that he would be in no mood to debate the merit of his response.
From the onset of the briefing, he announced that he would not be taking questions. When the press pressed him, he flushed and held his grounds.
The press remained dogged and prodded for that essential interaction that was not to be found in the man who said his 40 years of political and private life was being weighed down by the political recklessness of a cousin-in-law but political foe, Edwin Melvin Snowe.
“Now for whatever political or other ends the perpetrator wishes to achieve, my private life is being drawn into the short and inglorious end of someone else’s public life,” Minister Knuckles said without naming names.
As if that mattered in cleansing his muddied image, Knuckles noted, “I sincerely hope that in dealing with the current difficulty that this situation has created, it should be noted I have forty years of service in the public and private sectors – one widely regarded as dedicated and efficient.”
“But how did the scandal come about? Is the picture real or fake?” appear to be the begging questions. Unfortunately, the man in the center of the scandal seems not to have a clear idea of what is happening or the weight of the force behind it.
“The photograph currently circulating was first brought to my attention two weeks ago by Mrs. Mardea White Snowe, who happens to be a cousin and her husband, Edwin Snowe.
• Edwin Snowe, Jr.
This happened through a mutual family intermediary. Exactly from where or how it was obtained was not explained and I am still at a loss to understand.
Mrs. Snowe indicated that she had control over this photograph,” Mr. Knuckles disclosed.
He then alleged that the Snowes unsuccessfully attempted to blackmail him by offering to release the photographs to him if he agreed to stop opposing Mr. Snowe and help find a way to resolve his (Snowe’s) political difficulties.
“I rejected their overtures and suddenly, since his resignation as Speaker, copies have appeared everywhere,” the Minister of Stater noted, falling short of saying whether or not the rejection was also a negation of the authenticity of the photographs that he bet would be circulated.
There are suggestions that Mr. Knuckles may have rejected the deal not to betray his colleagues and to uphold the alleged grand Executive Mansion conspiracy Snowe said was hatched to remove him from the position of House Speaker.
But observers say Knuckles’ revelation, during yesterday’s press briefing, that he single-handedly opposed Snowe’s bid for representative during the October 2005 race for the House of Representatives for District #5 diluted the force of any such suggestion.
“The public might want to know that in the 2005 elections I vigorously opposed Mr. Snowe’s candidacy in the Montserrado Country District 5 elections. I informed Mr. Snowe that I felt it my duty to oppose his election to the House of Representatives.
Since that day, all Mr. Snowe’s troubles have been blamed on me,” Mr. Knuckles, alluding to reasons why anyone may want to damage him politically by circulating a “compromising photograph” of him in a sex play.
The Minister of State promised to get down to the bottom of the damaging photograph now in active circulation, but he knows well what damage it has already done to his political life and to the fame of his family to the special glee of what he called the “perpetrator”.
“First I must express regrets to my wife of 37 years, my children, my mother, and all my other relatives, my boss, the President, my Pastor and my church, my co-workers in government and all my friends, associates and others in the general public to whom this episode has come as a pointless embarrassment,” Mr. Knuckles said.
Mr. Knuckles appeared lost on words, but he seemed to have a clearly shot of the wielder of the spectre that was stroking blotch on his image. He seemed to know also how far they intend to go with the campaign of gutter politics and political machination that involves the framing up of opponents.
“The perpetrators of this act along with a certain female legislator have distributed copies of this photograph with the intent of embarrassing me socially and inflicting political damage to the government given my current political position,” he claimed.
“Will he call names?” He probably won’t. At least not now, and the helplessness showed in his word yesterday. “The purpose of this statement, therefore, is to give a clear perspective to the press and to the public as to how this situation has evolved.” The ‘clear perspective’ though turned out the reporter’s nightmare.
Knuckles, apparently mesmerized by the force of the unfolding scandal, still marvels at the speed with which his image was dropped in the muddy gutters, further confusing analysts about his ability to muster the necessary counter-measures to clean his image which they say is inextricably tied to the image of the Johnson-Sirleaf Administration.
He said, “That people are prepared to go to such an extreme as what the perpetrators have done in an attempt to destroy another person’s character is regrettable.”
Regrettable indeed, but while Johnson-Sirleaf Administration insiders said Mr. Knuckles did an effective damage control by immediately holding a press brief, observers say the minister confused the situation and raised questions about his innocence by refusing to submit to reporters’ questions on the counter-allegations made
The issue raised about the conspiracy to frame him up for political reasons, and the grand question of whether or not the picture was a live shot or contrived image.
Coming at the heels of Rep Snowe’s resignation as Speaker of the House and his threats that he will avenge his downfall which he said was orchestrated by a top minister in the Johnson-Sirleaf Administration give observers the inkling that the circulation of the photographs was itself an act of political gansterism and the height of gutter politics.
Some say the issue should not actually be whether the timing of the circulation of the photographs is an act of political gansterism and the height of gutter politics, but that it must be about sexual immorality in high places and the political blot it has on the Johnson-Sirleaf Administration.
But many think the two are intertwined and there are therefore arguments that the motives and the masterminds of the circulation tell a whole lot difference about its intent, impact, and authenticity.
“If the mastermind has an ulterior motive, is eaten by the desire to get even for political wound inflicted on him or her earlier, rather than for social cleansing, then there can be no question that the images in the photograph were contrived. Otherwise, they can be probed for identity and validity.
Remember the girls in the photo are all alive,” said former “Taylorist” Michael J.P. Solonteh. Without saying so, Knuckles has begun pushing the contrition theory line.
“The accusation of two years ago of four people attempting to kill Mr. Snowe is still fresh in our memory. As NSA report later showed manufactured emails, arranged foreign trips to Ghana etc. all part of a fraudulent make-up for which an apology was offered,” Knuckles said at yesterday’s briefing.
He closed by expressing his compulsion to “thank all those who have offered me moral and other support in dealing with the crisis – Her Excellency the President, and other government officials, my family, my church, friends at home and abroad of all persuasions, and Liberians in general.”
Media reports yesterday quoted former speaker Edwin Snowe as stating during his resignation speech last week that a senior minister in the administration was behind the quest to remove him from power.
Snowe did not name the minister in question, but his aides reportedly confided in FrontPageAfrica (FPA) news later that Knuckles is the minister being accused.
According to them, the former speaker was holding Minister Knuckles for being behind what he believed was the bribing of the lawmakers who spearheaded his downfall.
The former speaker had then given the unnamed top minister one week to reveal his identify and confess. “If he does not make public everything he knows about this alleged bribery at the House of Representatives, I will expose him.
It is a clear warning to that person. Come out in one week, tell the Liberia people what you know about this bribery issue and resign as minister or else…” Snowe told newsmen last week minutes before he tendered his resignation as speaker.
A recent FPA report said Snowe may have used the photos as a bait to get Knuckles to use his influence with the President to stop the corruption probe of his tenure at the Liberian Petroleum Refinery Corporation.
It said Knuckles repeatedly informed Snowe that the issue had already drawn the attention of the international community and that it was pretty much late to stop it.
Efforts to reach Snowe Monday were not fruitful as the cell electronic switchboard repeatedly said his number was “either switched off or out of coverage area”.
The former speaker’s phone rang much, much later, but he did not give The Analyst the courtesy of a response. However, the former speaker’s chief of staff, Darius Dillon, reportedly told FPA that it was unfair to draw the speaker in Knuckles’ alleged immoral behavior.
“I think the question Mr. Knuckles should be asking is, ‘is the immoral person in the photo me?’” said Dillon. He said it was not Snowe and his wife who took Knuckles’ clothes off and forced him in the encounter.
“Is it Knuckles in the photo? That is the substance of the mater, it is not who set it up. He went and did his immoral act now he must bear the consequences,” Dillon reportedly told the FPA in an interview last week.
Analysts say for a country fresh out of war, the emerging new tactics of political “gutterism” and political framing is worrisome.
They recalled the circulation of similar concocted photographs of the presidential contender, George Weah and reportedly of Madam Sirleaf, during the October 2005 presidential race.
The pictures impacted Mr. Weah’s political campaign but the masterminds that circulated them were never caught; the pictures themselves were never proven to be authentic or false.
Many say it will be weeks or perhaps months before the true identities of the “playboy” and “playgirls” in the sex play currently pinned on Minister Knuckles are known.
As things wait to be investigated and sorted out, the new question is, “Will the Johnson-Sirleaf Administration live with the scandal of sexual immorality at the time female “decent sex” advocates are searching for whom to devour?
