Latest update April 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Sep 18, 2011 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
One definitive characteristic of Mr. Jagdeo’s presidency was his total obliviousness to the comical levels to which he brought down his office. I prefer to say he was oblivious, because no President or Prime Minister would consciously do or say the asinine, comical, hilarious things that formed a permanent habit of Mr. Jagdeo the past twelve years.
Everything about his Day (or Night, according to PPP sycophant, Rickey Singh, now joined by a UWI Guyanese academic in Trinidad, a guy by the name of Sankat) of Appreciation was silly. He completed the event with some statements that were downright laughable. I will come to that below.
The organizers told us it was a private event and the Guyanese people laughed, including one of the soldiers that was in the army band practicing last Thursday at the National Park to perform for Mr. Jagdeo.
As the band passed me, I asked one of the soldiers if it was part of their intended act. He said yes and was laughing; laughing at the thing and the people behind it. The jokers in power in this country cannot understand that there are no secrets in a small population. No one in Guyana believed or accepted that the circus was a private affair. It was not. Desperate to get people, they ended the working day for public servants on Friday at midday.
The fools haven’t learned anything from the Burnham days. Burnham did the same thing and the workers would just take the half day and “mystic.”
Now for the final act of comedy by Mr. Jagdeo. First, he told the bussed audience that even those who criticize the event must be embraced as “our brothers.” I did four columns critical of the Day of Appreciation and I believe my justification can withstand scrutiny. I believe it was absolute nonsense and a waste of money.
It was a comical thing to do. I do not want the brotherhood of Mr. Jagdeo and the PPP. Mr. Jagdeo called me ugly, a sleaze ball, a fool and a man-kisser. All of this in public.
He went on to sue me for libel. This same man told his bussed listeners that even those that condemned his thing last Friday must be embraced as the brothers of the PPP. I do not want to be regarded as a brother of Mr. Jagdeo and members of his government.
I want to say to Mr. Jagdeo that from the bottom on my heart, I believe he should face a commission of inquiry with judicial power if the PPP loses the general election. I will not rest until I see Mr. Jagdeo in front of that judicial body. In other words, there is no intention on my part of seeking brotherhood or extending brotherhood to people who have destroyed my country.
The second asininity is Mr. Jagdeo’s assertion that the forthcoming elections must be conducted with dignity by the political parties. In all honesty, does Mr. Jagdeo know what that word means? He cusses up, cusses down and abuses his critics publicly if not all, then most of the time. His marriage imbroglio had no dignified dimension. There was no dignity in his deportment when he refused to let Mr. Chris Ram speak at a meeting that Mr. Ram was entitled to attend.
The third stupidity is his exhortation that his government is willing to work with the opposition. This is a president that absolutely rejected a Freedom of Information Act that was done by one of the opposition parties and sought to compose his own.
This is a president that refused to cooperate with the opposition after they answered his call to open peace talks after the Lusignan massacre. This is a president whose government for nineteen years maintains state radio monopoly.
This is a president that has not heeded the ruling of the court to allow Linden to have television signals other than NCN. This is a president that withdrew the annual subvention from Critchlow Labour College and in the process devastated the future of thousands of South Georgetown youths.
This is a president that sought to cripple the Stabroek News. This is a president that publicly urged business people not to advertise in the Kaieteur News. He referred to picketers last week as lunatics. Yet we must believe him when he says that his government is willing to work with the opposition.
The President urged his invitees that they must not let “foreigners rule us.” Wasn’t it the Jamaican Prime Minister that said the Guyana Government begs the international community all the time? You beg foreigners all the time, then, they will rule you.
Where is the BETTER MANAGEMENT/RENEGOTIATION OF THE OIL CONTRACTS you promised Jagdeo?
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