Ali the magnificent

Jun 24, 2024 News, The GHK Lall Column

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Kaieteur News – I am doing my civic duty in the public arena, and so should those who are close to Excellency Ali.  Somebody must summon the strength and spark to whisper into President Ali’s ear.  ‘Big boss, don’t go down that dark road, don’t bash little people trying to do their job as media professionals.’ To the President, I offer this humble counsel: why return the respectful with the distasteful?  Excellency Ali, it is unbecoming for a head of state, to engage in the equivalent of verbal fist fights to the point where he is the only one dishing out the blows. When a president appears to relish being a roughneck, then what his country has is a bruiser and not a leader. I urge my president to listen and adjust accordingly.

I come across an occasional snippet of Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali, President of the Republic of Guyana, and I hang my head in shame. I suggest (respectfully, of course) to Excellency Ali that he reviews those delicious moments in his press conferences, when he transforms into an out-of-control fire extinguisher, and foams over with uncontrolled abandon. Since I am forced to hang my head in shame at the national spectacle and national leadership disgrace, the president may wish to bury his head.  Indeed, this is how much leadership has declined in this country.  Attacking junior reporters is not part of the list of duties of a president, the last time I looked, Mr. President.  Not those working at an honest living and seeking to share some truth and light to citizens, both of which [to be frank] are black market items in the PPP government.  Likewise overflowing with the venomous is not in the job description of a national leader.  Distance from the odious and ignominious, skipper; be about the harmonious.  I share something that must have some meaning for the dear president of this dear land of ours: arrogance is not a mask that works well for ignorance.  The ignorance shines through, no matter if it is a president or a peasant.  Or one of the many political panjandrums that President Ali loves to have around him.

I am searching to discern what psychic value Guyana’s president could be finding by being priggish and mulish, and in this unending drive of his to be a sensationalist.  The role of president is not that of a performer, or a motion picture producer, Excellency.  I quietly implore President Ali to stop comporting himself as though he is some low gravy zookeeper. His close people from the cabinet have attacked female journalists before.  The belief was that such developments would (or should) have met with the sternest disapproval expressed by President Ali to his raucous and malicious comrades.  It seems that I am too generous to Guyana’s leader, because there was the big man himself throwing around his weight and dragging down even more deeply both the once noble political profession and two professionals in the local media world.  How does this build anybody up?  How does hostility and insulting language contribute to a better society in a very polarized land?  Where are the positives from such bawdy instances that add to the aura of the presidency, or the quality of PPP Government leadership?

President Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali may harbour secret hopes of earning the accolade of Ali the Magnificent.  But first he must submit to a 15-year sabbatical and purge himself of all those elements that make him deficient.  Then, he may stand a chance to be Mohamed Ali the Magnificent and not Irfaan Ali, the Irrelevant.  There is the sense that Guyana’s young president is trying too hard to demonstrate how big and bad and boisterous he can be.  Yet I am enraged that the man in Caracas could dismiss him as insolent, and the same political master blaster in the local environment suddenly loses his voice, his swagger, and his buildup of testosterone.  I recommend that President Mohamed Ali pick on someone his own size, one befitting his national stature.  There is the fella Nicholas Maduro on the other side of the fence.  There is a problem of two-parts where the first is when Maduro engages in his war of words on the PPP Government and President Ali. The second part is when President Ali then takes out his resentments and animosities against media people from local media houses that he finds disagreeable.

Regrettably, it is my heavy duty to inform my fellow Guyanese that what President Ali is dealing in is not leadership, it is gamesmanship and salesmanship.  Remember I said earlier that his role should not be that of a vaudeville performer.  Unfortunately, that is an inseparable aspect of the game that the president has become a champion at, as well as part of the macho leadership style that he is selling.  I hope that the president comes to his senses and finds some peace of mind by being a new and improved Mohamed Irfaan Ali.  Who knows, he may still come near to his dream of being Ali the Magnificent.  There is only one issue left: magnificent at what?  That is the puzzle and predicament for Guyanese with their president.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

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• Excellency Ali, Magnificent, PPP Government, President Ali, sensationalist

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