Int’l Building Expo or Guyana Presidential Expo

Aug 12, 2024 Features / Columnists, News, The GHK Lall Column

Kaieteur News – If President Mohamed Irfaan Ali wishes to be taken seriously, he must conduct himself with the seriousness befitting his high office.  His personal instincts may be to shout and scream, but he is not the British Beatles of John Lennon and Paul McCartney fame.  He is Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali, and he must always bear that in mind, whatever the circumstances.  The International Building Expo at the Sophia Center was one such recent circumstance.  Truth be told, I think that Guyana’s President Ali got a bit carried away.  All the way to some Trinidadian carnival, even as far as Mars.  Seeing that the US Ambassador, Excellency Nicole D. Theriot hails from Louisiana, the president’s top of the charts exposition at pealing volume had to have reminded her of the New Orleans Mardi Gras bacchanals, which are well-managed riots in full flow, but under the covers of restraint and police rigor.  Like Willima Falkner wrote, it was all sound and fury and leaving nothing to the imagination.  Or longsuffering eardrums.  Thanks for nothing, Excellency Ali.

I have tried to give him a hand before.  I must report failure; there is no listening.  But it is my duty to the leader and country (all citizens too) to keep on trying with a bigger, bolder, and more determined hand for the big president.  Accepting losing has never featured well with me, so I persevere.  I appreciate that the men and women, who are paid to guide the president are squeamish, or simply not up to the task before them.  But somebody must do the dirty jobs around here, so it might as well be me, since there are no volunteers.  I cannot and will not stand idly by and let my president self-destruct.  His doing so in private is one thing (maybe even pardonable, if negligible), but not when he makes himself lesser in full public view.  Shouting in Sophia is the silly season taken to extreme.  Shouting at microphone busting volume at the International Building Expo in Sophia is condemning Guyana’s president and his presidency into hillbilly territory.  As the Brits would say, it is not proper form, just would not do.  Where are those weak and absentee people around the president when he needs them the most?  Why do all the nasty jobs in this country must fall on me?  Like making whispered recommendations in this public space to a dear national leader.  Like giving him a look straight in the eye and the slightest shake of the head from side to side.  No sir! Don’t do that, don’t go there.  Calm down.  Maintain a modicum of control.  Easy does it, lower on the larynx too.  Okay, that’s the ticket.  See, I knew I had some usefulness to offer this country and its biggest people.

The fact is that whenever President Ali proceeds on one of his now patented brawls, there are many Guyanese who hurry to crawl under the nearest, biggest rock; or up the highest, most convenient tree.  Screaming at the top of the lungs is most unbecoming of a president.  Diplomats do their funny dances.  But what President Ali did in front of them was as close to bellowing and skin stripping as I can remember hearing from anyone.  The president may think that his impressions of Chuck Berry or Little Richard was karaoke at its best.  If asked, the foreign visitors at the Expo and the diplomatic community in attendance would quickly put that local leadership misimpression to rest.  It pains me to remind President Ali that he is the highest officer in this land called Guyana.  He would do well to conduct himself as one that has the honor of such rank.  He is not a drill sergeant on parade ground duty.  President Ali is the commander in chief.  The last thing that Guyanese need is another Donald Trump here.  They already have one presently and that is more than good enough for them.

Leave the bubbling over and bawling out to the junior fella, Dr. President.  Guyana has only one sitting president and there are no points to prove.  Why do I care?  Why am I doing these things?  I must be a sucker for more curses and stabs in the back.  The reality is that I owe the president.  Just like I had the bitter message to deliver to then President Granger (he and his group lost the elections, so he must bow out gracefully), so I do for President Ali: pause and try a little listening, then take a graceful bow. To state this differently, more caustically: it is time to stop the shouting and bouncing around as if a rapper and an overage bopper.  The worst idea that President Ali could entertain is that he is Big E. Small, and that he is on display.  He is Mohamed I (am) Ali and the Sophia International Building Expo was not a drill rapper concert.  I aid him some more; this time I fall back on one of those storied Yankee sayings.  From American Rough Rider, Theodore Roosevelt: speak softly and carry a big stick.  Not to beat people like me, but those who truly deserve such.  I have some names from right inside his party, his office also.  For his political comrades, the charge is about felonies; for his servants, it is gross dereliction of duty, not protecting their president from himself.  Like ah keep saying, it’s a hard, thankless job, but there is none but me to do it.  Get better, Mr. President.  And be assured of my best wishes.  Messages delivered.