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By GHK Lall
The PPP machine is in full swing, as its leaders swing for cow corner, with one lash after the other at privileged sanctuaries in this country. No place and no one is sacred anymore, not if the PPP big bad bruisers have their say. They usually do.
His Excellency, President Ali came out of the cobwebs to hold a press conference on Wednesday last. It didn’t last long, thanks to the gags that came from the dark corners in which the President and his legion of minions operate. I have known since a child about court-issued gag orders wrapped around the media and others to protect the sanctity of a matter under judicial review. Those are sometimes necessary. But I am still turning over in my mind, and questioning President Ali’s limited gag order that he tied around the mouths of the Guyana press. It was a two-layered canvas with one of its objectives being not to make the imperial presidential presence sweat. The first was the limitation of one media person per house; while the second was the newcomer of one question per questioner. Though partial, if that is not a non-judicial gag order, then it is anything that now goes in Oil Guyana.
I pause to ponder what is next. It could be that the single question allowed would only be allowed so many words, none with more than two syllables, preferably a single one, when such could be substituted. Also, it could be that the question would have to be mailed in, which allows those guarding the President’s den to state with a straight face that nothing, no question, was received. This is the kind of running gag, a staple of seasoned comedians, that looks more likely, given what came about in His Majesty, (sorry, Excellency) Ali last Wednesday’s presidential press powwow. It was where he led the way with the bowwows. This confirms what I have been saying for the longest while: this country is in a wretched state when even the head of state finds it fit and necessary to engage in these leadership antics, these media acrobatics.
Of course, President Ali is taking his cues from the Hon. Vice President, Bharrat Jagdeo. The Vice President was the one who plunged dangerously headlong into the murky waters of the judiciary. Dr. Jagdeo had his own gag order for the judiciary: issue predictable decisions only. Or else, there is the risk of spooking foreign investors. This is unbelievable coming from a man whose claim to education is from the old USSR’s Patrice Lumumba University. The only school of learning that come out from places like those is domestic terrorism, environmental sabotage, how to mangle the media, and how to take a killer shark and transform it into a harmless snook or a lifeless shrimp for locals. The things that people get involved in, and the things that they set themselves up to do. But it is running testimony of a dyed-in-the-wool despot placing his own gagging guidance on the Guyanese judiciary.
Like political godfather, like son groomed for weak-kneed leadership gymnastics. Hence, there was the limitation and revulsion of one person only and one question only. The PPP should now adopt as its mission statement: ‘Gags r us.’
Considering all of this, I am still trying to discern what is it that President Ali and VP Jagdeo fear with such mortal dread. I think that even if they did wrong with this oil wealth, which I am iffy about (hand across the heart and swear to God), and they also did wrong, terrible wrongs, to the Guyanese people, the two are not the same thing. Let’s give these guys a break, can everybody, please? They are trying, but for whose interests, that is the question. What is not to the good of both the President and Vice President is that it is no longer such a mysterious question, and Guyanese see through them more and more. Their quarter-cooked answers, and their half-baked productions, have done them in, and how. Even their own people, simple, ordinary Guyanese folk, spot them from a mile away. It is not what they say or do. It is the body odor that the two of them give off, those sick smells that overpower locals.
For when President Ali adds the newest arrows to his quiver, meaning, one media person and one question, he may think he is about transparency when all that he has been, and is, about is total secrecy or now quasi secrecies. Here is the reality, part of the cute leadership calculus: ask the one question allowed about oil, and there is none that could be tabled concerning many suspected sexual predators in the PPP, or any about chronic corruptions in the award of contracts, or principled fulfillment of those. In closing, I remind President Ali, a dear brother, of that olden but golden truth: the slicker the government, the wiser the population. How about that one from memory lane, Dr. President? I have more questions, but given the obedient servant that I am honored to be, I keep them under tight wraps.
