By GHK Lall- Do President Ali and Vice President Jagdeo desire with a passion to shut up and shutdown Dr. Terrence Campbell, or what! The man spoke, he shouldn’t have. The two leaders reacted; it was better that they didn’t. For when Dr. Campbell tore the curtain of silence re the disposition of oil money, he did the unforgivable. He just didn’t part their kimonos. He pulled down the pants of Ali and Jagdeo.
I dispensed with the formalities momentarily, because he reduced them to men. Naked men with this oil money. Angry men who now know no limit in their rush to pulverize him. To my fellow Guyanese, those still possessing honest and patriotic instincts, there are some stark lessons in the Terrence Campbell developments. I gently lay them out on the public table. Let the post mortem begin. The squeamish are advised to look elsewhere.
For starters, Dr. Campbell needs no representation from me, from anyone. His passage through life speaks. How I wish that I could proudly say the same, even a smidgen of it, for Drs. Ali and Jagdeo. Unfortunately, they have, they live, with their own extraordinary kind of records, reputations. Lots of shadows, too many back alleys.
Campbell’s work and endeavors in life left a former president with the magnificence of “fried chicken” as his most piercing nuclear weapon of spite and vengeance. Think of this my fellow Guyanese: now if they really had something on him, what they would have done, and where he would be today in the reputational department.
When the PPP Government has nothing, it retaliates with the devious, the villainous, and the slanderous. Some Guyanese can so attest. I stand as one. Dr. Campbell opened up about the oil money. He must be put out of business. The slander campaigners will take over. It is the crushing of dissenters, and their dangerous positions, questions, that ring bell-like across Guyana. Read President Ali and Vice President Jagdeo and something overpowers.
It is how this government and its leaders are prepared to go to any lengths, to use any methods, in their attempts to crush dissent and dissenters. I say attempt for a reason. They fail. The harder they try, the more self-destructive they look, their fate. They started out to burn Campbell with matchsticks, only to scorch their fingers and blacken their faces.
Second, the Terrence Campbell clashes give Guyanese an exposé. It confirms why former president, current chief PPP Government policymaker, and Guyana’s leading anti corruption commissar (of a special sort) Jagdeo is so rigidly opposed to any opposition presence anywhere.
From the national tender apparatus, to anything to do with procurement, to anything to do with public money, and to anything that provides insights on how decisions are made at boards and commissions levels. On occasion, the more fighting Jagdeo does, the more there is collapsing; the more denying, the more the seepages, exposures. Much hinges also on the caliber of those standing against, fighting.
For Drs. Ali and Jagdeo’s deepest fear, biggest nightmare, is now happening right before the eyes and ears. Somebody talks. For that honor and recognition, I present Dr. Campbell, a man I have never met, know only through the media. Dr. Jagdeo said something to the effect that an opposition presence would be obstructive. In his book, asking how Guyanese oil money is spent is obstructive, destructive. It may even be treasonous, definitely the work of a subversive. I wish that there were more like Campbell, a few more only. Naturally, that is a wish to be destroyed from the root up.
For third, there are those boards and commissions and other authorities and whatnots, and I steer fellow citizens, the residually ethical ones. Observe their composition. Probe their character. Conclude what they represent for the most part. On a clear day, I often think to myself, ask myself, if it is all of them through and through, with no exception. It is how thorough the number one sentinel and guardian of in the PPP Government, Vice President Jagdeo is.
It is my belief that he knows something about, has something on, most of the people selected for pivotal roles in boards, commissions. Frequently, when I peek at the names, there are those with known Achilles’ heels. The rest may have unknown vulnerabilities. It might be money, may be some relationship, possibly some secret. When they got something going against them, Jagdeo got them where he wants them. Where they can serve his purpose, where they can’t balk, where they dare not talk. If anyone thinks corruption, go to the national award office and tell them I recommended.
Time to depart. No citizen of this depraved republic needs to think like me, interpret matters as I do. Here they are, the first leaves. The comprehensive PPP Government programme devoted to total control. Dr. Jagdeo’s uncontrollable addiction to complete dominance. Try this big one: totalitarianism is on the move. All it takes are a few good men to detain that perversity. Terrence Campbell confirms that old one. The arc of lighthouses its rare truths.
