President Irfaan Ali stood before the Guyana Police Force this week, not as a leader, but as a living, breathing monument to hypocrisy. With a straight face, he issued a “bold directive” demanding that every police officer prove their competency in Mathematics and English. He also warned that citizens with fake driver’s licenses reapply to the current corrupt and highly inefficient process or face punishment. The audacity is breathtaking, the gall is historic, and the deception is an insult to every Guyanese citizen who values truth.
To be clear, I agree that those with fake licenses must be held accountable, but citizens have been complaining about this issue for decades and the PPP corrupt, handpicked leaders have endorsed this for years. What is galling is that the words come from a man whose own academic pedestal is built on quicksand. For years, legitimate and unanswered questions still swirl around the legitimacy of the President’s claimed PhD, and even the existence of his Masters, and Bachelors degrees. Where are the records? Where is the transparent proof? Where is the humble documentation that any ordinary citizen must produce for a job application? There is none. There is only a void where verification should be, and a lofty title—“Dr.”—used with relentless consistency to silence inquiry through implied authority. He presides over a nation while presiding over a cloud of his own making, a specter of “fake degrees” he has never deigned to dispel.
Yet, this same figure now dares to lecture the police on certification and authenticity. He points a finger at citizens and their forged driver’s license, a process maintained by the problematic police leaders he fought so hard to empower. All the while his own intellectual license to lead remains under a dark, persistent cloud. What is this if not the pinnacle of corruption? It is not the petty corruption of a bribe, but the profound corruption of principle. It is the assertion that rules are for the ruled, while the ruler operates by a separate, opaque standard.
His solution? To herd officers onto a government digital learning platform—a program designed for 10th and 11th grade students, while many police officers struggle with a 3rd grade curriculum. His digital platform has already been criticized as poorly designed—to meet standards he himself may not have met. The irony is so thick it stifles. He is essentially saying, “Do as I say, not as I may or may not have done.” He invests in the “professional growth” of the police while refusing to invest in the one thing that would grow public trust, his own transparent honesty.
This is more than hypocrisy; it is a calculated strategy of projection. By loudly policing the credentials of others, the officer, the driver, he creates a façade of rigorous governance. It is a magician’s trick, drawing the public’s eye to the hand waving ostentatiously, while the other hand keeps the curtain firmly closed around his own past. He judges to avoid being judged. He demands answers to deflect from the questions he will not answer.
Imagine the message this sends; that in Ali’s Guyana, integrity is a one-way street, descending from an unquestionable peak down to the masses below. That accountability is a tool for enforcement, not a virtue for leadership. That “fake” is a punishable offense for a license, but a permissible foundation for the presidency.
Guyana stands at a pivotal moment, grappling with unprecedented wealth and enduring societal challenges. We deserve leaders whose authority is built on rock, not quicksand. We cannot accept a national agenda for verification that conveniently starts and ends below the Presidential desk.
Therefore, Mr. President, before you demand another test, another certificate, another proof of competence from a single Guyanese citizen, you have a prior assignment. Present yours. Until you do, your directives on integrity are not bold, they are a brazen fraud. And a nation tired of falsehoods is watching, and taking notes.
