How hot was the chair of President Jagdeo?

Jun 10, 2011 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Speaking to Diamond sugar workers recently, President Bharrat Jagdeo took some wide swipes at the Alliance for Change (AFC). Two observations by Mr Jagdeo should fill volumes.
First, he accused the AFC of waiting for “a little problem to come up to start mobilizing people.” Let’s deal with this judgement before we go to the important presidential indictment.
Mr. Jagdeo is about to leave power by constitutional means, after which he would have completed twelve years as President. Those dozen of years were smooth sailing because of both the inertia and ennui of all the opposition parties, without exception.
It is ironic that the President could derogate the AFC as being vultures when in fact all the opposition organizations have been sheep. Mr. Jagdeo got away with the unbridled use of power because the opposition lost Desmond Hoyte and Mr. Corbin de-mobilized the aggressive elements in the PNC.
Had the opposition been more like Mark Benschop and Tacuma Ogunseye, those who sing praises to Mr. Jagdeo would have been visiting their churches every minute of the day.
Raphael Trotman discovered his continued use in the parliamentary oversight body on security no longer serves any purpose after what the political directors did to the Nation of Islam official Akbar Muhammad and two of his associates.
Trotman obviously knows what we in the media know – that the police were given instructions by their political bosses to arrest the three men. Two questions Trotman should ask himself. How did it come to the point where this could have happened to Muhammad?
Secondly, did the AFC, the PNC and other stakeholders play any subservient role in the evolution of this political venality?
Let’s answer the second question. Yes! It appears in the eyes of Mr. Trotman that Akbar Muhammad is more important than two Guyanese; a man by the name of Maniram and the other, Mark Benschop.
What the police did to Akbar Muhammad was allowed to happen by the opposition parties and the other major stakeholders in this country. Maniram (one name only) was to be taught a lesson because he drove protesting school children from the West Bank to Georgetown.
His punishment, as ordered by the political directorate and not by the police, was to be the destruction of his Canter-truck in the Brickdam station where it was to be impounded until the end of his trial (which lasted six months.) Why didn’t Trotman resign then?
The Mark Benschop-Kwame McCoy encounter marked one of the lowest points in the police force since colonial times. Benschop was assaulted and his Tundra vehicle smashed up badly. But the police discovered that it was some aliens from outer space that did the damage so no one has been charged.
Strangely enough Benschop, the victim, ended up in the Brickdam lock-up. Surely by now, Trotman should have resigned even if he chose not to do so last May when a bucket of filth was thrown on me and all the evidence pointed to the political directorate. Trotman was on the road to Damascus recently (no offence intended)
At that meeting with the Diamond sugar workers, Mr. Jagdeo also said that the opposition has no idea what it takes to keep things moving and that he would like those who talk to sit in the chair to see how hard it is to run things.
Well, well! If it was hard to administer Guyana, Mr. Jagdeo cannot complain. Countless people have become rich under Mr. Jagdeo’s presidency and the evidence stares Mr. Jagdeo in the face.
Things haven’t been bad for Mr. Jagdeo and his friends. Terrible violations occur and these friends remain untouched, as was the case in the dolphin scandal and the case where a high official who went to the same university with Mr. Jagdeo signed over 50 bogus duty free letters.
And who discovered that? Not the private media but the investigators from the Guyana Revenue Authority.
Of course if the chair was hot, Mr. Jagdeo has been adequately compensated for sitting in it. When he retires his benefits are incredible and he is building a house on state land. He bought prime real estate. In truth, the chair wasn’t hot. It was sweeter than sugar.

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