Greatness has its dangers: The Nigel Hughes incident

Oct 27, 2011 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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I first met Nigel Hughes in the early 1990s. I came to know him better as the Hoyte presidency came under pressure by the opposition. There was a large strike against the 1989 budget and the University joined the protest. I was just three years into my employment at UG. The police charged me for setting fire to a mountain of tires during the picket exercise at the entrance to UG.
The WPA secured the services of Nigel. At the Sparendaam Magistrate’s Court, a young Hughes showed the quality of his legal training. It was there and then that I knew that Nigel Hughes would have become a household name in this country. I want to go on record as saying that as an academic, trade unionist and political activist in Guyana for over forty years that I have been honoured to meet Nigel Hughes and have experienced a friendship with him. For me, he is one of the outstanding citizens this nation has produced.
Over the twenty five years I have known him, Nigel has taken his place among those Guyanese that the society has come to respect and admire. But greatness in law and politics has its dangers. The vicious attack on the integrity of Mr. Hughes at the Lusignan PPP rally last Sunday by President Jagdeo will not dent the huge credibility of this brilliant lawyer. But the vulgar and poisonous content of the presidential rant has taken Guyana further down the volatile chasm of fascism.
I was the first and remain the only Caribbean academic that have posited the fascist base of the exercise of power in Guyana. In several interviews with the media and in academic forums, I have used theoretical arguments to justify my classification. I stand in inflexible mode when I assert that the exercise of power under Mr. Jagdeo incorporates fascist features.
I believe the latest manifestation is the naked and unbridled assault on the character of attorney, Nigel Hughes.
In comparing the colonial governors and the three powerful presidents of Guyana – Burnham, Hoyte and Cheddi Jagan – and Mr. Jagdeo, there has been no precedent for the scandalous vilification of a political opponent as we have seen with the Nigel Hughes incident.
I have not done the research with the colonial governors to ascertain if there was a similar rage against anti-colonial activists. But I doubt that Eusi Kwayana, Mrs. Janet Jagan, Hubert Nathaniel Critchlow, Ashton Chase, Cheddi Jagan and Forbes Burnham were ever the recipient of a nasty castigation as what came from the mouth of President Jagdeo against Mr. Hughes.
I can say with certainty that outside of the statement about a “Putagee Mafia” having power in Guyana, President Desmond Hoyte never descended to the cuss down mode that so characterize the Jagdeo presidency. Forbes Burnham and Cheddi Jagan avoided that pathway. They knew better.
This leaves Mr. Jagdeo in an infamous class. That group only has one member – Mr. Jagdeo himself.
For me, the dangerous angle in the presidential miasma was Jagdeo’s assertion that he would not grant Senior Counsel status to Nigel Hughes while he remains President and he doubt a presidency under Donald Ramotar would confer such status on Mr. Hughes. This is what I mean by fascist features. No President or Prime Minister in the CARICOM jurisdiction would utter such a diabolical statement. This indicates the deplorability, venality and depravity of political power buttressed by a fascist mentality.
The granting of Senior Counsel to a lawyer in Guyana who has shown phenomenal ability in jurisprudence should never be a prerogative of the President of Guyana.
Mr. Jagdeo, perhaps, is too unlearned to understand the implications of his autocratic impulse towards this fine Guyanese lawyer. It means that Mr. Jagdeo is admitting the existence of dictatorship and that he practises the politics of dictatorship.
This is my interpretation of Mr. Jagdeo’s bold assertion about the Senior Counsel status. In other words, the President determines how the legal and judicial realms operate in this country. That is totally unacceptable to this nation and the population should speak out against it.
Mr. Jagdeo’s viciousness towards Nigel Hughes has been accompanied by a denouncing letter against Mr. Hughes released to the newspaper by Odinga Lumumba. Who cares what Lumumba says?  Then came another attack in the two independent dailies by none other than Roger Luncheon.
Now, now!  One can understand why Luncheon is so mad with Hughes. It is being said all over this country that Nigel Hughes permanently destroyed the credibility and image of Roger Luncheon. The legend of King Kong has gone down in the history books in Guyana.

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