Cuffy was a dual citizen

Aug 01, 2019 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

Cuffy was a dual citizen. He was not born in Guyana; he was born in Ghana but we can safely say that he is entitled to retroactive citizenship. This would make him a dual citizen and therefore ineligible to become a Minister or a member of the National Assembly.
Yet for his role in the 1763 Slave Rebellion, he is considered as one of Guyana’s national heroes, if not its foremost national hero. Cuffy was a lot of other things. But this is neither the time nor the place to raise those concerns about him.
Guyana once elected an alien as its President. She was an American and spent more years in Guyana than Cuffy ever did. Yet, when she was elected fewer than half of the population rejected her.
They did not want her and made the argument that a person born in a foreign country should not be elected as President. They went so far as to make it an item for constitutional reform. Yet they saw nothing wrong with having the country’s national hero being an alien.
After it was determined by both the Chief Justice and the Court of Appeal that dual citizens cannot sit in the National Assembly four Ministers of the government agreed to step down. It was reported that a few of them were likely to revoke their foreign citizenship.
It should not take longer than two months for a person to revoke his foreign citizenship and surrender his foreign passport. Yet, we have not had, from with the media, a progress report on what has happened to those Ministers who it was said, were planning to revolve their foreign citizenship.
This is a matter of public interest and the public needs to be informed of the status of the foreign citizenship revocation. Is it still in process? How soon is it likely to be approved and would those persons who are planning to revoke their foreign citizenship be offering themselves up again for public office come the elections.
Earlier this year, fourteen members of parliament in Australia resigned following a High Court ruling that another MP who failed to renounce her British citizenship was ineligible to be in the House.
In Guyana, we do not seem to be worried about dual citizens working at high levels in the government. For most Guyanese, dual citizenship does not pose a threat to national security or to the national interest. In other words, they are not worried that any dual citizen working within the government would betray the nation.
If this is indeed the case, then what is the problem with working out a deal with the Opposition to change the Constitution to allow for dual citizens to be in parliament and to be Ministers?
The PPPC has its own problems with dual citizenship which forced three of its members of parliament to resign. The government no doubt wants back its resigned Ministers in the government. It is obvious that the coalition government is woefully short of talent. The loss of four of its better Ministers has severely weakened the government. It is going into the elections bruised and hobbling.
The dual citizenship debate should be part of the issues on the campaign trail. The PNCR should take a decision as to whether it supports dual citizens sitting in its parliament. It is hard to understand why it would see a problem with having a dual citizen in parliament when, all along, it permitted dual citizens within the Cabinet. What is the fear? What is the objection?
It is time to stop playing games. Cuffy was a dual citizen and he is Guyana’s national hero. He was not even born in Guyana. So what can be wrong about a born-Guyanese travelling on a foreign passport?

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