Nagamootoo’s nagana and Granger’s grandevity

Apr 21, 2020 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

There is a serious virus named nagana, whose rampage resembles that of COVID-19. It is transmitted, like the coronavirus from animals. Nagana produces the same symptoms as COVID-19.
Caretaker or former prime minister or de facto prime minister, Nagamootoo was probably thinking of the disease that closely resembles his name when he made three preposterous edicts about the foreign observers and the Caricom team coming for the ballot recount.
First, he wants them to be quarantined for 14 days. Then he wants a medical team to survey them to ascertain if they are observing the required social distance guidelines. Thirdly, he doesn’t want them at the counting place after six because of the COVID-19 curfew.
This is the second manifestation of gross ignorance that has overtaken the minds, literally, of the election conspirators. I honestly believe that when this crisis is over, there is going to be serious mental disequilibrium in many of these conspirators.
Look hard at the politics of any politician since World War 2 in any part of the world, and you will not find a parallel with David Granger. The closest power-wielder in the Cabinet to Mr. Granger is his Director-General, Joe Harmon. Even though he hasn’t got the official title of minister – since he had to resign because of his American citizenship – Harmon runs the Ministry of the Presidency.
With that kind of state authority, he signed a contract with an American public relations firm. He defended the contract to reporters while attending an event at the Civil Defence Commission. President Granger knows what agreement Harmon entered into. The document is in wide circulation.
With amazing ineptitude, Granger has denied the existence of Harmon’s legal rendezvous with an American firm on behalf of the Granger Government. This is pitiful stuff that has no parallel in modern politics.
Granger’s grandevity (he’s in his mid-seventies) had to instruct him that denial was not an option. Denial was only possible if he had accused Harmon of pursuing a direction for which he was not consulted, thus Harmon had to resign. So if Granger did not know and he hasn’t fired Harmon, then to use Maurice Bishop’s yard fowl accusation against Tom Adams, this is a yard fowl government in Guyana.
Is Granger losing it? A dossier is submitted to the PR firm on behalf of his government, and it describes Granger as an American citizen. In the same press statement denying that his government entered into a PR covenant with an American government, Granger chastises the Guyanese people for not checking their facts when they refer to him being a US citizen.
How can any president be so barefacedly inept? The dossier was prepared by people approved by his government. Harmon paid for the project. The project lists Granger as an American citizen. How in quoting from the Harmon-approved dossier, Guyanese are not checking their facts? This is not only barefacedness, but arrogance and contempt. You are described as an American citizen and when people quote from your document, you castigate them for peddling misleading statements. Has David Granger exhausted his usefulness to Guyanese politics?
The second manifestation is Nagamootoo’s nagana. Guyanese must be disturbed at the insanities cascading down from the corridors of power. After Granger’s gargantuan banality, just three days after comes Nagamootoo’s idiocy. Why would you want to have a technical team monitoring the CARICOM mission and the foreign observers to see if they are maintaining social distance requirements?
Nagamootoo’s pomposity is imbecilic. If he Nagamootoo hasn’t picked up the virus and is alive and well to perambulate Guyana talking nonsense, why does he think the CARICOM team and foreign observers are suicidal that they would come to Guyana and behave irresponsibly thus endangering their lives?
This same person wants the recounting hours to stop at curfew time. But any schoolboy can tell Nagamootoo that there are sections of Guyana that are allowed to work after six. The same Nagamootoo as head of the COVID-19 task force (Why did they not put a medical doctor or trained health specialist instead of a mediocre politician to head the force?) has exempted lawyers from the curfew.
So if lawyers can be out after six; if police and soldiers can be out after six; if journalists can go to work after six; if pharmacies are allowed to open after six; why can’t people be in the Convention Centre counting ballots after 6?
Within four days, we have two more manifestations of gross stupidities from the corridors of power. As night follows day, Guyana will wake up tomorrow to see another one. It is a daily occurrence.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper)