Decoding the Nassau cipher of Granger and Trotman

Dec 15, 2020 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News – Powerful political underlings, so enamoured with the blank cheque they possess from their presidents and prime ministers, sometimes open their mouths and say things without thinking. Their career ended because their bosses didn’t like what they heard.
The examples from the Trump administration are literally plenty. The most intriguing one was the invincible advisor of the UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson. He fired Dominic Cummings two weeks ago. Raphael Trotman as a senior minister put his foot in his mouth on two occasions immensely embarrassing his friend, the president, David Granger. Both were fascinating disclosures that remain mysterious. One wonders if the truth will ever come out because no one in the PNC and AFC shows the type of culture that will galvanize them to disclose it.
In March 2017 at a press conference to speak on his election as head of the AFC, Trotman revealed that the AFC did not select him, Dominic Gaskin and Noel Holder as ministers after APNU+AFC won the election. He said it was the president himself who selected the three of them (see my column of Wednesday, March 15, 2017, “A country overrun with dishonestly infinitesimal minds.”) Both Granger and the AFC denied the presidential appointments but declined to describe Trotman as a liar.
In the 2016 local government election campaign in Bartica, Trotman addressing a meeting waxed lyrical about Granger’s qualities telling the crowd that after APNU+AFC won the 2015 poll, Granger called him and said, “Raphael this is Nassau,” referring to a conversation both had while waiting to fly out of the Bahamas. To date, none of our so-called journalist possesses the curious mind to ask Granger or Trotman what is meant by that “Nassau thing.”
Since 2016, I have gathered bits and pieces about the Nassau cipher. I have spoken to several persons including someone who was very close to Trotman. It appears that Trotman and Granger because of their connections to US colleges run by the intelligence agencies of the US government became close friends. Both men did courses at those colleges and are close friends to someone the US government consulted (former UG Vice Chancellor, Ivelaw Griffith).
Politically both Trotman and Granger had one thing in common – they didn’t like Desmond Hoyte at all; Granger because Hoyte bypassed him for Joe Singh to head the army and Trotman because Hoyte kicked him out of the PNC. They discussed the idea of a liberal, democratic third force joining with a new-look PNC to contest the election with the possibility of defeating the PPP, which both saw as vulnerable under Jagdeo.
Granger suggested to Trotman that he would work the PNC angle while Trotman should use his middle class connections to form the third force. Their efforts came to reality. Granger became head of the PNC and Trotman formed the AFC with Sheila Holder and Khemraj Ramjattan with money from the US government. It was Bryan Hunt of the US embassy that literally chaperoned the AFC into power. Hunt literally advised Granger and Trotman during the minority presidency of Donald Ramotar.
Hunt and Hunt alone hunted down GECOM to ensure that APNU+AFC won. It was Hunt who insisted that GECOM must not agree to a PPP request to recount the ballots of the Region Eight election when the PPP was losing by one vote. It was US money that poured into the AFC’s coffers during the 2015 campaign with Alstrom Stewart being financed to come to Guyana to advise the AFC. It was Hunt who had identified Stewart to Sheila Holder as a person of interest. There is a strong possibility that the 2015 elections was won by the PPP. I guess Hunt and then GECOM chairman, Dr. Steve Surajballi, will never speak about it.
As 2020 draws to a close we will continue to hear from the APNU and AFC and their surrogates, especially people like UG’s Deputy Vice Chancellor, Dr. Melissa Ifill and Eusi Kwayana’s clone, Dr. David Hinds, that the American favoured the PPP and helped it in power in the March 2020 election. But one of the greatest ironies in Guyanese history is that the American government installed the APNU+AFC in 2015 courtesy of Byran Hunt.
Trotman was at heart and will always be at heart a PNC man. His friendship with Granger has cemented that embrace. He threatened to sue me when in the 2016 local government election in Bartica, I reported him as telling the crowed, “the prodigal son has returned.” I withdrew the remark and apologized. In doing so, I lived to fight another day and ensured that the Nassau code along with Granger and Trotman were things of the past, never to be remembered.

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