H@RD TRUTHS By GHK Lall – Behind Tacuma Ogunseye’s call

Mar 14, 2023 Features / Columnists, News, The GHK Lall Column

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Kaieteur News – Almost all Guyana is reacting to Tacuma Ogunseye’s recent worrying public words and postures. Anger and acid rains on his head; he has been condemned and roasted.  I am appalled and baffled, as I come out against him again. In moving beyond that, the question I ponder is: why?  Why does a political activist with his record decide to press Guyana’s nuclear button?  Where does he want this possibly to go?  And what does he see as the role for himself?

Mr. Ogunseye is too astute, seasoned for the timebomb that he waved before Guyana’s face to be accidental. Yes, he is known for a sharper, more radical approach to address this country’s racial cancer.  But, he is not a fool to cross tripwires, enter into dangerous territory. As I probe his mind, to grasp at his motivations, I believe that what he has done is to make himself the tripwire that now stands as a provocative fuse in the face of the PPP Government and all Guyana. I contemplate whether he deliberately went into forbidden space (Services) to push the PPP leadership into raging response. The contexts are examined.

All his life, this brother has been a political fighter; hailed by some, alarming to others.  Nothing extraordinary there. No question that a huge segment of Guyanese is seething from frustrations, rising passions, and convictions of great, palpable disrespect from the PPP Government, PPP leadership, and PPP henchmen.  The jagged steel of those realities gore Guyana. To worsen matters, oil produced by over a million barrels weekly stands as the match to Mr. Ogunseye’s still unlit fuse.  In relation to oil, the words chosen are appropriate; considering the raw, oozing environment of Guyana, they have the keenest relevance.  Because that same agitated segment of Guyana’s population watches as the sweet oil ice cream truck passes them by.  If this sounds like Saddam’s Iraq pre-American invasion, it is.  There were the Sunnis and Baathists in the driver’s seat, and the Shiites left to deal with their seat of charity -needy and in agony.

Considering all this, I return to Mr. Ogunseye’s motivation(s) for what he said, where he went, and in which place he still stands defiantly.  I calculate that he is approaching his seventh decade.  He tastes the fears of his own, hears the cries of his brothers.  His call is his version of a terrible, wrenching cri de Coeur. My thinking is that the man may have just willingly and compellingly made himself into the sacrificial lamb, when he ran to the very front, and planted his inflaming flag.  What Tacuma Ogunseye did was put all Guyanese on notice.  Not to his threat, but what is the existential menace that hovers in this country, and one that will only intensify if not addressed timely and properly.

He has put the PPP Government, the Opposition, and Guyanese in a bind in one fell swoop.  Perhaps, one calculated move designed for just such an outcome.  I sift through each set.  The PPP has been US Air Force swift to react, with President and Attorney General leading the way.  Incitement.  Terrorist.  Subversive.  My kind recommendation is to be wise: do not make Mr. Ogunseye into a hero.  Or a martyr.  For that could be playing right into his hands.  It could also be the spark to that fuse I keep speaking of that he has dangled.  Not only within official ranks, but in the many communities across this country that seeks a coalescing ingredient.  For emphasis, I repeat to the PPP: do not contribute to the spectacle of Guyanese raging in the streets, be it before the courts, the Office of the President, the US Embassy, or any other place assured of attracting great media interest.  As matters stand now, Mr. Ogunsyeye could turn out to be the 21^st century Guyanese equivalent of Arnold Rampersaud.

Next, should Mr. Ogunseye be officially targeted, the Opposition has an issue that is compelling, galvanizing, and capable of rallying a great many Guyanese to a cause for crowds to come out. Things being as they are, it is likely to be a one-colour rainbow.  This is the hot potato that both PPP and PNC have in their hands, if I am halfway right.  Then, the people who have simmering in channels and corners now have a do or die issue that could be allowed to fizzle out, or one that sizzles with their energies to express in the brightest and boldest manner their anguish, their anxieties, and their boiling over anger.

I leave the following thought behind.  Whether Mr. Tacuma Ogunseye harboured any of these as objectives with his gauntlet hurled is now irrelevant and immaterial. What matters is that Guyanese, Americans, and the world are now fully aware of the tensions and stresses that heave under the hoped-for placid exterior of this oil producing nation.  There are investor interests and concerns.  Then, there are these Guyanese wrongs, woes, and wraths.

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

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• condemned, dangerous, GHK Lall, Guyana, Tacuma Ogunseye

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