Bharrat Dr. ‘Billboard’ Jagdeo 

Mar 27, 2024 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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H@rd Truths by GHK Lall

Kaieteur News – Something tells me that Guyana’s oil seer, Bharrat Jagdeo, sees jumbie. It is either that or he sees what he wants to see, which means he sees nothing at all. He sees neither evil intent on Exxon’s partner evildoers in Guyana. It shouldn’t have to be said, but considering Mr. Jagdeo’s kind and compassionate nature, that excludes those [evildoers in the local environment] who make his political and oil leadership life into a bed of hot coals.  For there is the big Guyana oilman having a difference with Exxon’s misleading billboards but declaring himself impotent about doing anything to get them removed.  This man Jagdeo is a former president, some insist still the head of state today, but is brilliant enough to wash his hands from those offending billboards. It is on occasions such as these that all the worst misgivings about Jagdeo take hold and just wouldn’t let go. Is there nobody in OP, OVP, OPM, to say to him on the qt: skipper, this is not looking good. This makes everything that everybody is saying-all negative, and all degrading-about leadership and standing for principle.  And for Guyanese.  Since there is no one willing to do this, then there is no choice.  I go forth.

I place this little piece of commonsense in Mr. Jagdeo’s ear and head.  If a man erected a billboard with a nude photo of a living person that is found disturbing to public morals, or a deceptive message, then I am almost sure that he [Dr. J] would find that to be unacceptable.  He would use his powers to get something done about it.  It would not matter that the man had paid for billboard and his message.  Here is another one to contemplate: if the Venezuelan Ambassador paid for a billboard with a message for Guyanese about Essequibo (the content is up for grabs), would Jagdeo then still insist that his hands are tied and his mind blank?  Not Jagdeo in either instance.  Mr. Jagdeo would have Attorney General Anil Nandlall, the Commissioner of Police, the Crime Chief, and every danged office of significance in this country working on Sundays and holidays to come up with foundation and justification to be rid of what besmirches Guyanese sensibilities.  That is, whatever they have left of those, if any. To go farther up the road, if it were to be a message that is held to be disparaging and agitating to the ambience of the PPP’s spirits (yeah, that’s right -spirits [think liquid]), the odds are that confounded billboard would be history. Crime of crimes, if it were to be proven to have the fingerprints of the PNC, or those suspected to be part of the developing political opposition, then it is sure to be wrestled all the way past the apex court, the CCJ.  I think the London Privy Council would have to be awakened from its slumber and galvanised into action. Bharrat Jagdeo would be the driving force behind such movements.

Ladies and gentlemen of Guyana, comrades all, this would be the real Jagdeo in action.  When it is political, it is of paramount importance.  When it involves Exxon, however, Jagdeo professes to be lame and lost, a nowhere man, a washed-up creature.  This is a head of state pretending to be headless and stateless: the people at Exxon pay for the billboard, so it must be permitted to reign supreme over Guyana’s skyline, over the consciousness of Guyanese.  There is an easy way out of this predicament for Mr. or Dr. Jagdeo.  The next time that there is a cocktail or corporate gathering where Alistair Routledge is in attendance, he should shout in front of all the invited guests: yo bro, when are those goddamned billboards going to be removed?  Those billboards go or be prepared to go.  The equivalent of that, or worse, has been delivered to those Guyanese who have gotten in his way. Conscientious objectors have come in for repeated tastes of the Jagdeo treatment.  I can make sworn statements to support that contention.  Even women have not been spared the sharp pangs of Jagdeo’s fury. Hell, hath no fury like an enraged Bharrat Jagdeo.  One wonders whether the little ones are next. So there, what is so exceptional about the white man from America that he has to be given immunity for his deceptive billboard?  It always perplexes me that he is so pleased with himself to be seen as infantile where matters of Exxon are concerned.  Guyana’s Guardians of Democracy should take those billboards and make them into skateboards or firewood to ease the cost-of-living stresses.

To close this out, if Jagdeo is so timid and placid about these diabolically clever billboards of Exxon, then it should no longer come as a surprise that he is so cowardly about that fiendish 2016 oil contract of Exxon. The people who are behind that contract should be considered prime candidates for hoisting aloft in the public square, with a bonfire nearby to commemorate their handiwork. Don’t look for Jagdeo to lead that posse.

(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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• Bharrat Jagdeo, Billboards, GHK Lall, H@rd Truths, President

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