Hughes in Houston

Aug 05, 2024 Features / Columnists, News, The GHK Lall Column

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Kaieteur News – Hughes in Houston has a certain ring to it.  It is not Houston on the East Bank Demerara, but the Houston in Texas that is a two-way highway to Washington.  There was Guyana’s sparkling son, C.A. Nigel Hughes setting up shop and rubbing shoulders with the wildcatters and oil movers and shakers of the oil capital of the world.  They get things done down there.  I urge my fellow Guyanese to retrace the years of history, and refamiliarise themselves on how the residents in that vicinity cast their eyes on Mexico and took over half of it.  The Texicans had a little nudging from Uncle Sam up in Washington to lend some muscle to their efforts.  My thinking is whether Hughes in Houston was all about oil, and only oil.  Or whether there were some other types of mutually interesting conversations.  As the long march to 2025 gathers intensity, all questions and conflicts and concerns will be put to bed.  There is a fondness for Yankee neatness.

For there was Alistair Routledge stepping smartly before the microphone and delivering Exxon’s nod of approval.  No conflict.  None that bothers the company, nothing over which to lose any sleep.  He knows why.  So does Guyana’s wiliest political capo and PPP Jefe Jagdeo.  Was that favourite son of Guyana agitated or what, over that no conflict-of-interest development?  I don’t know, don’t care, about the position of any other Guyanese, but Jefe Jagdeo has every reason to be beside himself with anxiety.  Because he knows, he has the eyesight that comes from long experience in Guyana’s political twilight zone.

He knows a little more about how Americans operate now, how much business of all kinds means to them.  After all, he had his own introduction and indoctrinations, thanks to a fine American who answered to the name of Excellency Sarah Ann Lynch.  Guyanese have warm memories of her, some even wanted to put up a monument to her right in the middle of the Arthur Chung parliamentary house.  More than anyone else, Jagdeo knows what Faustian bargains he cut with the former American plenipotentiary.  For a time, Her Excellency did have those formidable powers, and she made sure that Jagdeo knew who was calling the shots here.

Armed with that experience, the astute politician in Bharrat Jagdeo smelt a rat in that greeting from Alistair Routledge: no conflict, no big ting, ‘doan tek no wurreez’.  To give credit to where it belongs, Jagdeo is so good at these types of political developments that he can smell a rubber rat from a mile away and this is while on the bad side of a hurricane. So, the big all-seeing General Secretary was having none of that smooth corporate sales pitch, saw right through it: a sneaky effort to unseat him from his perch by the Americans using Exxon as a proxy.  Right away he took aim and swung for cow corner: legal expenses.

Only a political character and leader with the instincts of Jefe Jagdeo could see that bullseye painted in red and take his first shot at blowing it to bits.  Like the man said: legal expenses could be a cover for political financing.  In some way, shape or form, Dr. Jagdeo has run that ward over and over during his years; he knows where the openings and haemorrhages are most likely to happen.  He knows a thing or two about company books and their creative bookkeeping ways.  The irony is that there was no cause for concern when he was on the receiving end of disguised company cashflows from domestic business magnates.  Remember that Guyanese one about a certain kind of citizen who does not react well to seeing another from his brotherhood walking with bag.

To confirm my bona fides and assist my brother Bharrat simultaneously, I give him some well-meaning advice; he can be assured that there would not be any billing for it.  Since he has driven himself to the edge of convulsions (if not worse) with new AFC leader Hughes and this conflict of interest, no conflict of interest, scenario, I recommend that he takes up this burning issue with his friends at the US State Department.  All circumstances considered, I think that Guyana’s Vice President of Oil and PPP General Secretary, Bharrat Jagdeo, would be given the honours of the kind of escort that is due a man of his rare standing.  I don’t know about him, but if I were in his shoes, I would be bold enough to test the waters to determine the quality of the reception waiting. The goddess of Fortune often favours the brave.  And, if I may be so presumptuous as to add, those whose apparel is lily white through and through, and which also gives off a fresh, clean odour.  Beyond a doubt, Jagdeo could have an audience with Secretary Anthony Blinken, but only after he scales the preliminaries between Washington’s Ronald Reagan International and Foggy Bottom.  The issue then would not hover around conflict of interest, but the primacy of American interests.

I long suspected that C.A. Nigel Hughes could generate fireworks on command in the realms of jurisprudence.  I, however, never knew that he could have compelled so much hysteria from Bharrat Jagdeo.  Tallyho and cheerio to all.

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

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• Bharrat Jagdeo, Guyanese, PPP General Secretary, Secretary Anthony Blinken, Washington, Yankee

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