Congrats to Pres. Ali, some counsel also

May 04, 2025 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Hard Truths…

By GHK Lall

Kaieteur News- Commendations are due to President Ali.  He says the right things.  Thorough investigation of Adriana Younge’s death.  Police reform.  Right behind the congratulations, comes the quiet counseling.  Guyanese have heard some of these things before from him and others in his government when different issues took off in the wrong direction.  The horrendous Mahdia Dorm Fire.  Oil transparency.  Government accountability (information).  The role of the conscientious and critical in a democratic society.  In numerous other areas the deficits loom large.  In some form or fashion, Mohamed Irfaan Ali, doctor, national leader, promiser, oath taker has failed to deliver the genuine, far-reaching, and enduring.  Most of the bigger issues that he touched, boldly promised, suffer from the lifelessness of the stillborn; or weakness.

On the one hand, Pres. Ali commits to a thorough investigation of Adriana’s mystery death.  It’s a growing one.  In death, Adriana Younge takes on life, gives some spark of life to disillusioned Guyanese.  It is that inexplicable alchemy, through which sick governments are held aloft, the pus oozing and spreading, then nauseating citizens.  The fear of contamination spirals.  The government of Pres. Ali is sick; perhaps, irrecoverably so.  The sickness is now undeniable.  A little child’s tragic demise was what it took to shine light on this.  The leadership of Excellency Ali has been saturated with sickness.  Of that, let there be no mistake.  He rises in bed (occasionally); he falls back into deeper unconsciousness.  He has promised, holds promise.  A thorough investigation is his newest one-line symphony.  This was heard after the murders in Cotton Tree.  What the families and Guyanese got was thorough, indeed.  But with an emphasis that was thorough working over, and a thorough exempting of the government and its loyalists from involvement.  When the president is measured, he shortened himself.

On the other hand, Excellency Ali made two statements that convey how thorough he is aiming to be.  First, he pins the donkey’s tail on a civilian with misrepresenting the facts of Adriana’s matter, which misled many.  In doing so, Pres. Ali did the impossible: turned his head a full 180 degrees and holds it there.  There was Assistant Top Cop Mandall and his phone video, per the family.  Perhaps, the president didn’t know, pretend to forget.  But AC Mandall wears the uniform of the government, and he was the source that informed those weighed down with the worst anxieties, while maintaining a tight grip on fading hope.  When Dr. Ali mentions a civilian, this is how he hurts the hopes of those grievously wounded folks some more.  And when Pres. Ali squeezes in that sly construction of ‘international advice on access to crime scenes,’ it should tell all Guyana what this national leader’s true objectives are.  I state a couple for the public record.  Most likely, a police-doctored story of the details of new crimes.  I refer to what was initially presented -seen leaving in a vehicle.  Adriana was alive, hence there was still some string of hope.  No agent of any president in any self-respecting democratic country should do that to any citizen, much less all of them; any family, then extend that to the Guyana Family.  No president with any strain of principle left in him or her should rejoice in possible perpetuation of serial police farces.  Denying access to crime scenes is sinister and self-serving, and of such farces, Mr. President.  It is my rough, regrettable duty to inform President Ali what his well-incentivized agents in Office of the President and colluding media shrink from telling him.  No polish, no spit, could soften the sandpaper of distrust that now grates on the Ali government, on Pres. Ali himself.

President Ali should be pleased that there are Guyanese who tell him, as it is.  This is what’s wrong.  This is what fails to inspire trust.  This is what brings the presidency into disrepute.  The climate of distrust in Guyana today, Excellency Ali, is at a level never seen anywhere that I have been.  Many places have been visited; environments absorbed.  It is confirmed and reconfirmed” Guyana stands as a national cesspool of greed, duplicity, and corruption.  For Pres. Ali edification, that was the title of a book written 14 years ago, with every word my own authorship.  Today, greed, duplicity, and corruption breed rampant distrust.

The distrust is so thick, like quickly tightening wet cement, that one can stand in it, and no matter how strong not a step could be moved.  The promise of a thorough investigation sounds good in the presenting, but it is like swiss cheese, all holes, thin in its prospects.  The past haunts.  And, when Guyana’s leader takes away from that (thorough investigation) by thinking of limiting access to crime scenes, the fixing of the future just began.  There’s a pattern here.  From no access to information, to upcoming limited access (in practice no access), to crime scenes.  Blank screen, a shallow democracy.  Guyanese distrust the police.  Pres. Ali just made that distrust absolute.  I leave this parting gift for President Ali: I am sorry, sir, but you yourself have little to zero credibility.  Blessings.

(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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