Forget don’t quit, stay put

Sep 24, 2025 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Kaieteur News – Mr. C.A. Nigel Hughes walked away from politics under his own power. He did from party politics and leadership, at least. The timing was right, the decision right. It was the only dignified one. Now, distraught and desperate comrades have sent out their SOS: Save us, savior of the Guyanese people. From the record, it is clear that Guyanese either didn’t see Mr. Hughes as their savior, or they didn’t want him in that role. But the call from his well-meaning brethren rings out across Guyana. Don’t quit. Don’t leave us alone in this pit. Return to the political pits.

When the leader of a once recognized and viable political entity can only muster 3,610 votes in a national election, it is unconscionable to ask him to stay. When a rank newcomer, a total political amateur, succeeds in compiling 35 times more than the AFC’s showing of 3,610 votes, what does that say, drill into the head? It’s time to go, while keeping a smile on one’s face, while stepping away with measured grace. For sure, there are a great many pieces to search for, to try to put back together in some semblance of form and shape, and strength, but that hour has passed.

It passed when so much time was lost. I shall not add to the lashes, other than to say that the people were left with nothing. Out of nothing comes nothing. It is less of the philosophical, and more of the statistical. Recall: 3,610 votes. There should be gratitude that so many still believed, after so much damage was done. Self-inflicted damage, I ask the indulgence to add.

Yet, against the odds, in defiance of the verdict of the times, Mr. Hughes is being appealed to reconsider. My own standard is not to look back, not to regret, not to second-guess myself. Nigel Hughes may have his own. He should know from his little dealings with me, long before his reentry into Guyana’s political wars, that none of this is personal. It is what is honorable, and it is my position that he did the honorable thing, when he left on his own feet, and didn’t have to be pushed out feet first.

Because if there is one grand positive to come out of the opposition side of a contest that was never a genuine contest, it was one man, one leader, one citizen by the name of C.A. Nigel Hughes, stood up, shook off his pain, and said three words in three different ways: I am responsible. I take responsibility. Therefore, I go. This is not the season of ‘what ifs.’ The opposite is what commands: why not? Why stick around? Why not yield scorched ground, and rise to higher ground?

This is not of abandoning troops. For where were they? Other than booking passage to cross the river, cutting slices of the Guyanese pie for themselves. In business, when there is egregious failure, performance so bad as to be unmentionable, then the CEO has to go. The board doesn’t want him around, the shareholders don’t desire that he stays in place. But, most of all, he himself knows that it is time to cut the cord. Restart life in a different pasture. I will be the first to acknowledge that that is of the old way when a different kind of man walked this pale. I will say also that some of the old ways and old standards are so timeless as to be immortal. Don’t quit should be graced by that writ of insight.

Now, I have one more thing to assert, which I do unflinchingly in this public space. I caution that it is crude, may be found offensive by some, but I must persist, if only to register my position. In the circumstances that befell the opposition in the Guyana elections of 2025, a white man would have already been gone. Bags packed, shirt smoothed, farewell messages shared, and out the door in a matter of hours. I take the strongest objection to anyone (anyone from anywhere) believing that the nonwhite man is made of a different fiber, possess a lesser regard for personal honour, harbor a smaller vision of what just must be done for the greater good.

We are good at calling on the foreign man, the white man, to run here to hold our hands and guide our feet in the right paths. I don’t like that, but I bow before the weight of better judges, the crying needs of the environment. Since his gifts are so treasured, then I insist that so must be standards to which he adheres. Against his better judgement, in conflict with his convictions, Nigel Hughes took his place in the 2025 elections. He lost. He departed. He should stay that way.

(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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• Don’t quit, GHK Lall, Nigel Hughes, Politics

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