The Speaker: A zealous soldier

Jan 26, 2026 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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(Kaieteur News) – The Hon. Speaker of the National Assembly, the sloppy and slippery, Manzoor Nadir, should come into his own on this much-watched last Monday in January. He has come in for a battering. Though his appearance should be a sideshow, a cameo, when compared to the man of the hour, marathoner Ashni Singh, the Speaker’s moves will be studied during the time that he lasts, as those of the moneyman. The fervent wish is that Speaker Nadir will do his duty, somehow redeem himself. He has been bruised. He has responded pathetically to the sight of scars and oozing plasma. His own. Notwithstanding Speaker Nadir’s flopping and flaying, I think that Guyanese who have gone after him have the wrong man. A farcical and pitiful one he is, admittedly; but the wrong target, I insist.

For who is the Speaker of the House, any such figure, if not a product of Guyana’s political schemes, leaders’ twisted ambitions? Get the kind of person who sees neither harm nor foul in most of their actions that others denounce, and gold is struck. Some men and women will do most things to stay in favor of those who decide their present, their destiny. Leaders love those types of dedicated soldiers, who hold the line, even when they are struck sideways, runover repeatedly, but still stay on the job. I think the PPP Govt found a gem in Manzoor Nadir, the cagey, resourceful Speaker. The PPP’s leadership prize is Guyanese blight. So, they curse and rage. At the wrong man on selection, election, and presentation of an Opposition Leader.

A routine so ordinary and uneventful that the Speaker is unnoticed; no blows on his bared and bowed head. He had sensible options. Until he blew up and split at the seams. For Guyana’s thoughtful, I assert that that was calculated. Speaker Nadir, already in for a jill, had to go with his jukka. Thus, his tormented presence, his shrill and strident voice, standing in service as the PPP leadership’s zealous proxy for a dirty job that had to be done. Mr. Nadir’s assignment was to deliver a message and a fist at the plenipotentiaries, who had the audacity to insert themselves into Guyana’s politics. What the smart men in the PPP hierarchy were too cowardly and puny to do, poor Manzoor was recruited for the role of surrogate messenger. Having invited the comforting presence of the international community, the ruling party’s spare wheel, for elections, its utility was over. Like the used and misused Guyanese electorate, the same is dished out to the suddenly out of order and out of place diplomatic community. The message was clear, as fetched by Speaker Nadir. Around here, the PPP does the messing around. No one else-including the international community, which includes the diplomatic community-is allowed to mess around in a purely domestic affair.

When an enthusiastic soldier was needed for a suicide mission, the Speaker was the ready volunteer. Guyanese should recall that ancient, but still timely, phrase now unfashionable these days: plausible deniability. Here is a bowl for citizens to drink from: when has the Speaker, this Speaker, done anything that had his and only his prints? When did he rise with the bit between his teeth, advanced with valor and vigor, and said: ‘this is where I stand; this is what will be?’ The Speaker has declined to a man made of smoke, one molded and given backbone by men who orchestrate their deeds from the shadows. The corps, the corps, the corps that has been so good (questionably) for Guyana generally, and greater still for the PPP specifically, now comes in for its own season of stripping, defacing, and mocking. If the diplomatic community-the ABC&E
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luminaries-can be targeted and sullied so recklessly, so ungratefully, by the PPP, then I submit that there is no Guyanese that is exempt from the now uncontained wrath of its leaders.

Speaker Manzoor Nadir did his nasty job a little too well. He is the latest in a long line of executioners incited and unleashed in service of the repugnant causes of a PPP that has power in its hands, but is lost on how to best use it. Fellow Guyanese, fellow Americans: The Speaker is the wrong man to blame. Go higher. The Speaker has transformed into a mummified pawn that’s a decoy doubling as a macaw. His road to partial recovery starts today.

(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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• budget, GHK Lall, Manzoor Nadir, National Assembly

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