JUST prior to elections of 2011, the African Cultural and Development Association (ACDA) held a public meeting at Golden Grove Village, East Coast Demerara. Addressing the small gathering at the junction of Golden Grove Public and Main Roads, ACDA executive member Tacuma Ogunseye called on African Guyanese to prepare themselves for a two-pronged approach to the general election, to turn out in their numbers to vote for the opposition coalition A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) and engage in a rebellion for a constitutional struggle if the coalition loses at the polls.“We have to go there and cast all our votes but if at the end of the day we fall short, we have to move to stage two and stage two must be a massive rebellion of African people throughout the length and breadth of this country,” he said.
This is the second such call for insurrection by Ogunseye and it comes after his first racist incitement was roundly condemned. His call however, found favour with extremist elements in society such as Kean Gibson, David Hinds and others.
Tacuma Ogunseye, an activist of the Working People’s Alliance (WPA) and executive member of ACDA, has repeatedly called for mass mobilization of the African Guyanese to agitate and pressure the PPP/C-led administration into agreeing to a system of shared governance.
Tacuma Ogunseye has consistently been making controversial and provocative statements, allegedly made on the grounds of race, but Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr Roger Luncheon is also holding the media culpable. Speaking at a post-Cabinet news conference at the Office of the President after one such outburst by Ogunseye, Dr. Luncheon lashed out at the media for publishing the racially provocative and inflammatory statements from ACDA.
The (ACDA) statement clearly stimulated racial insecurity and was open incitement to race riots.
ACDA also came in for some serious criticisms from a cross section of stakeholders in the political arena after its executive member, Mr. Tacuma Ogunseye, announced the riot act at a poorly attended meeting at Beterverwagting, East Coast Demerara, where he made clear the organisation’s intention to take a struggle to the streets in a fight for shared governance.
Addressing the meeting, Tacuma Ogunseye signalled to Western nations, United Nations and the Organisation of American States (OAS) that the upcoming elections would be a game-changer – win or lose.
He warned: “If we win, we sharing the government with them, but we also have to tell them that if we lose, we are going to fight and bring Guyana to a halt until we have a national government in which the representatives of African people and the combined opposition is part of parliament; Comrades, we are announcing the riot act.”
Ogunseye said ACDA expected that the predominantly African-Guyanese dominated security forces would take the side of protesters to secure shared governance and political compromise from the PPP.
“Once the African people rise up in their great numbers, I dare the army to take the side of the PPP and against Africans. Our sons and daughters would not do that,” he threatened.
Ogunseye said his organisation has been telling the main opposition Peoples National Congress Reform (PNCR) that the time has come to shift the political equation through massive street protests in villages countrywide.
Stressed Ogunseye “Come elections night, when the results come out, Africans must have a share in the government, there must be a national government or there will be no Guyana.”
What is troubling is that there was no public outcry over these open calls to violence and destruction to PPP/C supporters by opposition elements, Red Thread, the Catholic Church and the opposition media cabal for the foregoing. Instead, Stabroek News and Kaieteur News published Ogunsye’s inflammatory, racist letter, word for word – which is an indicator that these two newspapers, Red Thread, GHRA, the Catholic Church, other opposition media houses, et al, deliberately victimised Chronicle and its staff for merely a mild comment of facts in an editorial that warned of consequences of just such racist incitement by the opposition in Linden.

Based on statements made by Ronald Waddell in October 2005, also in April 2006, in a letter by Ogunseye. it is now known that there exists clandestine military organisations in Guyana called the African Guyanese Armed Resistance (AGAR) and the Buxton Resistance, and Ogunseye makes a rather revealing statement in his letter: “Given the ethnic and political history of our security forces, it is very unlikely that the PPP/C Government can militarily defeat an African Armed resistance.” The degree of confidence here is remarkable and begs the question: Does Ogunseye mean that the Disciplined Forces of this country provide AGAR with an institutional base from which it can replenish its ranks, and that Afro-Guyanese villages will provide safe havens for AGAR and its like, irrespective of the dangers such support will expose these villages to?
These are all concerns compiled from various blogs online by Guyanese in the Diaspora; but, given our history, serious heed need to be paid to these warnings by the relevant authorities.