IT is a fact of life that many times we learn from the mistakes we make, and that can be quite costly, or sometimes we get cost-free benefits by learning from the mistakes of others. Politically, I have learned my lessons the hard way. I am fortunate that I can still make amends.

In 2005, when I became a member of the Alliance For Change (AFC) my wife had warned me that I should not be carried away with this façade of dignity and respectability that the AFC leaders are peddling and that these people are there for their personal aggrandisement and vendetta.
However, I supported the AFC and she supported the PPP. Then in 2011, I decided that it was time for me to go public. I wanted Utopia in a hurry!
I chaired several rallies, vociferously spoke at various public meetings and campaigned vigorously for the AFC. I truly believed that the AFC would bring about the change we needed to jump-start this Nation. I believed that the AFC would remain independent and would mend the decaying moral fabric of this Nation by exhibiting high moral values and non-corrupt practices. I was rudely awakening just after the 2011 General Elections.

With the AFC just gaining a vitally important one seat in the 2011 General Elections; the true colours of the AFC leaders began to rapidly emerge.

Mr Ramjattan told me that if the AFC had won there would have been ‘murderation for positions’. It was not only about cronyism and corruption but brazen misappropriation and mismanagement of donations and shameless rigging of elections both at the National Conference and at the Regional level.

The unaudited financial statements circulated at the 2012 AFC Conference provide documentary evidence of this. Dr Ramayya, ‘the great moralist, herbalist and spiritualist’ was not authorised to spend monies, he provided no vouchers or receipts and yet he barefacedly made a claim for reimbursement of $4.5 million! This was the beginning of my political travesty. I had committed the cardinal sin of exposing corruption within the AFC. An Inquiry found Ramayya guilty but the leadership pushed the findings under ‘the rug’ instead of reprimanding him in some way. A press release by the AFC Leader claimed that it was all about ‘miscommunication and misunderstanding’. From thenceforth I began to expose the cronyism and corruption which have an upward trajectory straight up to the leadership of the AFC.
But what hurt me the most was that the AFC leadership failed to keep their promises to members and supporters. They began to barefacedly support the PNC in and out of Parliament in destroying economic and social development of this Nation.

They have formed a de-facto coalition with APNU and had formed a parliamentary dictatorship and they have joined in protests which saw atrocities being meted out to Indians at Linden and Agricola.

As I continued to express my disappointment with the corrupt practices and broken promises of the AFC leadership, I was unceremoniously expelled from the AFC. This is AFC-style democracy.

I then recalled Ramjattan’s quote about ‘let a thousand flowers bloom…’ when he was expelled from the PPP. What a hypocrite! But I have no regret, I became ‘a Majortiy of ONE’ but my country is now suffering because of my ‘costly mistake’.

I will not go into further details since I have written exhaustively on these. But I now want to look at the second aspect of the remark I made in my opening statement.

I thought that a truly intelligent person would have learned ‘cost-free’ from my personal experience within the AFC. But alas, Professor Daizal Samad feels that he could at least mould the AFC through ‘imagination, intelligence and integrity’ although ‘simple decency’ can do the job. I assume that despite the fact that he had read my letters in the press, he is of the opinion that he can make a difference in getting the AFC to make ‘a right turn’. Maybe he will understand that the ‘NEWNESS’ he perceives in the AFC was just a figment of an ‘intelligent imagination’ in an overdrive and that the ‘integrity’ he saw in the AFC leadership was due to induced hallucination. He will also get to understand that the AFC will never be voted into ‘POWER’ and that the only ’SERVICE’ that they are capable of is ‘SERVICE’ to themselves – filling their pockets with donation monies and at the same time sadistically enjoying the ruin of this great country. The good Professor will get to realise that those in leadership positions in the AFC are not capable of being ‘completely honest and dignified’ in deeds and words and that they are not capable of being free from ‘political corruption’. However, I do feel that Professor Samad being a perceptive and intelligent person will soon see through this façade of integrity, dignity and feigned moral values. He will understand that the only ‘SERVICE’ that he can give is to aid the PNC to regain ‘POWER’ so that the ‘oppressive and crude… and difficult times’ he mentioned in the Kaieteur News (June 12th 2011) concerning the PNC era, will return and once again ‘good people’ will be killed, his and our friends will be beaten, robbed, sexually molested and raped. I humbly ask that people learn from my ‘costly mistake’ – ‘those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it’.
The Professor had said then that, “It wasn’t a thing I wanted to be a part of”, referring to the PNC dictatorship days. Is the Professor serious? Was it ‘simply the truth’? Only time will tell!

HASEEF YUSUF
AFC Councillor – Region 6