“NAGAMOOTOO should stop playing games with the destiny of this nation, and desist from taking the intelligence of the Guyanese people for granted,” asserted the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C’s) General Secretary (GS), Clement Rohee during the party’s weekly press briefing on Monday.

These remarks were in reply to A Partnership For National Unity and Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC)’s prime ministerial candidate, Moses Nagamootoo’s recent utterances on the question of national unity, and also on the baseless statements made regarding his refusal to accept national awards offered him by the current administration.
“It would seem that Nagamootoo has now gone on overdrive mode in trying to mislead the Guyanese public regarding the issue of national unity and that of national democracy, as his assertions of refusing to accept national awards is nothing but a pathetic attempt at reconstructing his battered image and his lost credibility,” said Rohee.
According to the party’s GS, Nagamootoo has now earned for himself the dubious reputation as someone who had the rare privilege of being “offered” top positions and awards, none of which – strangely enough -could be substantiated except by himself.
That apart, during his disclosure to the media, he also recalled that Nagamootoo once said that he was named “successor” to the late Dr. Cheddi Jagan, at some undisclosed location in a far-flung region of the vast Rupununi savannah, again out of the earshot of any living soul, noting that “like a sorcerer with a bag full of tricks and deception, he is now conjuring [up] images of a man who ‘refused’ accolades from the state.”
Nagamootoo could be excused for being in a prolonged state of hallucination, given his history of failed political ambitions and his insatiable desire to assert himself in public life, said Rohee.
Forgetting all the other factors noted, Rohee highlighted that what he cannot be excused for is his vain attempt to distort and twist Guyana’s past history by trying to make it appear that he gave up his ministerial post for humanitarian reasons, when it is a well-known fact that he voluntarily resigned in order to pursue law studies at the Hugh Wooding Law School in Trinidad and Tobago.
“Apart from that, what is even more disgusting is his attempt to distort our political history in a manner which is suggestive of a deliberate attempt to create a false impression that the idea of national unity and national democracy is the brainchild of the APNU+AFC coalition,” said the PPP/C’s GS.

Meanwhile, he also disclosed that Guyanese are now convinced more than ever that whatever utterances he made must be taken with much more than a “pinch of salt,” because the APNU+AFC’s prime ministerial candidate is on record, saying publicly that “he will never be a part of the People’s National Congress (PNC) for the evil that was inflicted on the country by that repressive regime.”
Additionally, Rohee disclosed that in similar vein, AFC’s Chairman, Khemraj Ramjattan had said categorically that, “The AFC will never join with the APNU except over his dead body, while that subsequently changed and the tune changed to one of the AFC only agreeing to enter into a pre-election alliance if that party were to lead a ‘pro-democracy alliance,’ whatever that was intended to mean.”
Nevertheless, he underlined the fact that none of the demands made by the AFC showed that both the party and Nagamootoo have little or no political leverage when it comes to decision- making and are therefore forced to comply with the more powerful voices in the coalition.
In closing, Rohee stated that it remains to be seen how many more tricks Nagamootoo has in his bag, as so far his desire to assert himself in public space has clearly got the better of him; and he is now prepared to go to any lengths in an effort to realise his political ambitions.
In this regard, “he is well advised to heed the words of a former United States President that it is possible to fool some of the people for some of the time but not all the people all the time,” said the Party’s GS.