I HAVE been around a long time in politics, social activism and journalism that there isn’t a single person on Planet Earth who knows me that would believe Nazima Raghubir when she said in an encounter with me, I ran away and she ran behind me to pursue an argument.

There isn’t a person on Planet Earth that knows me would disagree if told that I am an aggressive, confrontational person. That label has followed me all my life. And it is not one that is totally untrue. I have been like that all my life- confrontational with a gargantuan penchant to fight with people.

So, Ms. Raghubir in a desperate attempt to gain credibility and big up herself has told readers in her newspaper letter of last Saturday that I ran away from her rather than stay and fight. I ask all of those persons who do not subscribe to my politics but who know me if they can ever imagine me running away from an argument with anyone in this entire world. It is not in my DNA to run away.

Let’s quote Ms. Raghubir who must have had a beer too many or was seeing a bear when she wrote the following: “I not only had to run behind Freddie, but he barely could have defended himself when confronted with facts. First of all, Freddie, upon seeing me, scampered away. I’ve never seen someone who has committed no crime and, with nothing to hide, run so fast, he was forced to have a conversation with me.”

Ms. Raghubir also stated further down in her letter that I bolted from her. Is this the Freddie Kissoon Guyana has seen for more than 55 years? I know the answer. I assert with pellucid forcefulness that Nazima Raghubir is not even a tenth-rate polemicist, debater, intellectual or journalist for me to run away from her. So why would Raghubir write something so comical that people who know me would laugh at her?

The poor lady discredited after the bogus election of the Guyana Press Association in May 2023 and after the Titanic destruction of her credibility by Neil Marks, finds refuge in a description of me which calls for psychological analysis. In a twisted way, Raghubir put me high up the ladder of people with influence and she acquires fame by saying this well know, influential person, I, Nazima Raghubir was able to reduce to a coward.

The real intention of Raghubir’s runaway imagination about me running away from her is to regain what she lost since last year – credibility. Ms Raghubir now possesses what she thinks is fame – she floored Freddie Kissoon. Why Raghubir chose me to acquire fame I don’t know but this I would say – she could have chosen a far more famous, status-clothed person to claim that she brought them down rather than me. I thank Ms. Raghubir for thinking I am a big figure in Guyana. I am a poor, working class introvert that does not socialise.

Here are the facts. In early 2021, I drove alongside Ms. Raghubir while she was walking in the Giftland Mall compound and gave her a piece of my mind for saying that journalists were attacked by activists of all political parties during the March 2020 election rigging. There was no restraint on my part – my views were echoed in the public domain and there were passersby who would have heard the decibels.

The next day, I got a call from my editor at Kaieteur News, Sharmaine Granger. Sharmaine and I were personal friends and I respect her words and requests of me. She asked me not to attack Ms. Raghubir. It was obvious that after our Giftland Mall encounter, she contacted my editor.

Ms. Raghubir stated in her letter that I have a paymaster which she didn’t name but that paymaster has been identified by Raghubir’s friend, Glen Lall. Mr. Lall asserted on “comedy nonstop” which he calls “ticktaak” that Mr. Bharrat Jagdeo pays me millions. She could have asked Glen who my paymaster is.

If Mr. Jagdeo is paying me millions, then I have gone down in history as the most high-priced columnist Guyana has ever produced. Ms. Raghubir referred to me as a jumbie. She can rest assured I will not sue but I am not sure if I respond in kind that she would not sue. I prefer to be a jumbie than a journalist that denies other journalist their right to vote. But how Freudian can Ms. Raghubir get. She used the word jumbie to refer to me when Neil Marks himself said that jumbie voters put Ms. Raghubir into the presidency at the Guyana Press Association voting last year May.