I am not a doctor; I don’t know how to respond to cognitive disorder

AFTER my column last week, the AFC took a wild excursion into an attempt to belittle me for criticising the party for its lacklustre approach to facts. The AFC, instead of internalising my comments and thoughtfully responding to its substance, they, in a style characteristic of an impulsive political tyke that has come to suffuse the AFC, rushed to attack with the most juvenile, senseless, half-witted and unsophisticated clap-trap. They are so overcome with self-conceit and mentally stupefied by narcissism that they are unable to discern that they have confirmed every single point in my analysis of them.
Their press release essentially carried two segments: first, they delved deep into the realm of fallacy and fiction in an attempt to denigrate me and set both my knowledge and capacity to zero; second, with embellishing splendour, they eulogised and anointed Dr Adams as the solitary all-wise, all-knowing authoritative giant on oil-and-gas issues in Guyana. Then with brazen arrogance, they ended their bitter invective with an entreaty for me to respond.

As the famous saying goes, “great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.” I will not get into the small-minded world of fantasy that the AFC is trying to bait me into, except to say, I do not have to boast about my qualifications to make cogent comments on matters of Guyanese public policy.

I am always eager to engage in discourse that will educate the public, both on the workings of politics and public policy in Guyana. However, the AFC’s press release is essentially a fairytale. What benefit will it bring to utilise the crowded information space to debate whether Snow White was Scandinavian or American? How do I respond to make-believe?

The foregoing notwithstanding, I will itemise the points I made in my last column and show why I was spot on:
1. The AFC’s top leadership is made of individual narcissists who think themselves to be better and smarter than every other person in Guyanese politics. One glance at their press statement proves my point; it is oozing with self-delusions of grandeur.
2. Because they carry around this bloated, grandiloquent sense of self, they often rush to say things from the top of their heads that are not informed by a coordinated and studied party policy position. The press statement itself was not sanctioned by all the top elected leaders. Three individuals got together and penned the statement: the delusional doctor, his low-life mistress and her long-time stooge employee. The five top leaders of the AFC are party leader, chair, vice-chair, general secretary and deputy general secretary; none of them participated in crafting and releasing that statement, in fact, they were blindsided by it.

3. Because of the aforementioned lack of coordination and individual narcissism, they often overlook facts and lack depth in their engagement with the public. As such, they are more often reactive and unable to set any form of political agenda. Because of their dotish response to my criticism, the agenda set in my column along with false and libellous comments about me, occupied the political space for the entire week and nothing original or constructive came from the AFC, they wasted valuable political space and contact hours on matters that do not appeal to voters; creativity is in the doldrums.

4. The other issue I raised was AFC’s attempt to mislead the nation regarding the US-EXIM bank loan without exercising the requisite forthright decency to admit their error.

5. Then finally, I argued that Dr Adams misconstrued and mischaracterised the concept of profit oil, leading him to make fundamental misstatements about our income from oil. In the AFC’s press statement, which I believe was hurriedly put together by Adams and his low-life girlfriend; it was asserted that, “it is impossible for Guyana to ever obtain 52% profit.” This is the most uninformed position a person can take on the facts concerning the O&G-PSA, let alone, it was released on a party letterhead.

Dr Adams has been dealing with matters relating to energy for as long as I have been alive, yet he is making these infantile gabbles about objectively verifiable facts that need no spin or embellishment, or either way, do not contain any positive political value for the AFC. If anything, it cast the AFC in a bad light because its founder and current General Secretary signed the agreement. There is only one explanation for why Dr Adams choses to continually double down on false information; he is losing cognitive marbles. That is why the AFC under his co-chairship is unable to produce one word of O&G policy or meaningfully add to the national discussion. His greatest contribution since being appointed AFC’s oil tzar, is an argument that 50% share of profit oil is not possible, even though that is a provision of the PSA currently being implemented.

His entreaty to respond should really be directed to Raphael Trotman, the person who actually signed the agreement. Did the AFC’s statement and Adams’ assertions accurately reflect the contents and implementation of the agreement? Adams’ position becomes even more egregious, because the only circumstance under which the AFC statement could be true, is if they are making a concomitant claim that Exxon is involved in some nefarious, clandestine practice to continually cheat Guyana out of part of its share of profits. Perhaps it is Exxon that may need to respond to set this aspect of the record straight.

Given that Dr Adams is disdainful of and requires people without specific qualification in oil and gas to remain quiet, it is instructive what Adams may think of his cochair David Patterson or Raphael Trotman, both of whom make policy comments on Guyana’s O&G, but has “zilch” qualifications in the field. Or he is willing to credit them with the capacity to read themselves into a grasp of policy prescriptions associated with the industry. But he does not feel anyone else has similar capacity. This goes back to the fact that AFC is afflicted with middle-class self-aggrandisement, as I have been saying all along. Save a thought for the Michael Carringtons of the AFC, no formal academic qualifications, not worthy to speak, not worthy to be heard; it would be defamatory for non-entities to challenge the views of any of his otherwise accomplished colleagues. Even worse, the common people of Guyana who are woefully untrained and uneducated in O&G dare not question the gods.

That said, for the benefit of Dr Adams and ordinary Guyanese who want to understand the formula for calculating our O&G profit calculations, I released an explainer video on my Facebook page in simple, non-technical language.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.

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