IMAGINE waking up to discover that your trusted accountant has, for over fifteen years, been quietly siphoning off your revenue, diverting your hard-earned money to a secret offshore account.

When you finally confront the theft, you’re forced by your legal team to build your case only on evidence from seven years, his most egregious lootings. After unmasking him, would you hand him the keys to your vault, knowing full well that he has robbed you blind and bankrolls his lavish lifestyle with your losses? Not a single reasonable soul would say yes.

And yet, 109,000 Guyanese, motivated by bribery, blind loyalty, or perhaps something far worse, voted to put Azruddin Mohamed, a man who has brazenly denied his country billions meant for roads you drive, the schools your children attend, the wells and clinics your families depend on, all left wanting while their champion perfects the art of a grand heist.

What message do we carve into the conscience of the next shrewd, AI-trained child of privilege, untethered by ethics or discipline, when men like Roysdale Forde and Nigel Hughes line up for a slice of the Mohamed dynasty, hoping to jab a pin into the PPP/C administration? They were right there behind Azruddin as he told the press that he was just a simple pork knocker and that the gold export business belonged to his father. Nobody misheard him; he wasn’t casting blame, but acting out a familiar family ritual: in crisis, Nazar Mohamed steps in to shield his son, offering himself as the sacrificial lamb.

The answer is depressingly clear: chase wealth, flaunt the rules, and if you’re cunning enough, society will fill your ears with applause and if you desire and can pay for it, public office. We are laying the foundation for a future where sophisticated grift, not integrity, becomes the measure of success, where resourcefulness without ethics is celebrated, and the notion of accountability is as obsolete as dial-up internet. In Guyana, the message is unmistakable: put on a spectacle and we’ll turn a blind eye to where it came from, or who paid the price.

Azruddin Mohamed stepped into the political spotlight of his own free will in June. The Guyanese Critic, as hideously offensive as ever, managed a rare truth: Azruddin craved the one currency his billions couldn’t buy, fame, public adoration, the giddy thrill of seeing crowds chant his name. The adulation is what he’s after, a narcotic for an ego that needs constant stroking.

Azruddin had the gall to tell the cameras that everywhere he went, the old ladies and young children were already calling him President. That fantasy, more potent than a blue pill, swelled his head at the very moment OFAC sanctions closed in and indictment loomed like the morning sun. With his empire under siege, he doubled down, using ill-begotten gold and lavish handouts to build a runway straight into Parliament.

Let’s be clear: the only ones truly mastering the political game here are Azruddin and his personal spin factory, led by his sister and her loyal lackeys. They turn scandal into publicity, evasion into celebrity, and criminal indictment into campaign strategy, a spectacle Guyanese can’t look away from.

And that’s why, last Monday, Azruddin Mohamed rolled up to Parliament in his gleaming Lamborghini, the same scandal-soaked supercar he grossly undervalued to dodge millions in taxes and fees, now cruising the streets without a shred of mandatory insurance, flouting laws that apply to every other Guyanese. He revved its half-million-dollar engine for all to see, throwing arrogance in the face of our legal system, then had the nerve to cry ‘political interference’ when Vice-President Bharrat Jagdeo warned there would be dire consequences should that uninsured, illegally-driven vehicle were to maim or kill an innocent person.

Mohamed’s stunt wasn’t just a show of wealth, but contempt, a living, roaring symbol of how impunity is won by those who believe the law is for other people.

If you buy into The Mohameds’ narrative that dropping the Lamborghini undervaluation case was mere political interference, watch my interview with Attorney General Mohabir Anil Nandlall, SC, MP. It is available now on his Facebook page. You’ll see how Guyana’s extradition proceedings aren’t driven by showmanship but by legal rigour, as demonstrated in the Troy Thomas case, where the APNU-AFC government in 2018 laid out its submission before Justice Jo-Ann Barlow: detailed evidence, treaty obligations, and a clear defence of national interest.

And tomorrow, as the Mohameds’ extradition returns to the Magistrate’s Court for another dizzying round of spin doctoring, misinformation, and favourable amplification from the fawning lickspittle of an editor at the helm of Stabroek news echo chamber, remember, this battle is about more than personalities; it’s about the financial security, legal integrity, and international reputation of Guyana itself.

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.