FOR three years now, I have relentlessly argued on this page that the PNC, AFC, WPA, and all those, without exception, that support the opposition, including their sycophants in the media, academia and trade unions, will avoid any discussion of the performance of the PNC, AFC and WPA in government in any format whatsoever, be it the media, public forums or social media.
For three years, a vast ocean of discussion has taken place by these people and only one topic is pursued – the PPP is not a good government. This discussion is still ongoing, but you will not find one word, much less one sentence, on a critical look at the years 2015 to 2020. Read anything these people write and you will not find any reference to the PNC, AFC and WPA when they were in government.
Read the recent outpouring of Nigel Westmaas and Moses Bhagwan from the WPA against my writings and not one word about the disgraceful descent of the WPA when it was in power. In fact, Bhagwan was so barefaced that in his vilification of me that he noted the worthy political life of Clive Thomas when the very Thomas oppressed sugar workers and their families, with the total number being 42,000 individuals on the sugar estates.
My theory is that these political parties and their political surrogates cannot mention the period between 2015 and 2020 because it will contradict and expose the agenda of deceiving the Guyanese people. If you want to fool people about the present government then you have to avoid, like COVID-19, any reference to the time when you were in power and your performance was a disaster because when you do that, people will have the natural reaction. It goes like this – you were even worse when in power, so you should be the last to criticise.
Here is graphic evidence of my theory being proved correct. It is contained in a large letter by Tacuma Ogunseye in last Sunday’s edition of the Kaieteur News. In that letter, Ogunseye describes himself as the co-leader of the WPA. The gist of his adumbration is whether Walter Rodney, had he lived, what would he think of the PPP’s undemocratic governance in Guyana today? This letter is the utter contempt for the intelligence of this nation.
I have adopted the format for this column to quote Ogunseye then give my reaction. I believe this provides a more efficient way of exposing people like Ogunseye. Q is for quote. R is my reaction.
Q – “If Rodney were alive, would Guyana be what it is today? It implies an assessment that Rodney would have been more proactive in confronting those in power.
R- If Rodney was alive today, what would he have thought of five months of the attempt to rig the 2020 general election in which every WPA person, including Bhagwan, Ogunseye, Westmaas, Clive Thomas, Rupert Roopnaraine, Eusi Kwayana, David Hinds showed their betrayal of Rodney. In fact, WPA office manager at the time, GECOM Commissioner, Desmond Trotman, wrote a long letter in the newspapers asserting that Rodney and Bhagwan would have approved of his action in the election. This is how the WPA thinks of Rodney. This is a graphic desecration of the life and work of Rodney.
Q – “The second question is whether the sacrifices made by WPA and Rodney’s sacrifice in the struggle against Burnham and the PNC were worth it, given the present situation in the country. This question forces the WPA to objectively assess what it has done and achieved.”
R- If you come from another planet, and you read Ogunseye, you would not believe that the WPA was part of the government that signed the present EXXON contract. WPA was in government when it retrenched 9000 sugar workers that had to take WPA co-leader at the time, Clive Thomas, to court to get their severance pay. Thomas was the head of the sugar industry at the time. WPA was in government when the Bill to lessen the draconian penalty for a mere possession of one gram of marijuana was dropped. Please Ogunseye tell us what Rodney would have thought of such a vicious act of betrayal of the poor and powerless.
Q- “These questions are frequently posed to the WPA, particularly during the period when we commemorate the anniversary of Brother Walter Rodney’s assassination.”
R- Which commemoration? When the WPA was in power, there was only one commemoration; in 2016. Since then there has been no official commemoration of Rodney’s death anniversary right up to June 13, 2026. If Rodney was alive, he would have cried bitterly to see what his comrades from the 1970s have become – obnoxious political degenerates.
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.