THERS’S an old Yiddish word that has been circling in my head these past few days: chutzpah.
Instead of a dictionary definition, let me use it in a sentence:
“It takes chutzpah to defraud a country of its natural resources for decades, to the tune of billions of dollars, then turn around and brand yourself a champion of the poor.”
That’s gall. Audacity. Insolence. And as some Guyanese would put it: “De man gat some nerve.”
After spending the day in Chief Magistrate Judy Latchman’s court listening to Senior Superintendent Prem Narine, head of Special Branch, testify in his U.S. extradition hearing, Opposition Leader Azruddin Mohamed found the temerity to appear near President Irfaan Ali’s private residence in Leonora, escorted in two heavily tinted vehicles.
According to the Guyana Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA), “several unregistered drones were reportedly discovered in the possession of the occupants.”
And when the script no longer served his interest, he flipped the narrative. In Azruddin’s version of events, it is never the accused who must answer for the criminal allegations hanging over his head; it is the President who is suddenly “corrupt,” “authoritarian,” and “threatening democracy.”
It’s the story that dominated headlines and social media. The saga continued a day later, when Narine complained to Magistrate Latchman that Azruddin’s sister, Hana Khamelia, had made a social media post he considered to be a threat. In court, Magistrate Latchman warned Hana about her Facebook activity in the context of Narine’s testimony and safety concerns.
Contrast the spectacle of the Opposition’s delusional theatre with the substantive and urgent business of Guyana’s head of state these last few days.
President Ali and his cabinet were in Guyana’s hinterland where, over a period of five years, more than $41.7 billion was invested to ensure that residents in 253 remote communities received 24-hour power and high-speed connectivity. Even so, President Ali criticised the three big internet providers for not doing more to rapidly expand connectivity in remote communities.
Pause for a moment and picture this: the Opposition Leader lurking near the president’s home in the dead of night, while the president was at work ensuring that every child in hinterland villages can study online after dark, that health posts have reliable power to keep life-saving vaccines cold, and that small businesses can plug into the national grid and the global economy.
While Azruddin was snooping, admiring the seawall upgrades along the coastline on the West Coast, not only in Leonora as he falsely claimed, President Ali was announcing US$422.2 million in transmission-line contracts for the gas-to-energy plant, the physical backbone that will make “24-hour power” credible beyond Georgetown and Linden.
And just yesterday, Guyana Power and Light (GPL) announced that it has signed US$422.2 million (about $90 billion GYD) in contracts with PowerChina and Kalpataru to extend transmission lines critical to the gas-to-energy project.
While the Opposition Leader fixates on drones and makes baseless allegations to keep his admirers distracted, Guyana’s head of state is expanding his country’s diplomatic horizon, announcing that King Charles III has accepted an invitation to visit Guyana later this year, marking 60 years of bilateral relations with the United Kingdom.
Azruddin and his echo chamber on social media are quick to ask: what is oil wealth for? The answer is in plain sight.
I am willing to bet that years from now, Guyanese will forget the antics of a desperate man in a full-blown state of panic as he fights an extradition to stand trial in the United States. They will remember, though, whether their lights stayed on, whether their children were able to learn online, and whether the promise of oil translated into hospitals, schools, roads, bridges, and opportunities for residents in the hinterland.
While some are fixated on the surveilling antics of a bored scion, this administration, thankfully, is working to ensure that the wealth beneath our seas benefits every community from the coast to the savannahs of the Rupununi.
In the end, history does not reward chutzpah; it records delivery. And on that measure, Guyana is being built, kilometre by kilometre, village by village, contract by contract, while the Opposition Leader rehearses his next scene in the dark.
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.