I GOT a few emails yesterday morning (Friday) about my article, in which I contended that public figures have the obligation to explain things to people who believe in them or want to believe in them and they must accept the need to apologise to those people when they mislead them.

Unfortunately, because of space, I only offered five examples despite saying that the examples could run into a book-length manuscript. My column was titled, “Two missing instincts in Guyana – explanation and apology.” So, a couple of readers found it interesting and asked me to fill the gaps in the ongoing evolution of Guyana’s current history.

I did say in my piece yesterday that this area is so wide it would not hold in the Atlantic Ocean. I said yesterday, I don’t know where to begin. I still don’t know where to begin. Perhaps I can start with David Hinds, then go on to Clive Thomas, then to David Granger, then to so many others. Each day, Hinds starts his podcast with a direct address to African Guyanese.

Hinds has been doing this for five years now. If you came from another planet, you would not know that Hinds was part of state power. His party had state power and he was employed by the state. The people who listen to Hinds have to be congenital fools because none of them has ever asked him to explain the contents of his APNU+AFC government from 2015-2020.

Hinds has not once in 5 years devoted at least one podcast to analysing the pitfalls of his government and the flaws and faults of the PNC, WPA and AFC folks that wielded power from 2015-2020. In those five years, Hinds has not missed one moment in telling us how bad the PPP boys and girls were who had power from 2020.

It is an inexcusable action from Hinds for which his viewers should make demands on him. What Hinds (I will come to Thomas and others below) is doing is leaving huge gaps in Guyana’s history. One of the former leaders of the WPA who had state power in the APNU+AFC government is Dr. Maurice Odle. He has met his obligation to the Guyanese people.

He authored his memoir in which he devoted two chapters to examining the performance of the APNU+AFC regime, in which some sharp condemnations are expressed. To date, only Odle has demonstrated obligation. The other person is Dominic Gaskin, who appeared three times on the Freddie Kissoon Show and elaborated on the wrong directions of the government he was part of.

Let’s offer you a huge and patent example of the lack of obligation in politicians in this land. I invited the current acting leader of the AFC, David Patterson, two years ago to be my guest on the Freddie Kissoon Show. He accepted on one condition. I must not ask a question on the episode where, in May 2015, when the AFC was selecting its ministers, it called a non-political person and a complete stranger to politics and the AFC and offered her the portfolio of Minister of Environment.

What more graphic example do you want of the lack of obligation in Guyanese politics? Patterson was lucid and crystal clear – he did not see the need for him to offer an explanation to the Guyanese people on that abnormality. But the same Patterson as the days and weeks and months pass on, we will hear his demands for explanations from the government.

We don’t see the Odle/Gaskin mentality in Granger and none of the others who ran Guyana from 2015 to 2020. Granger has a podcast called “The National Interest”, and absent is any discussion of his presidency. So why does Granger do The National Interest? Because he wants to speak to the Guyanese people in the hope that they will listen to him and accept what he is telling them.

But why does Granger feel there isn’t a mountain of curiosities the Guyanese people have about his five-year-old presidency and would like him to explain? Two curiosities I know people are interested in – why the amendment to the legislation regarding the use of marijuana was not enacted and secondly, even though as president he agreed to a national recount of the 2020 election ballots, his own party rejected his position and asked the court to rule against Granger himself.

Finally, since 2020, Clive Thomas has been writing a weekly column in the Stabroek News. Not one of those columns, even in one paragraph, ever touched on the APNU+AFC government. Thomas has stopped writing his column and Guyana’s historiography will be poorer because of his disinclination to explain things to the Guyanese nation. Sadly, Guyanese will never know about these things.

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.