Nigel Hinds published a letter on me in yesterday’s Kaieteur News that is almost a page. There are fictions and omissions. But the intent of his publication is no doubt to regain some amount of credibility after his descent into the arena of clownish self-destruction.
On Wednesday evening, I was on a panel discussion on Kaieteur Radio with PNC candidate, James Bond, and presidential candidate, Rhonda-Ann Lam of The Citizens’ Initiative.
When the subject of GECOM’s ruling on the nationality of presidential candidate Lennox Shuman came up, the consensus around the table was that there is no one in their right mind in Guyana who does not know that you cannot compete in elections if you hold dual citizenship.
Why? Because for more than one year, the subject was talked about daily in all parts of Guyana because of the no-confidence motion (NCM). This entire country knew a parliamentarian from the government benches named Charrandass Persaud voted for the opposition motion.
This entire country became familiar with the dual citizenship debate because the government disputed the NCM in the lower court to the highest court, the CCJ, in an effort to deny the legality of the NCM because Charrandass was a Canadian citizen and thus should not have been in parliament and thus should not have voted.
After the CCJ’s decision that Guyana’s parliament cannot have sitting MPs who are dual citizens, the entire country knew that four senior ministers had to resign including the minister that runs the office of the presidency, Joe Harmon.
Let us trace the behaviour of Nigel Hinds and even a school boy will reach either one of two conclusions – deception or asininity.
Hinds formed a party with businessman Robert Badal. Hinds became his party’s PM candidate. Hinds had to know when his party perambulated the corners of Guyana announcing his PM candidacy that it was a national deception because he could not sit in parliament much less be the PM because he has dual nationality. More antics were to come from Hinds.
He sat at the table opposite the Chief Election Officer and other GECOM officials and handed in his list of candidates. Up to that point, Guyanese knew him to be the PM candidate for his party. Up to that time, citizens whose votes this man is asking for did not know he had two types of citizenship.
And when did Guyanese come to know this? Less than two days after he sat opposite the Chief Elections Officer. He handed in his list on Friday afternoon, the Sunday morning, he announced he was quitting his candidacy because he was a dual citizen.
But hold on, there are more stupidities to come. In making his Sunday morning announcement, he said he withdrew because a medical condition has forced him to travel to the US where he would need the superior treatment thus his revelation that he is a US citizen.
So there are two questions to be asked, the answers to which will prove that this man is unfit to enter the halls of parliament.
First, didn’t he know that he could not contest elections because he was a dual citizen? The answer is he had to know. Almost a hundred percent of this nation would have heard about this issue that was running in the eyes of the public for more than a year.
Secondly, on that Friday when Nomination Day arrived, did he not know that his medical condition would have forced him to travel to the US?
In response to this circus that Hinds created, I did a column captioned, “Only the Guyanese nationality can produce a Nigel Hinds.” His letter in yesterday’s KN is a response to that.
Running to almost a full page, Hinds failed to devote even one word to his conduct after he formed his party and two days after Nomination Day when he dropped his bombshell.
The entire missive is about the mind of Freddie Kissoon in which unsavoury adjectives like “faecal” are used to describe me. What a silly human! Attacking Freddie Kissoon using nasty adjectives will not help to salvage the political career of Hinds. Post mortem cannot bring back the dead.
People all over this country are seeing Hinds for what he is – deceptive and clownish. The sad victim of Hinds’s journey is his party leader, Robert Badal. Badal is going to suffer voter haemorrhage. And yet, Badal persists with the presence of Hinds in his party keeping him on the campaign where his new designation is chairman of Change Guyana.
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