Nagamootoo – a convenient U-turner

May 5, 2015

POLITICS is one of the professions unarguable with the most U-turners who are not afraid to masquerade in public as they seek to vend themselves as effective leaders to the masses.And in Guyana, this country is not short of them. While there are those who served selflessly in the interest of this country, there are some who pretend to be servants and function only for personal gain.

This is one of the problems this country has been facing, and from all indications, things have not changed much even as Guyana will soon be celebrating 50 years as an Independent Nation.

Guyana would have been far better off today if our politicians were practicing the politics of reason more than the politics of bickering and rank opportunism.

It is with this in mind that the point must be made that true servants of the people do not necessarily have to be the President or a Prime Minister of a country to bring about the change he (or she) wants to see.

True leaders are strong advocate of a cause, they have solutions to problems and they articulate strategies of how they will bring about change.

They are not driven by bitterness and only when they fail in their bid for power they suddenly become messiahs of the people, and on their new platforms, denounce all that they previously stood for.

As the nation heads to the polls on May 11, the electorate has to be ever vigilant against these men in camouflage who are verse in subterfuge in getting their way.

By now the electorate would have heard them loud and clear. On the campaign trail, they have promised practically everything. They have promised the sun, the moon, the stars, the earth and even the mountain tops.

And even before they started making these wild promises, Moses Nagamootoo, who scampered from the People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) after he did not become the presidential candidate of that party, had promised the A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) to deliver 11 per cent of Indian votes, thereby enabling them to win the Regional and General Elections.

Nagamootoo for all his life has been known as a journalist, politician and in recent years an Attorney-at-Law; never as an expert in the trade of bartering.

What men like Nagamootoo failed to realise is that the trade that used to happen years ago no longer obtains, and indo-Guyanese have before rejected a solicitor of Indian votes.

A certain politician through an unmitigated drivel called Ethnic Security Dilemma, tried to win Indian support by portraying himself as their champion.

He was roundly rejected and banished to the realm of the hallucinating class, political charlatans and failed presidential aspirants.

Nagamootoo, who is an embodiment of bitterness, is headed in this direction, as his about-face is being exposed more and more by the day through his public utterances.

Today, a few years after bowing out in the PPP leadership race fearing a loss, and subsequently resigning from the party claiming that he has been sidelined, Nagamootoo is urging the electorate to “break down the Berlin Wall of ethnic preference”.

It is true that a vast majority of Indo-Guyanese support the PPP/C, but the PPP/C has always been a broad-based party, opened to all Guyanese who are willing to bring about change and make a meaningful contribution in the development of their country.

The Berlin Wall of ethnic preference that Nagamootoo is talking about is therefore an outlandish claim that has become typical of him.

It should not be mistaken that the salvo is coming from a man consumed by bitterness, unable to think straight, and quite contend to allow his imagination to run riot.

If there were any such wall as Nagamootoo claimed, it had to be constructed and guarded by Nagamootoo himself, unbeknownst to his mentor and guide Dr. Cheddi Jagan, who fought tooth and nail to rid this country of the evil of racism.

Nagamootoo knows this, but will not acknowledge it because to do so will be inimical to the cause he now represents.

For men like Nagamootoo, an organisation is good as long as it serves their personal interest regardless of the inconvenience it causes to others.

And in this case, his failed presidential bid has resulted in him developing a strong revulsion of the party that nurtured him, instilling in him dignity and making him a reputable member in society.

But the erstwhile PPP/C member has forgotten about this, and is now waxing eloquently about patriotism and on the contrived need to save Guyana.

The electorate should be reminded that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.