Dear Editor,
Stranger things have happened, that’s for sure. I just can’t recall when. But there he is, the We Invest In Nationhood leader, Mr. Azruddin Mohamed, operating in a new environment, and carving out his own path, actually laying down some pointers for the future. Does he have what it takes? Can he sustain what he has started? Will he be allowed to; or will he have to fight tooth and talon for every inch to be gained?
Already, he sounds like a dedicated corruption hunter. I’m coming after perps. Since he has traveled extensively around the local block, he has a better than fair idea of where the dark corners are, the hiding places are, and who the big players are. He is a corruption fighter to be taken seriously. It makes sense for a man of his pedigree to take aim at corruption in Guyana; the returns could be astounding, if not ironic. A case of righteous street justice coming to pass, I say. Many of them. If I were in the employ of the PPP, I would be shaking my boots. There is a simple reason: few are the folks who did business with the PPP, or for the PPP Govt, who can claim clean hands. The higher they are elevated, the more precarious their perch. Mr. Mohamed has an additional asset that is priceless, and it comes in two parts. He has a long familiarity with skeletons, and he has old skills at detecting where they are buried. Past work programmes have a way of turning out to be beneficial when least expected, due to the turn of events, which no one can predict.
Aside from giving high priority to being a corruption stalker, Mr. Mohamed has shown some first glimpses of the statesman that he can be. Say what? Statesman and Azruddin Mohamed don’t belong on the same planet, much less in the same phrase. But there he was proving that he is more seasoned than he looks, that he has a head on his shoulders, and that he can be his own man. Let’s there be no more of the regular, old “chaos” in parliament. Let there be the calmness that could go a long way in fostering the beginnings of cooperation. Hear! Hear! For he is jolly peculiar fellow. A man of surprises, which makes me pause, and think that this newcomer, this chap that has been dismissed as an amateur, just may be able to hold his own with the older boys, and the bigger boys and girls, who know a thing or two about tying up proceedings in and out of parliament.
Question for the local parliamentary cognoscenti: when was the last time that anyone in parliament made a call for calm and cool heads? Has the Speaker who has shown a sudden exuberant propensity for effervescent loquacity? How about someone from the old and grizzled battalions? The one manning the PPP side of the parliamentary ditches (they made it that way, I submit). Or, the other lost battalion of superstars from the PNC struggling to find footing and their way out of the gloom of their tightly and remorselessly suffocating Petrified Forest. Whatever those two political old lions didn’t do, or weren’t capable of doing, the fast and furious Mohamed is manifesting that he is already on the job, and is quickly getting the hang of it. He could go places.
The Chinese may say that Guyanese are living in interesting times. But the Americans are the ones calling the shots here. In observing Mohamed, Jr., I can’t help recalling that prearranged, smooth-as-silk passage to Bridgetown, and what was the bargain struck there. Have the Americans shown the WIN leader the wisdom of working with them? Intriguing how the Washingtonians went from being hard against him to finding ways to work with him. Even more intriguing was how the US lent its demanding voice to the chorus of diplomatic calls for the Speaker (and PPP leadership) to cut the baloney and get moving on the Leader of the Opposition election. When Americans speak, the previously hard-of-hearing in the PPP hierarchy always listen up, straighten up, and jump up. Yes, Excellency. Consider it done, Excellency.
Last, in considering the renewed, reinvigorated Azruddin Mohamed, I find myself pondering, who he is really working for, other than for himself. And the Guyanese people, of course.