Dear Editor,
Azruddin Mohamed, a man wanted by the United States law enforcement authorities to face criminal prosecution in that country upon indictments alleging serious criminal conduct, recently published a video hoping to “make waves” by holding out that he had discovered that His Excellency President Ali had a farm somewhere along the Soesdyke-Linden Highway. In that video Mohamed held out that the extent of the farm was 150 acres and, in the fashion of a property consultant/real estate appraiser, put forward values on buildings and on the extent of development on that property.
Having arrived at a global figure on what he presumes to be the level of investment in the President’s farm purely in an unfounded, unjustified and speculative way, the wanted man Azruddin Mohamed then, referring to what he considered to be the President’s salary, queried how the President was able to fund his investment. Ironically, it is a similar question that the people of Guyana ask of Azruddin Mohamed: “How and from where were you able to amass such significant wealth, amounting to billions?” President Ali has made a public disclosure on the source of funding for his investment, which he says was through loans from financial institutions. In a public presentation the President made the following key points:
(a) His farm could not have been discovered by Azruddin Mohamed because he was well aware of the existence of the farm. There being no denial or refutation of the President’s disclosure, one is left to conclude that Mohamed went to the President’s farm with his drone (and probably accompanied by a bevy of half-naked Venezuelan women) purely with a malicious motive, calculated to tarnish the reputation and image of the President and with the vain hope that he could gather the company of the President and drag him into his (Mohamed’s) own sorry mess. An Afro-Guyanese, recently, in my view, correctly noted that Mohamed’s video disclosure evidenced his response that if he had to face the likelihood of extended incarceration in the United States without help from the PPP, then in that circumstance he would do anything in his power to drag the President and the Government down with him.
(b) The President disclosed that Azruddin Mohamed’s assertion that his farm covered 150 acres was a wicked, deliberate and malicious lie. Many are of the view that such malice, misrepresentation and distortion could only come from a mind that had not a care for truth and honesty.
(c) Having questioned the President’s financial capabilities to meet the demands of expenditure on his investment, notwithstanding the wicked, cunning and malicious intent evident in the speculative nature of Mohamed’s enquiry, the President disclosed that he sought financial support for his agricultural pursuits by securing loans from financial institutions. To the reasonable mind, that explanation ought to be seen as a reasonable and acceptable answer and would be so seen by most men of reason and understanding.
Enter David “the Black Moses” Hinds and his “blacker than black” brother Gabriel “the iceberg spotter” Lall. It was pathetic to watch two grown men, patently full of scorn, prejudice and bias towards President Ali, other PPP leaders and the PPP-led Government generally, engage in what they would want described as a healthy conversation about President Ali but which was one dripping with criticism and bile and in which they found humour in their own speculative, false and fabricated narrative.
Gabriel Lall, whom I believe is a Catholic Christian (or so he says), repeated Azruddin Mohamed’s wicked and false assertion that the President held 150 acres of farmland, but then David Hinds played the President’s video statement during his programme with Lall. I am certain that Gabriel Lall heard the President say that the extent of his farm was not even half of what Azruddin Mohamed said it was. Gabriel Lall did not dispute the President’s assertion but, more significantly, as a Catholic Christian who should be a firm believer in truth and honesty, said not a word to correct himself. In keeping, however, with his bitter, poisoned disposition towards the President, Gabriel (not the angel) Lall, with reference to the President’s disclosure of having taken loans to fund his investment, wants His Excellency to provide him with the details of his loan application, the details of his loan process, and the details of his guarantors. Hearing this, I felt how presumptuous and insolent this “dying for attention” man can be, especially when I heard him say that the President has a “doooty” to make such disclosure. Well, His Excellency told the people of Guyana that he has made full disclosure to the Integrity Commission, the statutory body to which he owes such a duty.
During his ramblings with David Hinds, in a moment of utter nastiness, Gabriel Lall wanted to know the ethnic makeup of the other land owners along the highway. Lall can easily gather this information by checking the APNU/AFC land give-away records. However, these were the kinds of interventions by Lall that caused David Hinds to bob his head up and down as if to goad Gabriel on.
The worst, however, came from David “the Black Moses” Hinds, who quoted the President as saying that he sold chicken to Bounty Farm and that when the Guyanese consumer found the price of chicken very high, such a circumstance had to be laid at the door of President Ali. The video record of what President Ali said is still available online. Anyone who reviews it will find that President Ali in his video publication never said he sold chicken to Bounty. The President simply referred to Bounty as one of the established entities in that area that was aware of the existence of his farm.
David Hinds is deliberately lying and unjustly and with malicious intent attributing to the President what he never said. Hinds called on Gabriel Lall to comment, and sheep-like and appearing not to want to be in disagreement with David Hinds, Gabriel Lall agreed that the cause for the high price of chicken should be laid at the President’s door. Both men, David Hinds and Gabriel Lall, found their falsification and distortion funny and humoured themselves. Lall, however, went further; he wanted to know what the President was doing in business. To this, David Hinds reacted almost orgasmically. One should ask Gabriel Lall, who pretends to be encyclopaedic in his knowledge, whether he knows of the business pursuits of the King of England and of the monarch’s connections to the Duchy of Cornwall, an estate that includes large tracts of land, farms and investment properties.
The entire appearance of Hinds and Lall was just a nasty, vile political attack on President Ali. Thankfully, most Guyanese ignore David Hinds as a failed politician, while for most people, Gabriel Lall’s incoherence and scatter-brained conversations carry no appeal, and he generates little interest among the people of Guyana, who every day see their President working dedicatedly to improve their lives.