Dear Editor,
Perhaps at first glance some readers associated the title above with recent commentary and news regarding the president’s ranch. While this letter is certainly influenced by those emerging narratives, my concern here is broader, one that not only the president, but all of us, should be contemplating when making both routine decisions and those that carry significant weight.
Presidents all over the world have estates, assets, and varying levels of wealth. According to a Yahoo Finance article, The World Leader Rich List: Who’s on Top?, written by Alice Cattley and published in October 2025, some of the world’s richest prime ministers and presidents in US$ millions and billions include: (i) Valdimir Putin – 200b; (ii) Alexander Lukashenko – 9b, (iii) Donald Trump – 7.2b, (iv) Xi Jinping – 1.5b and Teodoro Obiang – 600m. Closer to home, Luis Abinader – 70m, Sebastián Piñera 2.9b before his death in 2024 and Nicholas Maduro – 2m. Maduro is here because many of us are familiar with him, however there are a few wealthier. There are also several other wealthy current presidents and prime ministers not listed here. May had wealth before their positions, some during and after their tenure.
I write this letter mainly to ask His Excellency President Ali one question – what type of nation is Guyana becoming? Take off your political hat, set aside your personal experiences and knowledge of Guyana, and look at us as a casual observer who wants to learn more about the country, what it has to offer, what life is like for its people, and what its history says about it. Then answer that question.
It is important to focus on the here and now, but too often we fail to consider the aggregate, compounding effects of disparate social phenomena. Truth be told, human beings are only moderately capable of accurately predicting this. Some economists might prefer to say modelling the aggregate effects of disparate social phenomena, whether guided by rational decision-making, game theory, or some other useful framework. But even those frameworks are only as good as the goals they are meant to serve.
The President is likely to outlive his predecessors and also most of the prime ministers Guyana has ever had. Let that sink in for a moment. Whether it has occurred to us or not, this current generation and the one behind it will largely go along for the ride with him. The Bureau of Statistics reported just last week that the youth population is significant. That means you have a population that will go along for the ride with Exxon and others, a population that lived through Guyana’s early oil years, the attempted rigging of the 2020 elections, the phantom squad, the death squad, the fallout from the infamous mash day jailbreak, the floods of 2005 and 2006, the rise of Guyana’s economy, more home ownership, increased access to finance, capital, travel, and leisure, and so on. Of course, these are just a few generational narratives arising from lived experience.
The generation before this one also grew up in politically and socioeconomically turbulent times, shaped by certain shared narratives and lived experiences within and across communities. The generation before that did too, though theirs had a different flavour. And the one before that as well. So yes, there is a pattern. We should not try to whitewash it, but instead use it as a source of strength to adapt and evolve our governance and political economy. And yes, we must remember and learn. But if we remain stuck there, we will remain stuck in the mindsets, thinking, and behaviours that accompany it, even if we do not always display them outwardly, or only display them selectively, in how we speak about each other at the national, community, and household levels, and in the factors, we weigh when deciding what choices to make.
I find that as a country we have not matured. We claim independence, yet at times we are like the haughty teenager who has no real idea of the reality that will hit when adulthood comes and they must fend for themselves in terms of housing, money, personal growth, and eventually children and responsibility.
Can we not prioritise loyalty and still demand excellence, especially in the public service? Can we not engineer this through our education system, skills and trade apprenticeship training, regional and national volunteer programs, and the promotion of values such as environmental stewardship, community, nationhood, respect for elders, individual excellence, private-sector and capital innovation, and respect for the rule of law, among others that set us up to thrive, adapt, and continue our journey toward that moment when all Guyanese literally feel, as Bob Marley sang, a natural mystic in the air, that despite the struggle, despite the disagreements, and despite the unnecessary, or perhaps necessary, nonsense, we have truly arrived at One People, One Nation, One Destiny?
I am sorry, but if you do not cut it, you cannot occupy certain positions. And you cannot “I gon call meh friend, boss man or PPP friend” your way into such functions. And if you are borderline, there must be marked progress, not only in competence, but also in preparation, decision-making, and results.
Anything else is sinking us, at least according to history. We may not feel it. We may even think we are on solid ground. But every single moment, the earth tremors beneath our feet. And it is not always the one tremor, the obvious tipping point, that does the damage. It is the cumulative effect, together with the right conditions.
If readers are searching to understand what a collective sense of One People, One Nation, One Destiny feels like, imagine being from Cape Verde or Argentina and what it must have felt like to see and move with your team during its world cup battles and triumph. Imagine the collective pride Argentinians and Cape Verdeans in particular must feel in their homes and communities and the positive effects on social relations and a sense of collective belonging.
In the lead up to and after the New York Knicks won the NBA championship, commentators kept remarking that New Yorkers from all walks of life have been embracing each other more, speaking to each other more, and expressing a shared sense of belonging. There has even been a noticeably sharp reduction in all criminal activity, okay, that last part is an exaggeration, but it is an intentional exaggeration to drive home the point that President Ali needs to think long and hard about his legacy and the Guyana he wants his children to grow up in.
We are no longer in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, 2002, or even the 2010s. It is 2026, and it is high time we collectively decide on the Guyana we want 100 to 200 years from now. This means we must actively work to evolve our mindsets, become more curious about our world and our place in it, individually as well, and seriously plan how our political system, private sector, and public sector must adapt.
Readers may not be aware of this, but around 2019-2020, in a WhatsApp chat and again with friends at a gathering, I said that if the PPP wanted to win the 2020 elections, or even to create the appearance of winning, all it had to do was create its own coalition. And poof, it happened. While I am aware of the ears and eyes that were in that chat group at the time, as well as the people at the gathering, I cannot say whether the coalition materializing was simply an intuitive hunch on my part or whether my remarks somehow grew legs.
Nonetheless, what prompted me to say that then was observation and intuition. And I close by saying that I am prompted by the same intuition and observation right now.