This is how conveniently focused our leaders can be

Guyanese stirred from their slumber recently. It had to do with political excitement. What else could it be, when nothing but the hysteria and ecstasy of elections can drive Guyanese to a state of frenzy? To top it all off, the excitement was not over national elections, it was about LGE. No! LGE is not one of those British Airways flight leaving out of Heathrow or Gatwick, but of Local Government Elections. Are we starved for entertainment, or what? Imagine that! LGE could light a fire under both the PPP and PNC, get them to bring out their slates, and their people to support. The first thought that came was that I had a clean shot at winning the mayorship of Georgetown, given the candidates fielded. No swing at anyone, but the thinking was that I had a good, strong shot. My slogan would have been: a Clean candidate for a Clean Capital City. As an Independent, of course, and nothing else. I move along since that time passed 20 years ago.

The second thought that came was how clever our political leaders and groups are. Local Government triumph means access to the levers of power, and power means money. So, our political leaders come alive, and hit the rafters with their high notes about who is going to do what, and how they are bent on bringing about change. It is interesting that they can, in a flash, develop energy, intensity, and potency when elections is the subject at hand; even local ones. It would be interesting and intriguing if both the Vice President and Leader of the Opposition could summon the strength, dig deep within themselves and find the art and science, skill and courage, to deliver that identical degree of passion, those great sparks, to faceoff and fling down the gauntlet before Exxon.

But, of course, there is sanctity of contract, which perfectly covers leadership weakness, possible drift of political principle. Because learning comes, I now appreciate that political and principle do not go together in Guyana. It is why we have this hullabaloo about LGE, and not so much as a whimper for what is of infinitely greater substance, oil. I ask fellow Guyanese to consider the spectacle of locals massed not for LGE, but for better from their oil patrimony. Naturally, that would present a predicament, a most precarious position, for Exxon - the will of the people. It would be wiser to deal with the will of thwarted and frustrated Guyanese than to experience the full bore of their rage. The same blast furnace rage that is kept in reserve for elections seasons. I think that my thrusts should be emerging by now.

The Vice President and Opposition Leader can snap a finger and bring out their people to cavort and carry on in the streets. But for some strange reason, they are unable to do the same to reverse the horrifying terms of an oil contract that leaves the same people dancing in the streets gasping for breath. I don’t think that that they are unable, but that they are unwilling to take that momentous step from which there can be no turning back.

That is, until Guyana succeeds in snatching a few chestnuts out of Exxon’s loaded financial oven. In saying this publicly, I am sure that my fellow Americans, Excellency Lynch and Mr. Routledge, lost any fondness that they had for me. But this, I take pains to remind them, is not a popularity contest, or one about likes and the like. It is of the long-delayed prosperity of the Guyanese people, as well as the low games played with that mother of all priorities (prosperity).

If for nothing else, LGE provides the kind of convincing revelation to Guyanese that they need, of the kind of leaders that they have. For sure, LGE is important in domestic considerations, and with that I have no difference. What I do have a problem with is how anemic and lifeless our main political leaders are with oil, and wresting with Exxon for better for Guyana. Meanwhile, without missing a beat, they are already baring their teeth and perfecting their snarls to gut the other. This is not even about misplaced priorities and misspent energies anymore. It is the alarming evidence of how conveniently focused our leaders can be, on the things that pale into insignificance, when our oil wealth and our oil share are the elephants on the table. If the PPP and PNC leadership can be about this for LGE, then why not the same for the 2016 PSA that kills us dead, with drop by drop of our precious oil drained?