Kartel for vaccine campaign? No way!
RETIRED president of Jamaica’s Court of Appeal, Justice Seymour Panton last Wednesday urged the Government to do two things: Dismiss the thought of having spectators at the National Stadium for today’s football match involving Jamaica and Canada; and also to bury the idea of using convicted criminal Vybz Kartel in programmes to encourage people to get vaccinated.
The first matter was resolved later Wednesday when Government Minister Desmond Mckenzie, who is in charge of local government and community development, stated that no spectators would be allowed at the National Stadium, save for certain officials.
But the second, perhaps more serious of the two, still lingers, and it is quite worrying that a man as highly placed as the prime minister of this country, and his minister of health and wellness, would have even toyed with the idea.
That matter came to my attention weeks ago. I waited and waited and waited, thinking that the people who were so inclined to put such an absurd thing forward would reconsider and flush it down any working toilet. It has not happened. Instead, Minister of Health and Wellness Dr Christopher Tufton was even quoted as describing Kartel as an “influencer”, though he did not even stop to place the word “destructive” in front. If these politicians think that Kartel is so powerful and influential, maybe they should hand over the reins of leadership to him and tell people like me to head off to Afghanistan.
Let us remember that his music aside (if it can be so called), Vybz Kartel was found guilty of committing one of the most heinous crimes – murder – and sentenced to life in prison, with the possibility of parole, after 32 years and six months, reduced from 35 years by the Court of Appeal. Of course, a further appeal against the conviction is before Jamaica’s final appellate court — the United Kingdom Privy Council. Hopefully that will go nowhere.
So what’s the big deal? We are as a nation set back by this fellow’s influence on a high percentage of the young population who, by virtue of youthful exuberance, will embrace some of the verbal garbage with which he and others litter the public space.
It is entertainers such as Kartel who contribute in a big way to the crime rate that no political Administration has been able to tame.
Away with this Kartel tomfoolery!