GECOM Seats -Laws don’t make Men, Men make Laws

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GECOM Seats -Laws don’t make Men, Men make Laws

A wise political veteran weighed in on the thickening differences over GECOM commissioners.  The pros and cons.  The issues of resignations or terminations, and replacements.  What the Constitution says, and where silence filled the place of substance.  Impressive, I say.  There were many intersections.  Constitution.  Politics.  Mathematics.  Logic.  Leadership.  Practices.  Precedents.  Then, still more.  Overpowering, even more impressive, I submit.  What I offer pales in comparison.  Anemic.  Hopefully still meaningful, in this, my last round in this ring.  A little, not much.  Yet what should convey how men function differently in testing environments.  Respond to the prompts of different stimuli.

Oil blocks.  Two went out of Guyana’s hands under a cloud.  Secrecy.  A PPP big man said no law broken.  He was right according to the law.  Because there was no literal provision in the law against how those oil blocks changed hands.  Though he was right, all Guyana knew that he had it wrong.  Wrong when two tranches of the people’s precious inheritance secretly went from one hand to another.  Strange.  If aboveboard, why go underground?  In such circumstances, no law is needed to differentiate right from wrong.  Not even schooling.  Only native intelligence.  Some basic instincts.  The PPP Big Man who said no law was broken forget something.  Men make laws.  Laws don’t make men.  But, a man without the benefit of any law, with the worst constitution (or none) knows when he just must be a man.  What it takes.  Where he must stand.  How he must be.  To grow from a small man to a big man.  Whatever the education one has, there’s none to beat that kind.  Thus, I stand.

From two oil blocks, I proceed to Oil Money.  The stewardship of it, for which the law provides.  Dr. Terrence Campbell used a sophisticated word: “rubberstamp.”  It has common utility.  Then, there’s its dark side: uncommon indecency.  What a rubberstamp smears over.  When rubberstamps are put to such use, it’s celebrated here.  All Guyana can say that Terrence Campbell has it wrong.  I will swear that he has it right.  Is right on the money.  Too close for the comfort of the people who suddenly didn’t want him around it (or in their company). 

Who could be so self-degrading, an ignoramus, to swallow “national development priorities”, and conclude that their oversight responsibilities are done?  Apologies to Dr. Terrence Campbell.  But that’s not a rubberstamp.  It’s a used condom. 

Guyanese are being taken for skunks.  For politeness, I subbed skunks for another word that spells almost like it, and sounds and rhymes with it.

From oil blocks and oil money, to an (that) oil contract.  Another PPP Big Man insisted that ‘review and renegotiate’ will be the fate of all contracts.  In his sleep he had a dream.  Exxon and retention of political power.  A safe harbor was desperately needed.  Sanctity of contract was belatedly discovered, used to rescue befogged minds.  I invite Guyanese to form a jury.  Safe harbor or the sixth sense of wily political operators prioritizing protection of their own skin.  For country or men hungry for dirty power. 

Last, Framers of the Constitution are dead.  Refiners are alive, but might as well be not.  Such specimens of the living, walking dead they have become.  Constitutions don’t make men.  Men make constitutions.  Wrangle ever after. 

Leaders can put their heads together to find a way out of their GECOM impasse.  To find a commonsense, workable, out-of-court settlement, as such.  There are three seats in contention.  Agree to assign one to each.  Far from Solomonic logic.  Just compromise that leads to a smoother path, higher level.  Didn’t vote for the one-seat Guyanese.  But now vote for her to get one.  To build the broken.  To shout where there’s silence.  In the Constitution. 

Let’s not muzzle our minds amidst great darkness.  We have had 60 years of liberty and not advanced one step.  Six minutes could help Guyana get somewhere.