Dear Editor,
As I was busying myself getting down to my responsibility as a newly appointed commissioner of the Guyana Elections Commission (GECOM), my attention was drawn to Tacuma Ogunseye’s letter to the editor in the August 19, 2022 edition of S/N; ‘Rohee’s message is crystal clear.’
I usually do not reply to letters referring to me as racist and especially when the letters are laced with racial innuendoes. In that regard, the content and objective of Ogunseye’s letter are crystal clear. The imputation of ill-will couldn’t be more transparent.
Ogunseye’s repeated and careless resort to a divisive mantra in a society characterized by ethnic insecurity and political polarization not only fits perfectly with a narrative that reflects intellectual stagnation, it is combustible and hazardous.
In case he hasn’t noticed it, in his letter, Ogunseye portrays himself as both victim and struggler with the same old, same old narrative. It in this context, that he fails to recognize that since August 2020, and their experience with the vagaries of the COVID-19 pandemic, Guyanese from all walks of life have decidedly moved on with their lives economically.
That apart, Guyanese today are more roundly educated than they were in the past when the soil was fertile for such obstructionist thinking to germinate.
While the overarching sense of identity of African Guyanese has assumed a more enlightened approach as manifested in the observance of Emancipation Day and its various cultural manifestations, the thickened and non-expansive approach to African advancement by Ogunseye has depreciated significantly so much so that Guyanese of other ethnic backgrounds participate fully and with a sense of togetherness in the annual Emancipation Day’s observances.
It is this kind of togetherness shown by the Guyanese people that demonstrates joy not anger, empathy and purpose as well as a predisposition for problem-solving as their preference rather than be shackled to an axe to grind and to be trapped in an echo-chamber of Ogunseye’s making.
According to Ogunseye, my ‘message is crystal clear’. He claims that; ‘The PPP wants the composition of GECOM’s staff to change – there are too many Africans.’
As far as I am aware, the PPP has never said what Ogunseye claims. Nor did I in my remarks. It is as if he has convinced himself that what he saw was a duck, then a duck is all he would see.
I make no pretense that electoral reforms in general and institutional reforms at GECOM in particular, in whatever shape or form are badly needed in light of our March to August 2020 experience.
During that period, Ogunseye was deliberately and uncannily silent about the need to remove as it were, the dead, damaged and infected flesh from the decaying electoral practices of the APNU+AFC and to expose the democratic process to healthy tissue as currently obtains.
Because the age of maturity and enlightenment has not penetrated the deep recesses of Ogunseye’s psyche, his language is not surprising. His failure to move away from bitterness and anger towards a more constructive engagement with the democratic opening that emerged in August of 2020 defeats his organization’s call for a ‘political solution’ published in June 15,2022 in sections of the media.
In his letter of August 19, Ogunseye failed convincingly to come to terms with the big picture in which Guyana now features prominently on the world stage.
Further, Ogunseye must have heard about the PPP/C government’s concrete efforts to empower our African Guyanese brothers and sisters and their children by granting scholarships, small business grants, more lands and affordable housing and generous cash grants to members of the joint services.
The challenge to reconcile these progressive measures with Ogunseye’s cyclopian characterization of the PPP/C administration must be an extremely difficult one.
Yours faithfully,
Clement J. Rohee
