Working People’s Alliance (WPA) activist Tacuma Ogunseye of Lot 219 Section ‘C’ Turkeyen, Greater Georgetown was yesterday charged with attempting to incite racial ill will and placed on $100,000 bail.
The police said that Ogunseye appeared at the Vigilance Magistrate’s Court before Magistrate Fabayo Azore where the charge was read to him. He pleaded not guilty and was placed on $100,000 cash bail. The case was put down to 2023-04-06.
The police release said that Ogunseye’s defence counsel Nigel Hughes argued that the charge was “‘bad in law”.
According to the press release, Police Legal Advisor Mandel Moore in rebuttal advised the court that he had prepared and had 11 pages of a written submissions on hand to prove that Hughes’s argument is wholly without merit. Thereafter, Moore laid over his written submissions to the court and to Hughes.
Hughes told reporters that the prosecutor told the court that they were opposing bail on three grounds: seriousness of the offence, the fact that the penalty was significant and there is an ongoing investigation.
Ogunseye turned himself into the Police CID Vlissengen Road Headquarters with Hughes and attorney Darren Wade last Friday morning following a police wanted bulletin that was issued last Thursday. The police issued the bulletin over statements he made on a political platform. The bulletin said that on March 9th at Buxton Public Road, Ogunseye attempted to excite hostility or ill-will on the grounds of race contrary to Section 3 of the Racial Hostility Act, Chapter 23:01.
Ogunseye, while at a WPA meeting on March 9th in the village of Buxton on the East Coast of Demerara (ECD) made several claims about the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) using the Guyana Police Force and the Guyana Defence Force in the past to “execute” Africans and encouraged his ethnic group, especially those who are members of the Joint Services, to be “battle ready” for a “fight.”
During the meeting which was recorded and shared on the Facebook profile of KAMS TV, the party member could be heard referring to his version of events in Buxton, 2002, “…In 2002, 2005, when Buxton got interrupted into an unfortunate situation which arose because of the PPP policy of executing Africans using the police force and then the phantom force and Buxton find itself in the cross road.”
He went on to contend that the treatment that persons of African descent receive in this country is unjust and called it a “political urgency” which he declared must be acted upon as early as possible. “We in the Working People’s Alliance have decided once again to put the party on the line because we believe that with the present situation in our country… the treatment and conditions of the African community requires political urgency and we have to act and we have to act quickly… for the WPA in this present campaign we have some clear objectives, the first objective is to get the African team in a state of battle readiness… the Afro-Guyanese police and soldiers… would stand with Afro-Guyanese” in resisting the PPP/C.
The WPA executive member said he was of the belief that once persons from the Joint Services who are of his ethnic group are guided to do “the right thing,” then there is a possibility of his party getting back into government. “…Sometimes people tell me that to remove the PPP will be hard and long but I don’t necessarily believe… because at the end of the day no government could survive if they don’t have the support of the military and those who carry weapons for the state… the reality is, the army, the police, are majority African Guyanese… once we organise our people and once we begin to fight we will ensure that our brothers and sisters in uniform will do the right thing and when they do the right thing this matter is over in days and not weeks… it have to be strategic.”
Ogunseye’s remarks attracted broad condemnation.
