To Kenneth Russell;
The news over the last couple of days has been dominated by your firing and the circumstances surrounding it.
Whereas I agree with the stance taken by you, I am at a loss as to why you served under such conditions and why you and your colleagues did not support Branville McCartney when he experienced a similar situation as yours.
You said that what happened to you today, can happen to others tomorrow.
Did you not see it coming when McCartney was under Hubert Ingraham’s political guillotine or did you not, because of family ties, believe that it couldn’t happen to you?
Were you blind, deaf or ignorant of what happened to Cornish, another family member?
If you want us to believe that Ingraham was not capable of doing to you what he did to others, then you really do not know the man or you are very naive.
You are now bemoaning the fact that the Free National Movement (FNM) is a one man party.
Did you not know this from his entry into the organization, or it did not bother you as long as he took care of you?
You said that the candidates committee and the National General Council are responsible for the candidates selection process.
You are correct, because it is clearly spelled out in the party’s constitution, like the position of chairman and secretary general, who must be elected during a convention; but neither the chairman or secretary general position, like the candidates selection process, had been constitutionally followed since the advent of Hubert Ingraham into the party as leader.
You, Mr. Russell, have sat and watched men like Roston Miller, a founding member of the party, Johnley Ferguson, an Ingraham appointed official and his brother, who was appointed chief of police, who were all used and discarded when their services were no longer of use to Ingraham.
We, in John Q. Public were deafened by your silence. You watched the humiliation of Branville McCartney and other cabinet colleagues without a whisper from your lips.
They appeared to have been sealed with crazy glue; but when Ingraham’s political guillotine was finally targeted towards you, you are screaming like a wounded animal and trying to evoke sympathy from the electorate of this nation.
Remember the saying Mr. Russell, one can only reap what one sows.
To now say that you love the man and wish him well and that you will be applying for the nomination in a constituency that you are representing is absurd to say the least.
You are coming across like an apologetic beggar.
You did say that you thought you knew the man, but you really do not.
If you have the slightest idea that such an application would be considered then you need to pay a visit to a specialist.
I see three options open to you at this stage: sit down like the follower you have always been and keep your mouth shut; run as an independent and lose; or join the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) or the Democratic National Alliance (DNA).
But joining the PLP will be like jumping out of the frying pan in to the fire, because there are those in the PLP who will not forget your castigating of their former minister.
Your only safe bet is the DNA; otherwise after the general election in a few months time, you will be political history.
You have watched and accepted Ingraham’s abuse of the party’s constitution and other areas of The Bahamas constitution, like the limit put on the tenure of police commissioners, without raising a voice in objection; but you only choose to speak out when you are the victim.
It’s too late Ken, take your licks and move on.
By: Errington W. I. Watkins
