Maximise benefits of country’s wealth – Robeson Benn urges

Amid Guyana’s surge in natural resource discoveries, Home Affairs Minister Robeson Benn has urged citizens to unite and maximise the benefits from the country’s wealth by working together, underscoring the importance of national unity.
He made this urgence during the 261th Anniversary of the Berbice Slave Rebellion.
According to Benn, if citizens are weak in the realisation of unity, then capitalisation of the country’s wealth will not be fully attained. “It doesn’t matter how much oil we get it don’t matter how much gold we find, if you’re weak or if we don’t understand the national mission, if you don’t come together on the questions of sovereignty…we would lose Guyana.”
He drew reference to when historical revolutionary ‘Cuffy’ decided to commit suicide and tribes started to split up after his death. This, he said should not be a habit that Guyana follows, being divided and not working together when problems arise.
“When Cuffy decided to commit suicide and the movement split and the different tribes split up in their own different colonies and got weak and exposed themselves to the soldiers coming, how do we move forward together in terms of building our country? how do we achieve an encapsulated one Guyana? How? these are the most important questions”, he stated.
Using this as the basis of his discussion, he raised several other sectors which can exponentially grow if Guyanese work together.
“We got the oil we got the gold and we got the agriculture which is the foundation of the country, agriculture, and the question is, how do we work with each other to move the country forward? we have to look at ourselves and the history of the country to determine this. we have the money to build road and bridge but how do we build this together? We have an opportunity today to do it again.”
Meanwhile, he addressed the ongoing Bangladesh situation where the country and its people are facing a mass protest. In light of this, he stated that Bangladesh’s cultures are much more than Guyana’s stating that Guyana does not have the influx of problems they are facing right now.
Bangladesh recently announced a nationwide curfew amid a telecommunications blackout that has cut the country of 170 million people off from the rest of the world as clashes between students and security forces have intensified.
“The Bangladesh experience at the moment is unfortunate but going to India and spending some time there and spending some time with Nigerian security officers, they are more diverse than we are, our problems are not that as great as there.”
‘Cuffy’ died in 1763. He was an Akan man who was captured in his native West Africa and stolen for slavery to work on the plantations of the Dutch colony of Berbice in present-day Guyana. In 1763, he led a major slave revolt of more than 3,800 slaves against the colonial regime.
On 19 October 1763, it was reported to the governor that Captain Atta had revolted against Cuffy, and that Cuffy had committed suicide.