Your Eyewitness ain’t much for sentimentalism. Forced to plough through the detritus of human weaknesses daily for his daily bread, he’s developed a pretty jaundiced view of life in old Mudland and farther afield!! But when he saw the report on what was billed as the AFC’s FIRST RALLY for Elections 2025, he did mutter under his breath, “Well, Rumjhaat DID predict they were gonna become ‘Dead Meat’ if they hooked up with the PNC!!” He wasn’t gloating or anything like that – just a rueful thought that, knowing his fate, the Jhaat yet went ahead for a few years just to arrive with outriders – as he slowly but surely putrefied!!
But maybe that’s why he’s taking a back seat – waaaay back!! – in the AFC’s present campaign. He’d be asphyxiating folks behind him with the stench if he were up front!! So here it was – in the newspaper that’s the cheerleader for it and its class – the sad observation that the best the AFC could do in Linden in its inaugural rally was to pull JUST FIFTY bodies to Amelia’s Ward Car Park on a Friday afternoon!! Which is a hangout time at a hangout spot in the town!! In contrast, the PPP attracted thousands a couple of weeks ago to create a massive red sea that sang along with one speaker who belted out significantly, “There’s a COLOURED girl in the ring!!!” The PNC had also drawn another large crowd a few days later!!
So what was the AFC’s message to the folks of the bauxite town?? They reminded the sparse gathering about the 2012 shootings of 2 locals at the illegal blockade of the Wismar Bridge – which they’d egged on. Implying this was a big concern of the working-class folks who showed up, they stressed they’d reduce the 72-hour detention time after an arrest to 24 hours!! Did they think they were talking to Scrapeheads who’re perennially courting arrest??
Scoffing at the PPP’s cash and kind infusions into African Guyanese communities, the AFC leader analogised this to purchasing slaves for trinkets!! Yet he promptly promised that, at 17, every person would be given a house lot!! He forgot that Africans also purchased slaves??!! Their PM candidate, Amerindian Laura George, seemingly took a swipe at WIN when she scoffed at food hampers, chainsaws, or cash being handed out to buy hinterland folks!!
Meanwhile, up in GT at the Pegasus Centre on Friday, LOO Norton officially launched APNU’s manifesto – branded as “The Compact with Guyana”!!He touted a “people-centred development strategy”, focusing on eliminating poverty, income inequality, and corruption. Contrasting the PPP’s manifesto stressing infrastructure and attracting investments to create jobs, Norton would focus on “poverty”!!
To ensure its persistence??
…in high schools
You have to hand it to our youngsters in secondary schools – some of them at least. Your Eyewitness was informed that there are about 35 subjects on the CXC curriculum, and here it is – one kid from Queens wrote TWENTY-SEVEN of them – and passed them all!! Well, thank god it was only ONE who tried his feat. Last year, one of his schoolmates had also topped the country – and the Caribbean – when he sat for TWENTY NINE subjects and passed them all!!
Your Eyewitness – and 99% of the others who took CSEC – however, can retain a modicum of self-respect with the SEVEN subjects he managed back in the day since these 20+ subjects are still outliers!! Now your Eyewitness believes kids should always strive to be the very best they can be – and if pushing the envelope on the number of subjects written is the criteria, so be it!!
The numbers used to be driven by scholarships – but with the government doling those out like sweeties, it’s probably peaked.
…on loans
From recent reports in the press, it looks like we got a parallel banking system developing – with fellas in the gold trade loaning tens of millions. The problem is, they’re importing baseball bats to aid collections!!
