OPINION: Oil leaders with guts, testicles needed

Last Updated on Tuesday, 24 December 2024, 8:43 by Denis Chabrol

By GHK Lall

Clueless.  Hapless.  Listless.  Voiceless.  Ladies and gentlemen of Guyana, those four small words that everyone understands represent the substance of oil leadership in this country.  Here is one way to assess the situation: a fisherman with a hungry family catches a huge shark, but he is clueless about how to make the best use of his much-needed, timely prize.  There is muscle and gristle for all in the family, with much left back, but he is listless in his energies to haul his catch to shore.  There is the voiceless in that one or the other leaders in Guyana is resistant to ideas on how to maximize the potential in his net, his hand.  In sum, the great Guyana oil patrimony has reduced all four of Guyana’s top political heads to that hapless circumstance: holding a tiger by the tail.  It is fitting: Exxon (the old Esso) puts a tiger in the tanks of Guyana’s leaders, and left them with this message: good luck!  Make the best of a bad situation.

It is clear that I am venturing into a thornbush patch.  In this age of oil, the vision, the call, is for a nationalistic leader.  Guyanese got the diplomatic; four of them.  One, two, three, four, the language of all four of them scrapes the floor.  The British perfected the art of dry understatement, created a respected science.  Guyanese leaders delight in outdoing one another with underrepresentation.  It is as though Exxon has set a limit about what they can speak, then how much.  Look at them thoughtfully, kindly.  They stand like strawmen, then collapse like a pile of wet noodles.  Their tongues are tangled, when doing something about this oil wealth today is pushed as a priority.  What is not garbled, sounds like the usual old gaff, some stale story.  Expect more in a few years.  Anticipate movement within 100 days of assuming office.  Another bright bulb has compressed all the complexities and subtleties of national oil stewardship into one word: sanctity.  Thus, a sworn duty has distilled to this state of utter pity.

Exxon has virtually guaranteed itself the Superbowl for years to come from Guyana’s oil.  For their part, Guyana’s leaders are content to stand on the sidelines and join in the global cheering of Exxon.  That is, when two of the four, are not hollering and jumping up and down on stubborn Guyanese to mash them into a pulp.  The stubborn are those calling out and leaning on their leaders do be bold and nationalist in their veins: Guyana must renegotiate, force Exxon to that place of contract understanding.  Guyana must ringfence number seven and number eight oil projects, and set the benchmark for all the ones that will emerge in time.  Guyana must collect taxes, and Exxon must pay its fair share.  Guyana must get spill protection, and it is not capped at that insulting US$2 billion.

Guyanese need an oil leader with guts and it not any of these four who choose their words, as though they are paying for the privilege of speech.  Guyanese need leaders with guts to stand in the face of Darren Woods and Alistair Routledge and tell them a few things.  There is no superior partner here.  There is no oil superpower present that is recognized here.  And there is no American Superman who will be allowed to make parrots or mice (or snails) of the Guyanese men who have been saddled with the call of leadership.  This is 2025 and not 2016.  Stand up like men.  Talk like men.  Walk like men who are national oil leaders.  Be done with this touchy-feely, warm and fuzzy, way of speaking about this oil.

Exxon’s Woods and Routledge are all business with their clinical Caucasian visions of what enriches their treasure chests, their people.  Ali, Jagdeo, Norton, and Hughes must show that they have the testicles to fight for Indians, Africans and Amerindians, and all others including Venezuelans, Cubans and Haitians who make Guyana their dream.  If they must go down fighting, at least they gave of their best, and not this trash that they have come to represent and project.  I guarantee them that they will not be alone.  If only there is one Guyanese who will stand right by their side, they already know his name.

I am angry that the white man comes here, allegedly steals our treasure, and makes fawning caricatures of Guyanese leaders while doing so.  I am incensed that John Hess could derogate what Guyanese are doing for a fair share of their wealth as so much “noise.”  But I am yet more galvanized into wrath that Irfaan Ali and Bharrat Jagdeo could wear sickly grins on their faces when such an insult is hurled at the citizens of this country.  I don’t give a damn that I become a marked man in the minds of the carpetbaggers and the local scalawags who reap their sweet harvests from the Guyanese people oil.  For my lesser exposed brothers and sisters, carpetbaggers are those who come to feast like pigs over a carcass; scalawags are the Guyanese who kneel before them, and say plunder away.  But, let us into the action.

When oil should make Guyana’s leaders swagger, they stagger and mumble, like drunks.  Oil must electrify Guyanese leaders to stand before any man, from Trump to Woods, and remark in his face: cut Guyana in, or cut Exxon out.  The oil wealth sharing must be a two-way street, not this one-sided hemorrhage.  One last time: brothers Ali, Jagdeo, Norton, and Hughes, don’t be some maharajah looking out for own interests, or some African chief selling out his own people.  Get up, stand up, talk the oil talk, then walk it.  Merry Christmas to all four.