Court throws out racial hostility case against WPA’s Ogunseye

Last Updated on Saturday, 4 October 2025, 7:57 by Writer

A court has dismissed the case against Working People’s Alliance (WPA) co-leader Tacuma Ogunseye after more than two years that he was charged with exciting racial hostility during a public meeting.

Mr Ogunseye said Senior Magistrate Fabayo Azore upheld a no-case submission by defence lawyer Nigel Hughes.

Mr Hughes told Demerara Waves Online News that the magistrate’s grounds for agreeing with the no-case submission were that Mr Ogunseye had been speaking to African Guyanese and about the fact that African people were in the armed forces but there was no evidence to show that he excited racial hostility.

“But the content of his presentation was not targeted at any racial group and it’s a requirement of the (Racial Hostility) Act that to stir racial hostility, you have to direct the content of what you’re saying at a specific racial group,” the lawyer said.

He added that Magistrate Azore found that Mr Ogunseye spoke about the PPP (People’s Progressive Party) which is a political party rather than a racial group.

The magistrate also said that Mr Ogunseye’s remarks were made during the Local Government Elections period and that politicians are allowed some level of latitude, and that the politician had quoted what a foreign diplomat had said, as an observation, to him which could not be taken as his intention to stir up any form of racial hostility.

Word of the court’s decision to dismiss the case was greeted by a string of congratulations by WPA members, supporters and associates of Mr Ogunseye.

After surrendering to police in April 2023, Mr Ogunseye was charged with one count of attempting to excite racial hostility and granted GY$100,000 bail after pleading not guilty.

His remarks at a WPA public meeting in Buxton on March 9, 2023 had triggered a wave of condemnations from the government, private sector and sections of the religious community.

He had said that Afro-Guyanese needed to defend themselves against racial discrimination. “The government is clearly upset and afraid of the WPA and my call for an African uprising on the 12th of June and Guyanese resistance,” he had said.