OPINION: Mohamed proving others wrong, making the govt look bad

Last Updated on Saturday, 7 February 2026, 20:51 by Writer

By GHK Lall

They said he couldn’t talk. He spoke. Proved them wrong. Hostiles said he didn’t know what he was about, that his head is hard. Indeed, his head is hard, which is why he’s still around, makes fools of his detractors. Others persisted through an approach from the opposite direction: his head is too soft, i.e., only so much that he would understand, unlikely to make use of whatever was gleaned, if anything. Hard head or soft head, and it is same man without any kind of head to talk about, who made his stalkers and oppressors look pathetic and impotent. The blinding, inspiring, eloquence of Sir Winston Churchill, or the flowing, slashing resonance of John F. Kennedy, are not his to own, or to claim. But he made the lawyers and doctors, and those who make up the numbers, on the PPP side of the once fabled aisles of the National Assembly, grope for proper responses, feel their way gingerly around him. Vice President, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, a politician with all the answers (to a point, and of a sort) took the smart way out. Though listed, he called in indisposed, the bell unanswered. The man on whom the spotlight shone has that effect on some, especially those with whom he had a long business history. The man of the moment as the 2026 national budget wound down was the man from, We Invest in Nationhood, Azruddin Mohamed. I think he showed up, then showed them up. Despite all the traps laid for him before parliament. Notwithstanding the holes dug to prevent him from getting into parliament. Never mind the human obstacles that were waiting right inside there to put him to his place, and to rush him out of that hallowed space.

My intel is that he’s someone into a lot of self-love, an ego bigger than his head, the swagger of his stride. He will learn, or better had. He may fancy himself Aurangzeb of India. He does well to recall Anwar of Egypt. He cannot afford to slip, or he will get slapped down. I would. He doesn’t have a honeymoon. He has nothing. Whatever he gets, he must earn. There is sympathy for an underdog. But his record is of having run with curs. Wild, rabid beasts. They hound him now, every step, every street. He has held up well, so far. For the record: they said that a man like Mohamed doesn’t know, wouldn’t know, about comportment and deportment. Yet this man who is trying to find his parliamentary feet had to introduce decorum to those there long before him. Instructive how the decorous and indecorous have swapped roles in Guyana, in the people’s house. Does anyone enter his or her mother’s house and fool around, bring her into disrepute?

The lawman went straight, then he went low, something he must shake. Answers needed on financial crimes, due to Mohamed’s alleged involvement. An officer of the court setting up his own court outside of the court. Still, a fair question, but one on which the PPP Govt should have set the standard with its own answers involving its own with different crimes, as alleged. Ministers. One permanent secretary. Another public servant with property ownership in New York. The man from WIN took a page out of the PPP’s book: silence. He has learned well from his long association with the PPP, as government, in opposition. Suspicion, speculation, can have their day.

The moneyman went high, stayed high. Mr. Mohamed must prove himself in court. Good! The PPP moneyman articulated the “greatest respect” for Mohamed. Better! Guyanese could be left “high and dry” and “poor innocent people” shouldn’t be used to save self. What a song the singer sang. When men and women in the PPP Govt find heart, conscience, to be about poor Guyanese, it is time for me to find another calling.

It is a new and different Azruddin Mohamed. The more the PPP tried to upset his balance, the more his feet were grounded. The more they heckled him, the more patient he became, as though dealing with juveniles, imbeciles, and human reptiles. The day that I allow anyone to disparage me like that, that’s the day that I sign out from this planet. Azruddin Mohamed did more than stand his ground in parliament. He stood above the PPP. He showed that he belongs. I understand why the PPP hustles to run him out of town.