OPINION: Welcome back, brother Jagdeo (honestly)

Last Updated on Wednesday, 13 May 2026, 18:26 by Writer

By GHK Lall

They say that it’s Bharrat Jagdeo. There is only one. Looks like him. Words read like him. Sounds like his speech pattern, though unheard, personally. Limited to emergencies for the sake of well-being. Welcome back, Bharrat Jagdeo: brother, VP, GS, FP. Should any Guyanese think there is flattery involved, paving the way for a crossover, they don’t know me, doesn’t know him. Must be said again. Will take Bharrat Jagdeo once a quarter than Excellency Ali daily. The warning to Dr Jagdeo that he was creating a nightmare for Guyana in Dr Ali was scoffed at, ignored. Now look where Guyana is at, with what it got for a leader: a stage performer, a theater operator, a man good at reading lines, but pitiful at following them.

“No, the gas to the power plant is free. You can quote me on that. Gas to the power plant is free. We negotiated that a long time. We’ve been in the public domain as saying that the gas to come in – the 50 million cubic feet per day coming in to the power plant – is free. Nothing has changed since.” Free is fair, is right, is the best. Free is the way it must be, with no other way. Why pay for what belongs, is owned? No question that the vice president is quotable. It is why he was missed. No end of differences, disputes, and down home getting down in one wrestling match after another. In that little extract, he used “free” three times. Wouldn’t have believed (even if I saw him) that the PPP GS was a Bible-reading man. In that good book, three is used for emphasis. There he was: “the gas…is free. All “50 million cubic feet coming in to the power plant.” A word of advice for the FP, please line up IHS-Markit to count those cubit feet, one foot at a time. With the partners that Guyana landed, one never knows what these fine fellows learned over their decades in the oil and gas business, and now try such out on blindfolded, handcuffed, tongue-tied Guyana.

Jagdeo get the dirty jobs these days. He has to be the bad guy and give Exxon the bad news: the gas is free. No hijinks (six for nine). Pres Ali gets the smooching jobs, the ceremonials at which he gets better all the time. Like shaking hands and making speeches and promises that he cannot fulfill. Recall, my fellow Guyanese, the one about transparency. Well, there’s Dr. Jagdeo now back in the saddle who can make good on his own promise given during the elections’ ecstasies that ‘access to information will have to be looked at’ and shouldn’t be how it is and where it is. I want to see if it is the same ole Bharrat Jagdeo, or a new and improved one. Though the ole Jagdeo has its uses, Guyana needs a new and better Jagdeo. Look what it has had in his near half-year absence, cameos notwithstanding. A cowboy, a doughboy, a saga boy, and what Guyana call a ‘pitee poh bhai.’ Dr. Jagdeo is back in action, and with a few short days, a posse of PNC and AFC run over to his side. Now, that’s One Guyana, that’s the promised unity. No matter how faked, or forced.

There is Exxon marching across Guyana (and on Guyanese) as if the company owned it. Nobody in the PPP Govt is saying, ‘Hey, cut the foolishness! This is a partnership of equals, so cease with that old colonial-imperial arrogance!’ Guyana is not America’s 51st state; that’s for others, and their eye-catching US$40 trillion asset. Last, the world is in the era of the strongman. There’s Modi, there’s Xi, and Putin and Trump. Instead of a strongman, Guyana has the wrong man who is pretending to be a strongman. A genuine Xmas blow-blow, all aglow but utterly hollow.

Welcome back, brother Jagdeo (I mean it). Now let the games begin. Restart the fun.