Letters & Opinion, Politics

The Sacrificial Lamb Revisited

Image of Dr. Velon John

BY DR VELON JOHN

WITH the seemingly obdurate position taken by the Parliamentary Opposition in relation to the election of a Deputy Speaker, the government is in a predicament which it could have avoided, and which was not necessary. With its 11-6 majority in the House would it have vitiated its executive and legislative potency and possibilities as a government, if it had elected one of its members as Deputy Speaker? The answer is a categorical no.

For the government to keep on lacerating itself with the point that “the House shall elect”, is from a certain perspective masochistic and agrumentatively specious. What is the purpose of the House? My answer is to initiate, define and execute government business which essentially is the people’s business. And in the House there are the two sides, contextually speaking, who play their various roles or assume their various thespian postures in the drama or sometimes tragedy of governance.

The House elects: but who is the Leader of government business in the House? Is it the Prime Minister or the Leader of the Opposition? The process in the House is not a free for all. There are particular responsibilities that devolve upon the Prime MInister as Leader of government business and upon the Leader of the Opposition as only Leader of the Opposition. And so in relation to the election of the Deputy Speaker there is a logical, pragmatic, bureaucratic and executive reason for the Prime Minister to initiate the mundane process of electing a Deputy Speaker. I am aware of the Speaker’s role. The position of Leader of Government Business is particularised, personalised and reposes in the Prime Minister and not in the general body of the majority. And so the people of this country must look to the Prime MInister to resolve this ongoing issue as the buck, as we have heard so many times ad nauseum, stops at his desk.

If he assumes that responsibilty, as he should, he cannot set about the process of electing a Deputy Speaker according to his temporal whims and fancies. He cannot further lacerate himself on his convenient interpretation of the term” as soon as convenient”. Section 36(1) of our Constitution reads in part, the House shall as soon as convenient elect another member of the House”…. The “convenience” alluded to cannot be a contrived, spurious, factitious and opportunistic. It has to be grounded in the natural order of things and has a certain immanent legitimacy and validity.

When the opposition states that it cannot provide a member for the position of Deputy Leader as this would decrease and weaken its voting power in the House, that reason falls within this latter category, and is in conformity with the tradition in this honourable House; hence its perreniality, universality and longevity. As I see it the opposition has a choice and it is a choice that would subvert its voting potency. What if there is a rebellion within the ranks of the majority? That “one” vote of the opposition could determine who the next Prime Minister will be.

“Convenience” on the government side circumscribes what? It circumscribes a decision that could be seen as remarkable. It is a decision that clothes its elected members in ministerial garb and thus creating a sartorial debacle. Nudity in terms of “one” must be the order of the day; and is the solution.

According to information transmitted, the Speaker at the last sitting of the House (16/8/16) stated that at the next or subsequent meeting of the House she wants her Deputy Speaker present. If that is indeed the case who will be the “sacrificial lamb”?

With the obduracy of the opposition on one hand and the convenience of the government we have what may be termed as the theatre of the absurd.

Instructively the term ejusdem generis was prefixed by the word “liberal”. WHY ???

6 Comments

  1. Wow, such elite erudite analysis tend to lacerate my brain on a Sunday morning but the brain needs stimulation at least once a week.

  2. A sound and brilliant presentation of information by Velon, leaving the envious simpletons like Neville Cenac mentally incapacitated and overwhelmed with fits of emotionalism.

    But truly folk, do you seriously expect much from the minds of individuals who were given a religion of White Supremacy during Slavery by the Evil Caucasian Christian, who raped, whipped, and murdered in the name of Jesus??

    Such mis-educated Negroes believe the Earth is Flat, that the Creator and owner of the trillions of Galaxies and all that is between them, had to kill himself to pay Lucifer for our freedom.

    So this All- powerful God had to become a Caucasian and beaten to death to gush blood eternally, to be drunk by these mindless Negroes like Neville Cenac who pray to dead people and have their wives and daughters kneel at the feet of this Naked Caucasian to beg him for help, while he urinates blood on their mouths and faces.

    Look at the use of the Bible pinned to the Slaver, as he raped you mothers.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ks6UPNad3dg

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  3. And now you have the white supremacist mule, Peter Josie, still apologising for his white Gods by telling us that this wickedest act slavery was necessary. This man is the biggest betrayer of his people who ever lived. I tell you Judas is an angel I relation to Josie.

  4. /

    Surah Ya-Seen
    In the name of Allah Most Gracious Most Merciful.

    And they say: When will this promise be fulfilled, if ye are truthful? (48) 

    They await but one Shout, which will surprise them while they are disputing. (49)

     Then they cannot make bequest, nor can they return to their own folk. (50) 

    And the trumpet is blown and lo! from the graves they hie unto their Lord, (51) 

    Crying: Woe upon us! Who hath raised us from our place of sleep? This is that which the Beneficent did promise, and the messengers spoke truth. (52) 

    It is but one Shout, and behold them brought together before Us! (53) 

    This day no soul is wronged in aught; nor are ye requited aught save what ye used to do. (54) 

    Lo! those who merit paradise this day are happily employed, (55) 

    They and their wives, in pleasant shade, on thrones reclining; (56) 

    Theirs the fruit (of their good deeds) and theirs (all) that they ask; (57) 

    The word from a Merciful Lord (for them) is: Peace! (58) 

    /

  5. But avaunt ye, O ye guilty, this day! (59) 

    Did I not charge you, O ye sons of Adam, that ye worship not the devil – Lo! he is your open foe! – (60) 

    But that ye worship Me? That was the right path. (61)  

    Yet he hath led astray of you a great multitude. Had ye then no sense? (62) 

    This is hell which ye were promised (if ye followed him). (63) 

    Burn therein this day for that ye disbelieved. (64) 

    This day We seal up their mouths, and their hands speak out to Us and their feet bear witness as to what they used to earn. (65) 

    And had We willed, We verily could have quenched their eyesight so that they should struggle for the way. Then how could they have seen? (66) 

    And had We willed, We verily could have fixed them in their place, making them powerless to go forward or turn back. (67) 

    He whom we bring unto old age, We reverse him in creation (making him go back to weakness after strength). Have ye then no sense? (68) 

    And We have not taught him (Muhammad) poetry, nor is it meet for him. This is naught else than a Reminder and a Lecture making plain, (69) 

    To warn whosoever liveth, and that the word may be fulfilled against the disbelievers. (70)

    Have they not seen how We have created for them of Our handiwork the cattle, so that they are their owners, (71) 

    And have subdued them unto them, so that some of them they have for riding, some for food? (72) 

    Benefits and (divers) drinks have they from them. Will they not then give thanks? (73) 

    And they have taken (other) gods beside Allah, in order that they may be helped. (74) 

    It is not in their power to help them; but they (the worshippers) are unto them a host in arms. (75)

     So let not their speech grieve thee (O Muhammad). Lo! We know what they conceal and what proclaim. (76) 

    Hath not man seen that We have created him from a drop of seed? Yet lo! he is an open opponent. (77) 

    And he hath coined for Us a similitude, and hath forgotten the fact of his creation, saying: Who will revive these bones when they have rotted away? (78) 

    Say: He will revive them Who produced them at the first, for He is Knower of every creation, (79) 

    Who hath appointed for you fire from the green tree, and behold! ye kindle from it. (80) 

    Is not He Who created the heavens and the earth Able to create the like of them? Aye, that He is! for He is the All-Wise Creator, (81) 

    But His command, when He intendeth a thing, is only that he saith unto it: Be! and it is. (82) 

    Therefore glory be to Him in Whose hand is the dominion over all things! Unto Him ye will be brought back. (83) 

  6. What’s the point of an article if the majority of persons cannot understand the underlying argument. It is a sign of maturity for a writer to cater to his audience as opposed to show-off scholarship and supposed brilliance through vocabulary.

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