There are many pos­i­tive el­e­ments that have come out of the im­broglio sur­round­ing the state­ments made by for­mer chair­man of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, Nizam Mo­hammed, who was fired on Mon­day for fail­ing to per­form his du­ties in a re­spon­si­ble or time­ly fash­ion and for demon­strat­ing a lack of com­pe­tence to per­form his du­ties.First­ly, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar must be com­mend­ed for her strong and de­fin­i­tive con­dem­na­tion of the po­ten­tial­ly di­vi­sive state­ments made by Mr Mo­hammed.

The Prime Min­is­ter's com­ments, which came in a state­ment on the fourth day of the con­tro­ver­sy, were in keep­ing with the spir­it of uni­ty which led to her re­sound­ing vic­to­ry in the May 24, 2010 gen­er­al elec­tion.The state­ment from the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, said: "The Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly con­demns the state­ments made by Mr Nizam Mo­hammed, the Chair­man of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PSC) re­gard­ing the al­le­ga­tions of dis­crim­i­na­tion and the need for eth­nic bal­anc­ing with­in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice.

The five lead­ers that formed the po­lit­i­cal group­ing that brought this Gov­ern­ment to pow­er is the broad­est-based rep­re­sen­ta­tion ever held in this na­tion and the in­su­lar­i­ty prop­a­gat­ed by Mr Mo­hammed's reck­less and sense­less com­ments run against the very grain of the phi­los­o­phy that now gov­erns this coun­try."In­stead of recog­nis­ing his own in­tem­per­ate be­hav­iour-the ab­sence in his state­ment of any sem­blance of bal­ance, his fail­ure to ar­tic­u­late a ra­tio­nale for the im­bal­ance in the po­lice ser­vice ex­ec­u­tive-Mr Mo­hammed blamed oth­ers and as­cribed base mo­tives to them.

It is very in­ter­est­ing that while Mr Mo­hammed has sought to blame re­porters for the un­fold­ing of the con­tro­ver­sy, he has steered clear of as­crib­ing mo­tives to the Prime Min­is­ter who is­sued a very strong and ear­ly con­dem­na­tion of his state­ment and the man­ner of his mak­ing of it.It is al­so wor­thy of note that Mr Mo­hammed did not at­tach base mo­tives to Pres­i­dent Max Richards who de­liv­ered Mon­day's fi­nal judg­ment on his state­ment to the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee of the Par­lia­ment.This must be tes­ta­ment to the fact that both the Prime Min­is­ter and the Pres­i­dent act­ed with ma­tu­ri­ty and wis­dom in treat­ing with this mat­ter.

Both are to be com­mend­ed.One would have to as­sume that both the Prime Min­is­ter and the Pres­i­dent would have heard and even read the unedit­ed ver­sion of the state­ment made by the for­mer chair­man of the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion and would not come to their de­ter­mi­na­tion mere­ly on the ba­sis of what was re­port­ed in the me­dia.More­over, in the case of the Pres­i­dent, His Ex­cel­len­cy had the ben­e­fit of hav­ing a one-on-one con­ver­sa­tion with Mo­hammed and heard first-hand his de­fence of the state­ment.

If log­ic were to pre­vail, it would be ex­pect­ed that Mr Mo­hammed would have to come to the same con­clu­sion that he was the vic­tim of racist in­ter­pre­ta­tions of his state­ment by both the Prime Min­is­ter and the Pres­i­dent.The for­mer Speak­er of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives al­so chose to make him­self a vic­tim of un­named Cab­i­net mem­bers, pre­sum­ably those who said he should have been re­lieved of his po­si­tion be­cause of his wild out­bursts.

In Mo­hammed and un­doubt­ed­ly oth­ers who learnt their pol­i­tics un­der Bas­deo Pan­day, the cul­ture and po­lit­i­cal style of the founder of the UNC are alive, if not well. There were in­deed those with­in the Gov­ern­ment who did not con­demn Mo­hammed's tirade at the hear­ing of the JSC, but with the Prime Min­is­ter hav­ing spo­ken, they have to be pre­pared for the mo­ment to sub­merge their feel­ings know­ing that they run the risk of be­ing cen­sored, or worse, by the Prime Min­is­ter.