Sto­ry by KEVON FELMINE (kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt)

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley is deny­ing that he in­vit­ed Ja­maat Al Mus­limeen PRO, Fuad Abu Bakr, to join the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM)

In fact, Row­ley said he could not re­call the last time he spoke to Abu Bakr, who at­tempt­ed to screen as a po­ten­tial PNM can­di­date for the Port-of-Spain South Con­stituen­cy last Thurs­day.

In a Face­book post, Row­ley said:

"Just for the ben­e­fit of the read­ers, per­mit me to state that I can’t re­mem­ber the last time I spoke to the gen­tle­man and most cer­tain­ly have nev­er in­vit­ed him in­to the PNM, far less through a back door which is zeal­ous­ly and heav­i­ly guard­ed by the ar­ti­cles of the par­ty’s con­sti­tu­tion.

It is good to see him show­ing an in­ter­est in join­ing the PNM and want­i­ng to do na­tion­al ser­vice, but in go­ing about it in this bizarre way, he has caused me to in­struct the Par­ty’s Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary to thank him for the in­ter­est shown and en­close a copy of the PNM's Con­sti­tu­tion with the rel­e­vant sec­tions on mem­ber­ship, the screen­ing process and can­di­date se­lec­tion du­ly high­light­ed for ease of ref­er­ence."

On Sun­day, Abu Bakr told Guardian Me­dia that he dis­cussed rep­re­sent­ing the PNM in the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tions with Row­ley, who ap­point­ed Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein to act as a li­ai­son. Abu Bakr said he rec­om­mend­ed uni­ver­si­ty lec­tur­er David Muham­mad for the Laven­tille West seat. How­ev­er, when Abu Bakr showed up for the screen­ing, the com­mit­tee told him that he did not have the nec­es­sary pa­per­work to be screened. He has since re­signed from the PNM and re­gained the lead­er­ship of his New Na­tion­al Vi­sion par­ty, which plans to con­test 21 seats in the up­com­ing elec­tions.

Fuad: He spoke to my fa­ther last Tues­day

In re­sponse to Row­ley's state­ment this morn­ing, Abu Bakr said that with the many re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of the Prime Min­is­ter, he did not be­lieve those were his ac­tu­al words. Speak­ing on CNC3's The Morn­ing Brew (TMB), Abu Bakr said it could have been some­one writ­ing on Row­ley's be­half.

"It is very amus­ing. I thank him for send­ing some doc­u­ments from his par­ty in terms of reg­is­tra­tion and mem­ber­ship. Thank you very much. I know that the process that he is speak­ing about now is not al­ways fol­lowed, so that is very fun­ny. I do not even take it as a con­de­scend­ing re­sponse be­cause I don't think he would be con­de­scend­ing to the youth of Trinidad and To­ba­go," Abu Bakr said.

As a youth ad­vo­cate, he said they want to be heard and par­tic­i­pate in the gov­er­nance process.

Asked whether he was told that he would get to con­test the Port-of-Spain South con­stituen­cy for the PNM, he asked TMB host Hema Ramkissoon whether she knew him as an in­sane or delu­sion­al per­son. He said his fa­ther was the ac­tu­al per­son who spoke to Row­ley in per­son and they were in­vit­ed to get in­volved with the PNM.

"There have been rep­re­sen­ta­tions and com­mu­ni­ca­tions be­tween my­self and my fa­ther with the Prime Min­is­ter for a lengthy pe­ri­od of time, about three or four months. My fa­ther last met with the Prime Min­is­ter. I en­sured that I took notes to say the ex­act time and the ex­act place. On last week Tues­day at his con­stituen­cy of­fice in Diego Mar­tin West, Care­nage to be spe­cif­ic, around 12 o'clock. He went to speak to the Prime Min­is­ter—at his re­quest—to talk about up­com­ing elec­tions and how we, be­cause I rep­re­sent the New Na­tion­al Vi­sion which has the sup­port of a lot of peo­ple, but part of that sup­port is from Ja­maat Al Mus­limeen, the many men and women who live in this west­ern area and spread across Trinidad and To­ba­go."

He said the PNM want­ed sup­port from the East-West Cor­ri­dor as they be­lieve this will be a close elec­tion. He said those who know T&T's po­lit­i­cal his­to­ry knows that his fa­ther, Yasin Abu Bakr, head of the Ja­maat Al Mus­limeen, help for­mer prime min­is­ters Patrick Man­ning and Bas­deo Pan­day win elec­tions.