Lennox Grant

I con­tribute this piece to present some con­text to an ar­ti­cle writ­ten re­cent­ly by one Fer­die Fer­reira in which he made dis­parag­ing re­marks about peo­ple in the PNM, in­clud­ing my­self. Over thir­ty years ago, Fer­die Fer­reira was ex­pelled from the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment by no less a per­son than Dr Er­ic Eu­stace Williams, the founder of the PNM. In 1973, Fer­reira pas­sion­ate­ly sup­port­ed Mr Karl Hud­son Phillip in his failed and in­glo­ri­ous at­tempt to se­cure the of­fice of po­lit­i­cal leader of the PNM. In the af­ter­math of Dr Williams' re­turn as leader, Fer­reira's cam­paign per­sist­ed as a full frontal at­tack on the PNM with a dogged, ruth­less and re­lent­less de­ter­mi­na­tion which had the ef­fect of un­der­min­ing the po­lit­i­cal leader and the lead­er­ship of the move­ment.

Dr Williams and the PNM, fed up of Fer­reira's in­dis­ci­pline and dis­rup­tive be­hav­iour pro­ceed­ed on a course of ac­tion which ef­fec­tive­ly de­clared Fer­reira per­sona non-gra­ta in the PNM. The then PNM wished to have noth­ing to do with Fer­die Fer­reira and wished that he would have noth­ing to do with it. Even to­day, Fer­reira still boasts of his ef­forts against Dr Williams, pro­claim­ing his pro­cliv­i­ty to re­peat his ac­tions against Dr Williams if again faced with a sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tion. He is still de­fi­ant and un­re­pen­tant.

It did not take Fer­reira too long to re­turn to ac­tive par­ty pol­i­tics. He, his long time col­league and po­lit­i­cal life­line Mr Hud­son Phillip, Su­ru­jrat­tan Ram­bachan and sev­er­al oth­ers found­ed the Or­gan­i­sa­tion for Na­tion­al Re­con­struc­tion. By now, Fer­reira was com­plete­ly ex­iled from the PNM. By his con­duct, he de­clared him­self an en­tire, to­tal and ab­solute po­lit­i­cal en­e­my of the PNM. His­to­ry will show that the ONR failed to win a seat in 1981. Fer­reira, lost, es­tranged and aban­doned, found him­self with­out po­lit­i­cal shel­ter and in no man's land. He re­mained in the wilder­ness for many years un­til a sym­pa­thet­ic and for­giv­ing Patrick Man­ning and the PNM af­ford­ed him a dry po­lit­i­cal space. Re­gret­tably, he had not changed.

Nev­er sat­is­fied with his stand­ing, al­ways as­pir­ing to be more in­flu­en­tial than he had thus far been al­lowed to be and, un­grate­ful in the ex­treme, Fer­reira found for him­self a role in which he was well prac­tised: at­tack­ing and un­der­min­ing a sit­ting po­lit­i­cal leader of the PNM. Per­haps he sees him­self as a king mak­er hop­ing the new­ly mint­ed king would favour him es­pe­cial­ly. In any event, what­ev­er his an­tic­i­pat­ed re­wards, Fer­reira be­came a po­lit­i­cal hit­man in the pe­ri­od post 2007. It ap­peared that his mis­sion was to at­tack, dis­fig­ure and de­stroy the im­age of the then prime min­is­ter and leader of the PNM, Mr Patrick Man­ning.

His spe­cial val­ue was the strat­e­gy he used to mar­ket him­self. He broad­cast and had him­self an­nounced on var­i­ous me­dia as "a found­ing mem­ber of the PNM". This was doubt­less in­tend­ed to af­ford him cred­i­bil­i­ty and au­thor­i­ty as though he were speak­ing with wis­dom and in the in­ter­est of the PNM. He pro­claimed his love for Dr Williams, not his in­sub­or­di­na­tion and sedi­tion in the par­ty. He avoid­ed his ex­pul­sion and en­mi­ty to­wards the PNM for many years of his che­quered and du­bi­ous po­lit­i­cal ca­reer. He failed to men­tion that he had spent 25 years open­ly at­tack­ing the PNM. He was now try­ing to rewrite his­to­ry and rein­vent him­self as be­ing some kind of PNM purist.

To this day, Fer­reira con­tin­ues his an­ti-Man­ning cam­paign. He nev­er says a word or makes an ap­pear­ance to ad­dress any is­sue of malfea­sance on the part of the UNC gov­ern­ment; but the minute Patrick Man­ning says any­thing, he awak­ens from his slum­ber to de­scribe the for­mer Prime Min­is­ter as de­ceit­ful and delu­sion­al. He ap­pears po­lit­i­cal­ly para­noid, po­lit­i­cal­ly un­sta­ble and ob­sessed with Mr Man­ning. Mr Man­ning's in­ter­ven­tions ap­pear to make him, like many UNC politi­cians, ner­vous, un­com­fort­able, threat­ened and trau­ma­tised. Fer­reira calls for Man­ning to leave the po­lit­i­cal ring hav­ing had 40 years in ac­tive pol­i­tics. For all 40 of those years Man­ning has been a loy­al ser­vant of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go and he has re­mained un­ques­tion­ably and stead­fast­ly loy­al to the PNM.

Fer­reira has pur­sued a ca­reer of dis­or­der­li­ness and mutiny with­in the par­ty. In­deed, Patrick Man­ning is a man the latch­et of whose shoe, Fer­die Fer­reira is un­wor­thy to un­tie. For my own part, I re­ject Fer­die Fer­reira out of hand. I re­ject him as a man with­out po­lit­i­cal in­tegri­ty. I re­ject him as speak­ing in the in­ter­est of the PNM. I con­demn his re­marks about Mr Patrick Man­ning and Mr Mar­i­ano Browne. The lat­ter's on­ly sin is that he com­mands more re­spect on mat­ters of eco­nom­ics and fi­nance in the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty than does Dr Lester Hen­ry. I call on all mem­bers of the PNM to de­fend the proud lega­cy of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment. If there is any­one who has over­stayed his wel­come and rel­e­vance in pub­lic life, I humbly sug­gest that Mr Fer­reira take a good look at him­self.