Nass­er Khan

Trinidad and To­ba­go re­cent­ly cel­e­brat­ed 59 years of In­de­pen­dence on Au­gust 31, due to the con­cert­ed ef­forts of Dr Er­ic Williams and his com­mit­tee lead­ing up to that date in 1962. We are now cel­e­brat­ing our at­tain­ment of the sta­tus as a Re­pub­lic, 45 years ago on Au­gust 1, 1976, an oc­ca­sion that we cel­e­brate to­day Sep­tem­ber 24, again due to the con­cert­ed ef­forts of Dr Er­ic Williams and the then gov­ern­ment.

Trinidad and To­ba­go be­came a Re­pub­lic on Au­gust 1, 1976. The event is cel­e­brat­ed as a pub­lic hol­i­day on Sep­tem­ber 24 be­cause this is the date when the first Par­lia­ment met un­der the new Re­pub­li­can Con­sti­tu­tion. It meant that from that date in 1976, T&T no longer owed al­le­giance to the Queen of Eng­land but would have its own Head of State, the Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic.

The con­ver­sion of the for­mer Con­sti­tu­tion from its char­ac­ter as an Or­der in Coun­cil of the Queen in­to that of an in­dige­nous in­stru­ment of gov­ern­ment fash­ioned by cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go, was ef­fect­ed by the Par­lia­ment en­act­ing the Con­sti­tu­tion of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go Act, 1976.

Be­ing a Re­pub­lic na­tion means the supreme pow­er rests in all the cit­i­zens who are en­ti­tled to vote (the elec­torate) and that pow­er is ex­er­cised by rep­re­sen­ta­tives elect­ed, di­rect­ly or in­di­rect­ly, by them and who are re­spon­si­ble to them.

When T&T be­came a Re­pub­lic Sir El­lis Clarke served as the na­tion’s first Pres­i­dent, fol­lowed by Noor Has­sanali, ANR Robin­son, George M Richards, Thomas A Car­mona and cur­rent­ly Paula-Mae Weekes.

Though­out our his­to­ry though many have served and con­tributed here at home—he­roes, pi­o­neers and role mod­els in our na­tion’s his­to­ry in their var­i­ous spheres of en­deav­our. It is im­por­tant that, par­tic­u­lar­ly our young peo­ple, learn about, ap­pre­ci­ate and be in­spired by their con­tri­bu­tions. Em­pha­sis is placed on those who have spent part of their lives in T&T con­tribut­ing to our coun­try’s de­vel­op­ment and en­rich­ment as a na­tion. His­to­ry if not record­ed will be lost to time. Here are just some, pro­files all of whom and more can be ob­tained from the free e-book down­load at http://epub. sa­faripub­li­ca­tions. com/pro­files/: