Tobago Correspondent
Tobago People’s Party (TPP) leader Farley Augustine says the political career of his former ally Watson Duke is over and he’s ready to bury it on April 28.
Speaking at a political meeting in Castara, Augustine said while he still respects Duke, the leader of the Progressive Democratic Patriots (PDP), as a person, his time in politics is finished.
“I am very much conscious that God has already outed the light on his political career and come the 28th of April, we have to bury him and bury him dead because there is no place here,” he said.
In the 2021 THA election, the PDP scored a 14-1 victory over the PNM, disrupting a 21-year reign. However, in less than a year, there was a fallout between Duke and Augustine. The entire THA executive resigned from the PDP and later formed the TPP.
Augustine said the TPP was born after Duke pushed out the same people who helped him build the PDP.
“We don’t forget how he put we out, how you cuss we, how you say is your party, and what you say goes, and that we must not have an opinion,” he said
On social media recently, Duke linked the TPP logo to evil elements. Augustine denied this and said the inspiration came from a man he knew who drew the anchor in the sand.
“So when I see the same madman some night going on TikTok, trying to reduce our symbol to witchcraft, I want to say to him, the only witchcraft I know is ungratefulness, and he’s the epitome of ungratefulness and the Bible says ungratefulness worse than witchcraft,” he declared.
Augustine said when Duke declared the PDP his own he didn’t realise that “all the oil in the coil was leaving.”
He added: “And what he didn’t realize is when the pitch oil leaves the bullifay can’t light. I realize he has aligned himself with the PNM, but the balisier can’t light bullifay and we continue to stand on the side of oil, and in scripture, oil represents truth.”
Augustine while he would still greet Duke in public, he is no longer relevant to Tobago’s political future.
He said the split with Duke happened because he chose Tobago over party.
“The great falling out happen because I have a firm position that it must be Tobago over party every single time, not sometimes, not when you feel like, but every single time it has to be Tobago over party.”