For­mer Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has ac­cused Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of en­dors­ing the dis­tor­tion of his­to­ry and facts, af­ter she dis­missed as a “non-is­sue” her par­ty’s pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer’s con­tro­ver­sial re­marks about Dr Er­ic Williams.

On the 63rd an­niver­sary of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s in­de­pen­dence, Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer Dr Kirk Meighoo ig­nit­ed con­tro­ver­sy by chal­leng­ing the lega­cy of Dr Er­ic Williams, ar­gu­ing that his sta­tus as the “Fa­ther of the Na­tion” and first Prime Min­is­ter is a dis­tor­tion cre­at­ed by what he de­scribed as “PNM myths.”

Dr Meighoo ar­gued that be­cause the West In­dies Fed­er­a­tion ex­ist­ed be­tween 1958 and 1962, Dr Er­ic Williams was not tech­ni­cal­ly the na­tion’s first Prime Min­is­ter but in­stead served as Pre­mier of Trinidad and To­ba­go with­in the Fed­er­a­tion, where Bar­ba­dos’ Sir Grant­ley Adams held the post of Prime Min­is­ter. He fur­ther claimed that Williams could not be re­gard­ed as a sym­bol of Caribbean uni­ty, cit­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s with­draw­al from the Fed­er­a­tion, which trig­gered its even­tu­al col­lapse.

Fol­low­ing con­dem­na­tion for this state­ment, Guardian Me­dia reached out to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for a com­ment how­ev­er she dis­missed the ques­tion, say­ing the mat­ter was a “non is­sue”. She added that there are more press­ing con­cerns for the coun­try to ad­dress.

How­ev­er Dr Row­ley is tak­ing is­sue with that po­si­tion.

Post­ing on Face­book this morn­ing, the for­mer PM said, “‎It must be a non is­sue for her be­cause she fa­cil­i­tates the re­vis­ing of his­to­ry and facts. It might be a non is­sue for her but it is every­thing for the rest of us.”

Dr Row­ley added, “Dr. Williams de­vot­ed his life and sub­stan­tial in­tel­lect in­to mov­ing us from be­ing a colo­nial back­wa­ter in­to a re­spect­ed Re­pub­lic on the world stage. He gave many of our fam­i­lies the first en­try in­to the ed­u­ca­tion­al fa­cil­i­ties that set us on a path to re­al op­por­tu­ni­ty. He Moved tens of thou­sands out of hov­els and bar­racks in­to hous­es and man­sions.”

He went on to say that the Unit Trust to­day over­sees around 700 thou­sand ac­counts and many of them are owned by peo­ple who he posit­ed, “who may nev­er have had a dol­lar of sav­ings and who may nev­er have dreamt of shar­ing in the wealth of our lit­tle na­tion ,yet the in­grat­i­tude flows like pus out of many of the ben­e­fi­cia­ries.”

The For­mer PM added, “‎It might even be said at this junc­ture that those who ben­e­fit­ed the most are in­deed the most un­ap­pre­cia­tive and un­grate­ful.”

Yes­ter­day his­to­ri­ans, in­clud­ing Pro­fes­sor Claudius Fer­gus, have dis­missed Meighoo’s claims, not­ing that Trinidad and To­ba­go on­ly be­came in­de­pen­dent in 1962, mak­ing Dr Er­ic Williams its first Prime Min­is­ter. They ac­cused Meighoo of dis­tort­ing his­to­ry for po­lit­i­cal gain.