by Samp­son Nan­ton

Deputy Man­ag­ing Ed­i­tor

For­mer Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) chair­man Jack Warn­er, 80, has made his re­turn speech to UNC sup­port­ers, telling them he in­tends to dis­man­tle his po­lit­i­cal par­ty, the In­de­pen­dent Lib­er­al Par­ty (ILP), to bring sup­port­ers back to the UNC.

Warn­er re­ceived thun­der­ous ap­plause dur­ing a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing Mon­day night at the Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence, vow­ing to put his all in­to a fight against the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) gov­ern­ment as he la­belled UNC po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar the "Nel­son Man­dela of lo­cal pol­i­tics" for what he saw as her vi­sion for uni­ty.

He told sup­port­ers that, giv­en the re­cep­tion he re­ceived there, he was won­der­ing why he wasn't back with them long be­fore.

"Tonight, I am here by choice. We come to­geth­er to fight the com­mon en­e­my. Noth­ing is gained by di­vi­sion. This coun­try is head­ing down in­to an abyss quick­ly, and our col­lec­tive ef­forts must be brought to­geth­er to save this coun­try," Warn­er said.

Warn­er had stepped down as the UNC chair­man and mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Ch­agua­nas West in April 2013 and had fought a bit­ter bat­tle against the UNC with his ILP par­ty. In a by-elec­tion on Ju­ly 29, 2013, he con­test­ed the UNC strong­hold of Ch­agua­nas West as an ILP can­di­date and de­feat­ed the UNC's Khadi­jah Ameen, gain­ing more than twice the num­ber of votes the UNC re­ceived. Iron­i­cal­ly, it was Ameen who was de­liv­er­ing an ad­dress at the time Warn­er made a tri­umphant en­trance to the wav­ing of flags and blow­ing of whis­tles and horns, mo­ments af­ter UNC po­lit­i­cal leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar had made her en­trance.

Since leav­ing the UNC, Warn­er and Per­sad-Bisses­sar had trad­ed vi­cious crit­i­cism un­til they unit­ed at a Car­ni­val event in Feb­ru­ary this year.

At the meet­ing on Mon­day night, how­ev­er, Warn­er re­mind­ed the crowd of what South African free­dom fight­er Nel­son Man­dela had ex­pe­ri­enced dur­ing 27 years in prison be­fore go­ing on to be­come pres­i­dent of the coun­try with a vi­sion of uni­ty among whites and blacks.

He said the rea­son for that was be­cause Man­dela had said, "Love and uni­ty must heal my coun­try."

"And tonight...I say Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is the Man­dela of lo­cal pol­i­tics, and that's why I am here."

ILP founder Jack Warner, left, UNC leader Kamla Persad Bissessar and NTA Political leader Gary Griffith sit together at the UNC’s public meeting at the Centre of Excellence, Macoya, Mondaynight.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

"Many per­sons have asked me why I'm com­ing to this meet­ing (say­ing), 'But Jack Warn­er, you mad, you and Kam­la again, and a whole amount of garbage. But those are the very same peo­ple who would spend day and night crit­i­cis­ing (Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th) Row­ley and the PNM but would stay on the fence and do noth­ing about it. I am here to do some­thing about it," he said.

Dressed in a yel­low shirt with not UNC badge, Warn­er said he didn't want to go to the meet­ing with a shirt marked 'UNC' un­til he had earned the right to do so.

He added, "And I will tell you this be­cause I am aware that there are some per­sons who will be in a par­ty at 8 am and be em­braced by the prime min­is­ter at noon. Oth­ers will see a cheque for $150,000 and will leave just so. I will come and work with UNC and NTA (Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance) and earn my dues."

"When I earn my dues, I will con­vene a meet­ing with the ILP and dis­band it. The ILP has to be for­mal­ly rein­te­grat­ed with the UNC. We are one fam­i­ly, one fam­i­ly, one fam­i­ly," Warn­er shout­ed.

Warn­er, who is cur­rent­ly bat­tling ex­tra­di­tion pro­ceed­ings in court as he's fac­ing pros­e­cu­tion in the Unit­ed States on mon­ey laun­der­ing and wire-trans­fer charges linked to his tenure as vice-pres­i­dent of the world gov­ern­ing foot­ball body, FI­FA, told sup­port­ers that the youngest and bright­est "are leav­ing the coun­try, un­em­ploy­ment is high and crime is a run­away".

"And I ask my­self, what can we do to solve it?"

He told sup­port­ers that they have among them the best com­mis­sion­er of po­lice this coun­try has ever seen, in NTA po­lit­i­cal leader Gary Grif­fith.

He added, "We have among us the best min­is­ter of works and trans­port this coun­try has ever seen," as he point­ed to him­self.

He al­so point­ed to him­self as he told sup­port­ers that they al­so had among them the best na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter this coun­try has ever seen.

"And with Gary and my­self and the best prime min­is­ter this coun­try has ever seen, you have no cause for fear, and that is why on Au­gust the 14th, I'm ask­ing you to come out in your num­bers. Don't tote, vote!"

ILP founder Jack Warner, speaks during the UNC’s public meeting at the Centre of Excellence, Macoya, on Monday.

ABRAHAM DIAZ

Speak­ing at the meet­ing af­ter Warn­er, Per­sad-Bisses­sar of­fered him the UNC badge say­ing he had al­ready earned it.

She said Warn­er had asked for noth­ing on his re­turn to the par­ty, on­ly to unite the peo­ple.

Ex­tra­di­tion pro­ceed­ings against Warn­er are cur­rent­ly stayed at the Mag­is­trates' Court af­ter Warn­er, in late June, was suc­cess­ful in his lat­est le­gal chal­lenge against the ex­tra­di­tion by hav­ing the court re­fer sev­er­al ques­tions raised by him re­gard­ing his con­sti­tu­tion­al rights sent to the High Court for de­ter­mi­na­tion.

In No­vem­ber of last year, the Privy Coun­cil in Lon­don, Eng­land, cleared the way for the ex­tra­di­tion pro­ceed­ings to re­sume be­fore Chief Mag­is­trate Maria Bus­by-Ear­le-Cad­dle at the Port of Spain Court.

But with him be­ing suc­cess­ful in his ap­pli­ca­tion, the re­sump­tion of the pro­ceed­ings will be pro­longed un­til at least the High Court makes its de­ter­mi­na­tion.