The Tribune

Jerome’s in the House, watch your mouth

ONCE again it pains me to have to make fun of my St Andrew’s schoolmate and former prefect, Minister of Education and Marathon MP the honourable Mr Jerome Fitzgerald.

However, when you give certain nuggets to the world you make my job far too easy as a comedian!

Recently Minister Fitzgerald gave us this nugget: “Furthermore, I wish to make it abundantly clear to Dr Minnis that the idea of building more schools is futile without the necessary foundation which is not a physical structure but the Bahamas does not have a challenge of overcrowding in our schools.”

Seriously? Really? Wait a minute, based on research?

The same “research” that tries to makeover the annual D and E average results? The same horrid national GPA that has haunted Mr Fitzgerald since day one in his capacity as Minister of Education? The same abysmal National GPA that has not improved without the use of semantics over the same four-year period?

Mr Fitzgerald needs to stop talking and breathe. Maybe, with a clear head, Mr Fitzgerald may realise before we get to those ever important data-driven decisions and programmes based on research. Shouldn’t Johnny have been able to read and write first?

Sadly, one glimpse at any government school campus and the only thing the schoolgrounds indicate are that we are training the students for prison rather than tertiary education.

On another note, it doesn’t surprise me in the least that Mr Fitzgerald resorts to hypocrisy or has spells of temporary amnesia conveniently while making the rounds on the talk show circuit. His continued jabs at former FNM senator John Bostwick, referring to the young ‘Born Free Nationalist’ as ‘convict’ led me to believe that Fitzgerald also suffers from short term memory loss obviously, seeing how his alleged campaign general was convicted and served a sentence for drug possession.

How quickly we forget, Mr Fitzgerald.

Pay the cost to be the boss

The leadership contest for the Free National Movement is starting to shape up. So far, FNM delegates have been presented with a choice to keep Dr Hubert Minnis and his deputy Peter Turnquest or give the recently announced Loretta Butler-Turner and Dr Duane Sands’ ticket a chance.

To the politically uninitiated, the upcoming FNM convention looks, on the surface, to be a re-run of the leadership struggle of 2014. But dig a little deeper and you can already see the makings of a great tragicomedy on the horizon.

For starters, we have FNM MP Andre Rollins, who just got invited into the party about two weeks ago, already tapping out. If Minnis wins, Rollins says he will pack up his georgie bundle and not seek a nomination. Apparently he would rather kick rocks than ‘Roc wit Doc’.

And, as if realising his own threatened political departure barely registered as a blip on the radar, Rollins decided that should the Butler and Sands ticket fail, the other members of the so-called ‘gang of six’ should all go down with him. They, too, should be denied nominations, according to unofficial group spokesman Rollins (that’s comical in its own right, anybody allowing Rollins to speak for them).

To cement the all-or-nothing theme building up in the FNM pre-convention, Dr Sands also said he will resign from the Senate if he and Butler-Turner are unsuccessful. Even though he was sworn in all of two minutes ago. Yes, it’s that serious in the FNM.

Frankly, the build up to this convention is a source of endless jokes.

Have you ever been invited to a group dinner party at a high-end restaurant where everyone is eating, singing, drinking and dancing and having a good time without a care in the world? Well, the FNM doesn’t throw those kinds of parties.

The FNM throws parties where everyone eats, sings, orders Ace of Spades and has a good old time right up until the cheque comes. That’s when the some of the revellers either start “playing crazy”, sneak out the side door, look to the “rich person” at the table to “cover erryting” or pull out pocket calculators to tabulate their exact portion. I’m not saying the FNM party is completely broke, but there is a high probability someone may be washing dishes at the end of convention night at Melia.

So to summarise, if Minnis wins at convention, there will be a very awkward scenario in the House of Assembly on the opposition side as the majority of MPs will basically be free agents for the next 10 months; a senate seat will become available (again); there will be an outstanding massive banquet bill the party can ill afford apparently. Plus there’s been no word yet on whether former PM Hubert Ingraham will enter the fray.

I can spend time wondering about how the FNM got into such dire straights financially or why they haven’t printed up a few thousand “please sponsor me” sheets and hit the streets as yet. But I won’t.

All I can say is thank you, FNM.

Thank you people who “Roc wit Doc” or “Roll with Butler and Sands”.

Thank you Rollins, and the other mealy mouthed MP he speaks for (that’s you, Theo Neilly.)

Thank you Edison Key, for reminding us of the slap heard around the world.

Thank you Brent Symonette for reminding us your “dollars long” but your fists tight. Thank you, Papa, for keeping the drama going.

Now that Game of Thrones is over, I have no doubt where to look for my weekly entertainment.

That’s debatable

Speaking of entertainment, now that Prime Minister Christie has been roundly and soundly shamed for not resigning after the last failed referendum, he wants to debate someone.

I could only imagine the PM watching UK Prime Minister David Cameron’s resignation speech and “sucking his teet” at Cameron for making him “look shame”. Yes, Cameron did the honourable thing by resigning after his side lost the vote. Perry Christie has lost two votes during this term and is still “post up” in the prime minister’s office.

And now, as a distraction, he is advocating that those who offer as candidates in the next general election should be open to debate as he now seems. According to Christie, we otherwise uncultured Bahamians have finally “reached the level of sophistication” that warrants public debates.

Nice try, Mr PM, but respectfully, Bahamians “ain’t on your run”.

You are right that Bahamians will be demanding debates in the upcoming electoral season but are wrong if you think the public specifically wants to hear from you. You see, Mr Christie, in cultivating our newfound worldliness (via Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) we realised that certain politicians like yourself (and say, Donald Trump) have a way with words that will help you skate through a debate unscathed even if you’re obfuscating and making no sense whatsoever.

Allow me to introduce you to another new, “sophisticated”, worldly trend. It’s called “ghosting”. That’s when a relationship is so worthless, so broken, so “over” that one party gives up on it without even saying goodbye. No words. No text. No “see you later” emoji. The “sick-of-you” party just simply walks away. Disappears. Vanishes. Like a ghost.

And I hate to break the news but many Bahamians want to ghost you. They don’t want to talk or debate anymore, they just want this season of discontent (aka your current term in office) to be over. The writing is on the wall, Mr PM. And you don’t have to be sophisticated to read it.

Until next week I’m ‘Swayze.’

• Inigo ‘Naughty’ Zenicazelaya is the resident stand-up comic at Jokers Wild Comedy Club at the Atlantis, Paradise Island, resort and presents ‘Mischief and Mayhem in da AM’ from 6am to 10am, Monday to Friday, and ‘The Press Box’ sports talk show on Sunday from 10am to 1pm on KISS FM 96.1. He also writes a sports column in The Tribune on Tuesday. Comments and questions to naughty@tribunemedia.net