The Tribune

A MINOR kerfuffle was created in the House of Assembly on Thursday during the debate to create the University of The Bahamas.

The feathers of National Security Minister Dr Bernard Nottage were ruffled when during Montagu MP Richard Lightbourn’s contribution to the debate Mr Lightbourn had said that educational standards had to be raised to produce more ambitious students with higher grades than the present D minus. The youth also had to have a different mind set and be encouraged to set higher goals for themselves. He recalled a poll having been taken in the schools during this country’s narco-dollar years when an alarming number of school children, when asked to write an essay on what they wanted to be when they grew up, replied: A drug dealer.

Dr Nottage stood to object, saying he did not know where the Montagu MP got that from. He condemned it as an outrageous statement and was surprised that Mr Lightbourn would suggest such a thing. An equally surprised Mr Lightbourn said he thought what he had said was well known to everyone. He was a bit fuzzy about the poll and who or how it was taken, but he was certain that his memory was not playing games with him.

Dr Nottage intimated that he wanted Mr Lightbourn to provide proof of his statement. Neither the Speaker, nor Dr Nottage called for his claim to be expunged from House records, but Mr Lightbourn of his own accord promised to return to the House with the evidence.

Naturally he did what everyone else does when they want such information. He called The Tribune to ask that our files be searched for what he needed. We knew exactly what he was talking about because The Tribune had done its own survey at the time, and we had made reference to it in many of our editorials. We don’t recall an official government survey, which, if it had ever been taken, would never have been released, especially if it had discovered what we had uncovered. We don’t know where Dr Nottage was when this was common knowledge at the time – probably locked in government’s ivory tower with all his mates, having – as Sir Lynden woefully admitted – lost touch with the Bahamian people.

Anyway with such short notice before our records department closed for the weekend one of the articles – October 22, 1990 – was discovered in Sir Lynden’s file. Although there are other articles in other files, we think that extracts from this article reproduced here should be enough to exonerate Mr Lightbourn and satisfy Dr Nottage. We think that neither Dr Nottage nor the Speaker would want us to continue writing in this column what further research would uncover.

It all started one day – quite some time before this particular article (1990) was written — when a very concerned government teacher came to our office to “chat.” Her concern was how many of her children were losing interest in their studies and equating money with success. She was very concerned about their life’s ambitions — yes, they wanted to be rich, but they also wanted to get “rich quick”. The only way to do that was to go into the drug peddling business like some of the male members of their families. Intrigued by this conversation, we then called around to a few of the government schools where we personally knew some of the teachers to discover the ambition of their children when asked to write what they wanted to be when they grew to manhood. Money glittered before many of their youthful eyes – drug money. Of course, this is the first time that we are now revealing what started our investigation. But we did indeed write about what we had discovered, and, of course, it is this to which Mr Lightbourn’s memory has obviously taken him. No one denied it at the time, but Bahamians certainly talked about it at every level of society and were rightfully concerned. We wonder how Dr Nottage missed this bit of information.

Even in those years crime was a major problem, and the following were our comments in this column on October 22, 1990:

“Remember the crime. You are neither secure on the street nor in your home. So why are you paying higher and higher taxes? Government’s non-delivery of basic essentials, yet constant demand for more money, is enough to produce surly discontent in the country.

“For 23 years, leaders have set the pace. Big cars, flashy lifestyles, a materialistic philosophy – these were all the signs of success. Wasn’t it the Prime Minister himself who had said that everyone in the country could be a millionaire?

“Those who did not have the capacity to be millionaires by legitimate means soon moved into the drug trade. A new phenomenon was created as the bottom pushed its way to the top and joined the rich and famous — ropes of gold hanging from necks and fingers, big cars, fancy homes, apartment buildings on rent, the good life. They were brash. They were biggity and they added an undesirable tone to society. No law could touch them. Unfortunately, young people thought that their lifestyles were smart — especially as all the signs seemed to say that in the Bahamas crime does pay. Another problem was born.”

Today it is a major problem that no one seems to know how to solve, because, like Dr Nottage, they refuse to recognise its origins and how and why it grew. It’s now overwhelming society. And although it got its birth in the bosom of the PLP, it is society’s problem and we all have to come together to solve it.

And so the 1990 article continued:

“While Prime Minister Pindling was talking about taking the country from the Third World to the First World, he failed to realise that thoughtless words and example were creating a country of drones with few workers. And today — with no easy money in sight The Bahamas is in trouble.

“With the country on the downslide suddenly the Prime Minister (Sir Lynden) has been given clearer vision.

“In February this year (1990), he told a PLP rally that inefficiency had contributed to the high cost of living in The Bahamas.

“‘You want to know why things cost so much? We don’t know how to do anything anymore and it takes us all day fiddling around to try to find the right way to do it,’ he said.”

Rather than wasting time trying to find a scapegoat on which to off load this country’s problems, in our next column we shall let Sir Lynden outline the problems and explain their origin, cause and projected results. It is now up to this government to stop wasting time — silence the tongues of such race-baiting persons as their chairman Bradley Roberts — pull the country together as One Bahamas and get on with the job of rebuilding a crippled people and a broken country.