The Tribune

By KHRISNA VIRGIL

Deputy Chief Reporter

kvirgil@tribunemedia.net

FORT Charlotte MP Dr Andre Rollins yesterday suggested that Free National Movement Leader Dr Hubert Minnis has not shown he is ready to lead the nation, pointing to his attendance at House proceedings.

Dr Rollins further urged Prime Minister Perry Christie to “call out” Dr Minnis on his inadequate performance.

The Fort Charlotte MP also attempted to lambast another member of Parliament over his attendance in the House of Assembly.

However, House Speaker Dr Kendal Major did not allow Dr Rollins to lodge a verbal attack on the MP who was absent from the session and threatened to name him if he continued with the attack.

Dr Rollins said: “I will tell you this, if you want to be Prime Minister and you want to be the most powerful person in this country like the Rt Hon member for Centreville, I expect that the person who is aiming for your job is present and accounted for every day, that we are inside this House and I look down there and I see absence.

“And if I were you (referring to the Prime Minister) I would call him out on it. Leadership means that you stand up to your feet even if you feel that you are weak you stand and then Long Island and Montagu and Central Grand Bahama (and) Bamboo Town, we will help you stand. I am upset and I am spitting all over the place and I’m sorry and you tell me you think that this is how we are going to get this country moving.”

Speaking on what led to the ousting of Dr Minnis from the post of Leader of the Opposition in the House, Dr Rollins said while Long Island MP Loretta Butler-Turner has been maligned for replacing the Killarney MP, she was chosen by the rebel seven MPs because they believed the Opposition should have been performing much better than it was.

In a lengthy diatribe in Parliament that hit out on several matters of public interest - including the economy, the fire at the New Providence Landfill and Baha Mar - Dr Rollins confirmed that he will not be running in the next general election.

The Fort Charlotte MP said his run in politics over the last five years had not been about personal interests, but rather his opportunity to be the voice of Bahamians who feel they have been silenced.

He said the harsh critique of the government was not to gain political brownie points, because he would not be seeking re-election in the 2017 general election.

At one point Dr Rollins and Fox Hill MP Fred Mitchell became entangled in a shouting match over the Fort Charlotte MP’s failure to remain relevant in the ongoing debate on the Criminal Procedure Code.

“We said that we were about forging a new generation of political leaders and I have found, Mr Speaker, that absolutely does not exist,” Dr Rollins said. “We in this country are playing politics the same way in 2017 that was played in 1967 and prior in the days of the UBP. In those days they gave people flour, they gave people food in the can because you know us li’l old black people that can hold us. That will keep us pacified, Massa,” Dr Rollins said.

“Oh, how terrible it is when we do not know the power that we possess. Woe be unto he who fails to understand his responsibility, not to a political party, but to country so that history will duly record that he was on the right side. Mr Speaker, there are people in this country now economic slaves not any better off than those pre-1967. 

“They want to see verifiable proof and action that we are about we say or what we claim to be about. Not one case as though there was only one example of human trafficking going on in this country. Not so that we can show the US Embassy ‘Look, look here this is what we have, one case. Now hopefully you will leave us alone’.

He continued: “But what is the totality of their body of work. I can’t say that I am progressive or that I am a new generation of anything if my actions do not reinforce my word. This side, and no, I’m not campaigning because I am not running. And I am so glad that I get the applause of the member for Fox Hill because what he is about is perpetrating the status quo and as far as the member for Fox Hill is concerned this is big people’s business and young people like me ought to stay out of big people’s business. The reality is, Mr Speaker, anyone elected to this House is an equal and the people out there expect young and old to speak up and fight for them and their families.”

Dr Rollins said: “It isn’t about politics, Mr Speaker. Me being in here has never been about politics. That is why I have no regrets about anything that I have done in here because to try to say that I am prepared to do anything to get by politically that would make me a prostitute and I am not prepared to do anything to stay in this House. Unlike some inside here who will sit down and do whatever their side asks them to do so that they can continue to say that I am an MP, man get over it,” he said

“You have nothing to live for in life that is all that you care about. Who am I talking about? Anybody who forgets their moral compass simply because if they don’t do something their party will be upset with them. We gotta get out of that, man. This country deserves better.

“And we want to bring people up here to say that we are having state dinners. The president of Guyana could come here and have them living in the lap of luxury and our people wallowing. What we are doing in this country is not working. We have, as a reality, we have our country being set up to be dictated to by foreign powers,” Dr Rollins said.