All reports reaching me indicate that an angry Prime Minister Christie sullied the renaming ceremony for the Lynden O. Pindling Airport by using the occasion to vent his frustrations at his failure to manipulate the Leader of the Opposition and other Opposition Members of Parliament into joining in the political farce staged on Thursday past.
That the occasion, if genuine, would have been about attaching the name of the ‘Father of the Nation’ to a spanking newly renovated facility and extolling the virtues of the honouree, rather than on noting the absence of anyone. Too bad for him that he was unable to hide his ulterior motives.
I believe that the Leader of the Opposition and other Opposition parliamentarians were right not to attend the airport renaming ceremony. Clearly they were not welcome. The late delivery of their invitations on the afternoon before the function, while other invitees received their invitations some two weeks earlier, exposed the Prime Minister and his government as the political frauds that they are.
At some point the present government will learn the folly of trying to dress up their hot-air political charades and party extravaganzas as national events.
When Prime Minister, Perry Christie, with great fanfare announced his government’s decision to accept the recommendation of his Cultural Commission to rename the airport to honour the late Prime Minister, the public was told that the date of the re-naming would be set only after the suitable upgrade of the airport had been completed. He indicated at the time that to name the airport for Sir Lynden in its then dilapidated condition would have been a mark of disrespect.
Having scheduled the renaming we might genuinely ask: “What has changed at the airport since his announcement? In terms of the condition of the building, the services offered, and the inconveniences afflicting both incoming and departing passengers, we can only say, little, very little!
The air conditioning is still faulty. The roof still leaks. The bathrooms are still substandard. The parking lot is still unorganised and congested. The long security check lines at peak travelling time still remain, snaking throughout and outside the International departure terminal.
This government has no accomplishment to announce on the 33rd anniversary of independence. And so, with live television and radio coverage the Prime Minister broke another promise to the Bahamian people and to the Pindling Family by changing the name of the unimproved and still substandard international airport in honour of Sir Lynden.
Then one has to ask, since the government had announced its intention to rename the airport nearly two years ago, surely they would have begun the process of securing international recognition of the proposed name change so as to be able to actually and effectively change the name of the airport internationally to coincide with the name change in The Bahamas. But no, the Acting Airport Manager, Joseph Reckley tells us that internationally the airport will continue to be known as the Nassau International Airport – NIA – for at least another 18 months.
The airport will continue to be referred to officially by international civil aviation organisations as ‘Nassau International Airport’ and Bahamians will continue to have their luggage tags read ‘NAS,’ for at least the next 18 months.
If the government had really only meant to name the terminal buildings after Sir Lynden they might have said so rather than to announce a change and hold a ceremony for something that they know cannot take effect for 18 months, by which time they are likely to no longer lead the government of our country.
Political expediency and not honour to the “Father of the Nation” is what motivated the timing of the re-naming of the airport last week. In the run-up to general elections, the PLP needs to mobilise and energize their base support. What better way to do so than to wrap themselves up in a sanitised, nonpolitical image of the ‘Father of the Nation’.
And so, the PLP are playing cheap politics with the memory of Sir Lynden Pindling. The FNM when in government gave a real, and not a token, mark of respect to the Father of the Nation when we caused his image to be placed on the one dollar bill, just as the Americans have placed the image of their first President, George Washington, on the US dollar bill. Rather than ensuring that Bahamians’ images remain on all our, banknotes this government has reverted to placing the image of Her Majesty on our $10 dollar bill.
The Opposition did the right thing by, not indulging Perry G. Christie and his party in such a cheap political charade.
By: CARL W. BETHEL
