No amount of polished double speak can make the Sept. 25 fist fight of Members of Parliament Kenyatta Gibson and Keod Smith anything other than what it was.
If as Mr Smith said in the House of Assembly Wednesday night that it was an “inconsequential private conflict,” why was it said initially that it never happened? If it was an “inconsequential private conflict,” as Mr Smith said, why was public property damaged and had to be replaced?
If the conflict in the Cabinet Room was “inconsequential and private,” why did other Parliamentarians and Cabinet Ministers attempt to intervene and why did Mr Gibson apologise to the public and to his constituents on Sept. 29 for behaviour that had “declined to -an unacceptable and undignified level.”
What is troubling is that on Wednesday following the Monday night fight, Prime Minister Christie stated ihat he had seen no evidence of “fisticuffs” and that the reports in the newspapers were exaggerated and blown out of proportion. Perhaps the Prime Minister was given bad information by his trusted advisors or someone who deliberately wanted to mislead the Bahamian people. It must also be concluded that the two MPs were less than truthful to the Prime Minister, if as he said two days following the incident, they had laughed about the “exaggerated” newspaper reports.
1n any event the Prime Minister should have known that something untoward had happened because repairs were done to damaged items in the Cabinet Room on Tuesday, presumably before the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting.
And if Mr Smith felt that his constituents were confused with the stories that were written in the newspapers, he had three weeks to clarify matters and `unconfuse’ them. But he didn’t. So now there are some who are even more confused because they believed him when he said there had not been a fight between him and the Member of Parliament for Kennedy.
Also, why did the Prime Minister need three weeks of “due deliberations” to acknowledge that there had been a fight and to announce that he had accepted the resignations of the Ambassador for the Environment/Chairman of the Best Commission and the Chairman of the Gaming Board? If he operated a private business would he wait until the misconduct of his employees destroyed the business before asking for, accepting their resignations or terminating them? This should also be the consideration for operating the government.
The time has come to elect people to Parliament who will continue to command the respect of the high office and who will deserve to be referred to as honourable. It is time to elect people who will be prepared to look past party affiliations and personalities and will always act in the best interest of the country and its entire population.
Instead of continuing to vilify the collective media for having reported the events that transpired in the Cabinet Room, as it was told to them, the Prime Minister and the MPs who resigned their positions ought to publicly apologise to the media, because if the shoe were on the other foot, the media houses in this country would certainly be the recipients of writs of intended law suits.
Editorial from The Nassau Guardian
