Exuma, The Bahamas \u2013 Nigel Rolle remembers hoisting the Bahamian flag at the dawn of independence in 1973, after taking down the Union Jack and shares his memories of working for collective national change.\u00a0 Mr. Rolle, present for the launch of the National Energy Policy in Exuma, said it\u2019s good to see Bahamians supporting the government.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am a former police officer.\u00a0 In 1973, I was instrumental in taking the Prime Minister (Sir Lynden Pindling) to lower the flag, to lower the Union Jack and to hoist the Bahamian flag.\u00a0 He was an excellent man and a giant of a man.\u00a0 That was exciting and I had to hold back the tears then,\u201d said Nigel Rolle, who lives on Rolle Corner in Exuma.<\/p>\n
\u201cSeeing the exchange that we were going through and that I was a part of it, I was very, very touched about the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n
On May 6, Mr. Rolle was present to collect his Compact Florescent Lightbulbs (CFLs) after Minister of State for the Environment, Phenton Neymour launched the National Energy Policy Programme in George Town, Exuma.\u00a0 He was present with at least 100 other BEC customers that lined up to exchange their incandescent bulbs for the IDB sponsored and government-issued CFL bulbs.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the time the movement was necessary and, you know, it called for a lot of change. \u00a0We have made some changes but there is still more that we can do.\u00a0 That was necessary and I think we are better off.\u00a0 At that time we needed a change in government and for the people,\u201d said Mr. Rolle.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot so much for the UBP, but I feel the country had reached the stage where we needed to really make some changes.\u00a0 We have made some changes that have made us better, but there is still more we need to do to unify the country.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Rolle frankly stated that he believes the majority of Bahamians want to put aside political differences and concentrate on changing the country for the better.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to work together for one common goal as Bahamians, for Bahamians and set aside political parties and take the country as a whole into consideration when we make decisions.\u00a0 Exuma in itself has a lot of work to do,\u201d said Mr. Rolle.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think right now our present prime minister [Hubert Ingraham] is an excellent guy, I\u2019ll say.\u00a0 He\u2019s doing a good job and right now I don\u2019t think you could beat him.\u00a0 He\u2019s the man for the job.\u201d<\/p>\n
By Gena Gibbs
\nBAHAMAS INFORMATION SERVICES<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Exuma resident reminisces about hoisting the Bahamian flag at the dawn of independence in 1973, after taking down the Union Jack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[133,59],"class_list":["post-8699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-community","tag-islands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8699\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}