Ke­jan Haynes

News­gah­ter­ing Ed­i­tor

ke­jan.haynes@guardian.co.tt

For­mer Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) sen­a­tor and chief econ­o­mist in the Of­fice of the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion, Tahar­qa Obi­ka, is now a mem­ber of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM).

PNM Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Fos­ter Cum­mings and Ed­u­ca­tion Of­fi­cer Lau­rel Leza­ma Lee Sing wel­comed Obi­ka with hand­shakes and ap­plause dur­ing a Face­book live yes­ter­day.

“There is a pull fac­tor to the PNM,” Obi­ka said in his brief re­marks.

“That is, I am a se­ri­ous per­son in terms of my com­mit­ment and con­vic­tions. And it’s about be­ing se­ri­ous in gov­er­nance.”

Obi­ka didn’t go in­to de­tail about why he left the UNC.

How­ev­er, he said, “There are push fac­tors from whence I came. There is much to re­pel.”

One of the fac­tors he cit­ed was com­ments made by cur­rent UNC Sen­a­tor David Nakhid against de­ceased PNM min­is­ter Ken Val­ley.

In a Face­book post, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley al­so chas­tised Nakhid and made a call for dis­grun­tled mem­bers of the UNC to join the PNM.

“There comes a time when your coun­try must call,” he said.

“There is no bet­ter time than now, to leave the UNC, if you be­lieve that what Nakhid did is rep­re­hen­si­ble, if you be­lieve that Rati­ram should not be in Par­lia­ment and far worse, should not be on the screen­ing com­mit­tee of your par­ty. If you be­lieve that what you en­vi­sion for your coun­try does not in­clude Life­s­port and the vul­gar­i­ty of Anil Roberts.”

In the Sen­ate, Obi­ka was bois­ter­ous and of­ten clashed with then Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo and Vice Pres­i­dent Nigel De Fre­itas.

On more than one oc­ca­sion, he was eject­ed from the Cham­ber for his be­hav­iour. In No­vem­ber 2019, in a heat­ed out­burst and ex­change, he claimed then Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young had called him a deroga­to­ry term, and as he was told to leave the Cham­ber, he called De Fre­itas a racist. His com­ments against the PNM in UNC me­dia con­fer­ences and on so­cial me­dia were of­ten acer­bic and deroga­to­ry.

But in his state­ments yes­ter­day, Obi­ka said he just turned 40 and was look­ing to his fu­ture.

“As many per­sons do when they turn that mile­stone age, [I] re­flect and re­flect on my ser­vice to my coun­try, and be­ing se­ri­ous about gov­er­nance, be­cause se­ri­ous gov­er­nance lies in mak­ing de­ci­sions that are in the best in­ter­est of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go. And for that I’m thank­ful for the op­por­tu­ni­ty once more by the po­lit­i­cal leader of the PNM, Dr Kei­th Row­ley.”

Ad­dress­ing the de­par­ture yes­ter­day, Sen­a­tor Anil Roberts said Obi­ka could join any par­ty in a democ­ra­cy. But he al­leged there was a spe­cial place for him in the par­ty.

“With a red tie he joined the PNM, well con­grat­u­la­tions my broth­er, Obi­ka, the next may­or for Point Fortin,” he said.

For now, Obi­ka is sim­ply a mem­ber of the PNM. As Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions ap­proach, there is no word on whether he will con­test a seat for the rul­ing par­ty.

For­mer UNC Min­is­ter Dr De­vant Ma­haraj called Obi­ka’s ex­it a fur­ther ex­o­dus from the UNC in a so­cial me­dia post.

“Like a flood, the flow of dis­en­chant­ed UNC sup­port­ers con­tin­ues un­abat­ed as UNC mem­bers seek refuge in the in­sti­tu­tion­al so­bri­ety and or­der of the PNM,” Ma­haraj said.

“The UNC must de­cide if it prefers to lose the elec­tion or lose Kam­la as they can­not win an elec­tion with Kam­la at the helm.”

A for­mer coun­cil­lor who won the Vista­bel­la South seat on a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) tick­et in the last Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tions has switched al­le­giance to the PNM. Shel­don “Fish” Gar­cia re­signed from the UNC in May and re­joined the PNM.

Mar­cus Gird­har­rie was said to have de­fect­ed to the PNM with­in the last few weeks and War­renville/Kel­ly Vil­lage coun­cil­lor Samuel Sankar al­so left the UNC.

Up to press time, UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar had not is­sued a state­ment on Obi­ka’s res­ig­na­tion.