Renu­ka Singh

Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) sen­a­tor David Nakhid yes­ter­day dou­bled down on his cas­ti­ga­tion of the na­tion’s two high­est of­fice­hold­ers.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Nakhid re­it­er­at­ed his words and once again re­ferred to Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes as an “in­sipid jack­ass” and then ex­tend­ed the same de­scrip­tion to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley

In a brief video clip cir­cu­lat­ed on Mon­day night, Nakhid al­so re­ferred to Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley as a “bul­ly and a cow­ard” be­cause of their al­leged roles in the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion mat­ter.

In the short clip, Nakhid said if “two young black boys, on the fringes of so­ci­ety, com­mit­ted a crime they would be held to ac­count”.

“You would be ap­palled. Lock them un­der the jail. Hang them, take them to the clean­ers. But what is the sit­u­a­tion now with Kei­th Row­ley and Paula-Mae Weekes, they’ve done the same thing,” he asked.

He ques­tioned then why two se­nior of­fice­hold­ers were not be­ing held ac­count­able for al­so break­ing the coun­try’s laws.

“Not two peo­ple on the fringes of so­ci­ety, the two most pow­er­ful po­si­tions, pub­lic of­fice­hold­ers in the land has mis­be­haved in pub­lic of­fice,” he said.

“This in­sipid jack­ass we have for a Pres­i­dent and yes, yes that is what she is be­cause she has fa­cil­i­tat­ed what this bul­ly, this cow­ard called Kei­th Row­ley has done,” he said in the video.

“And let me tell you all some­thing, tyran­ny is not shoot­ing down ten or 20 peo­ple or 30 peo­ple in the street,” he said be­fore the clip ends abrupt­ly.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view, yes­ter­day Nakhid said he stood by his words and would not apol­o­gise.

“I don’t re­gret it at all, as a mat­ter of fact, any­one who breaks the law, es­pe­cial­ly peo­ple who should be ex­em­plars and they refuse to even an­swer any ques­tions re­lat­ing to those al­le­ga­tions. That can­not be ac­cept­able,” he said.

He said in T&T, every­thing was “turned up­side down”.

“For me, this is a chance for peo­ple to ex­am­ine them­selves and see where they fall,” he said.

Nakhid said the Pres­i­dent had ques­tions to an­swer, as his po­lit­i­cal leader point­ed out.

On Mon­day Se­nior Coun­sel Mar­tin Daly al­so called on both the Pres­i­dent and the Prime Min­is­ter to jus­ti­fy and ex­plain what hap­pened at Pres­i­dent’s House on Au­gust 12 and ques­tioned the Prime Min­is­ter’s du­ty to re­port to the Pres­i­dent as gov­erned by the Con­sti­tu­tion.

Nakhid said that Daly “could hard­ly be called a UNC” and yet he made the same call as UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Nakhid said that he has not spo­ken to his po­lit­i­cal leader on this mat­ter.

“My po­lit­i­cal leader has said noth­ing but speak up and speak to the peo­ple,” he said.

Mean­while, the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment has de­scribed Nakhid’s state­ment as “the most dis­re­spect­ful at­tack on Her Ex­cel­len­cy the Pres­i­dent, Paula Mae Weekes” and ques­tioned the “deaf­en­ing and seem­ing­ly ex­cul­pa­to­ry si­lence from his po­lit­i­cal leader, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar”.

“This is not the first time Sen­a­tor Nakhid has used his so­cial me­dia pages to launch sim­i­lar vit­ri­olic, dis­taste­ful and de­mean­ing at­tacks on per­sons against whom he has some angst, and by his Po­lit­i­cal Leader’s silent ac­qui­es­cence, it cer­tain­ly will not be the last,” he said.

The state­ment came from Leader of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, Camille Robin­son-Reg­is.

“Though I know I maybe whistling in the wind, I al­so call on his Po­lit­i­cal Leader to do the ho­n­ourable thing by of­fer­ing a sim­i­lar apol­o­gy to Her Ex­cel­len­cy and demon­strat­ing her dis­ap­proval by re­vok­ing his ap­point­ment if he choos­es not to re­sign. Like every oth­er cit­i­zen of our beloved Re­pub­lic, Sen­a­tor Nakhid has a right to dis­agree with the ac­tions and opin­ions of any oth­er cit­i­zen, in­clud­ing Her Ex­cel­len­cy, the Pres­i­dent. That right, how­ev­er, comes with re­spon­si­bil­i­ties,” she said.

She al­so called on Nakhid to re­sign as an Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor.

The PNM’s Women’s League al­so con­demned Nakhid’s com­ments.

“We call on every right-think­ing cit­i­zen to re­ject and con­demn the UNC at­tempts to sub­vert our democ­ra­cy. Sen­a­tor Nakhid vi­cious­ly at­tacked the Pres­i­dent in an un­war­rant­ed at­tack,” it said.