The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

Shortly after becoming leader of the once respected and revered FNM, the Hon Hubert A Minnis (FNM-Killarney) publicly and politically stabbed the former Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Hubert A Ingraham frontally by declaring that the Ingraham Era was over. He thought, I am sure, that he was playing cute and dismissive.

Ingraham held sway over Bahamian politics for almost two decades. A bare foot boy from Abaco without the benefit of a silver and golden spoon like Minnis and myself. He clawed his way out from nothing, literally, while seeking a better way of life. Minnis, based on the presumed “facts” lacked for nothing even if as he says he came from a single parent home.

Had it not been for Ingraham, Minnis may never have emerged from the bone yard. Yet, one of the first politically treacherous acts was when Minnis declared that the Ingraham era was over. I saw this as an overt act of ungratefulness and mean spirit. He sought to humiliate and disparage the very man who gave him a second chance to come back from the political ashes.

Now, in less than five short years, the Minnis legacy, such as it is, has died in still birth. Less than two weeks after the general elections, people are asking: ‘Minnis who?’ He’s now been relegated to ‘He also ran’ and no one factors him in anymore. Bahamian politics is cutting edge and brutal. Here today and gone tomorrow.

Minnis led the FNM into a snap election based on his perceived arrogant and myopic views. In any event, God has a way of reducing all to the level of one size fits all. The same big coat which enveloped Ingraham and Christie has now caused discomfort to Minnis. The Ingraham era ran for a long time, successfully. MInnis burst on the same breathing fire and brimstone but, alas, his stamina fizzled out and in one shot he is now history.

The Minnis Era, if ever there were one, is still birth and died in the womb. Never in our political history has a putative leader ever flashed across the screen with such gung-ho and disappeared with the slightest of whimpers like the limp Minnis era. Bother Christie was unceremoniously kicked out of office, but this was after a forty-odd years run. Minnis could not last a mere term in office. Rock with Doc or Good bye Doc? The Minnis Era, such as it would have been is over. God rest the dead.

ORTLAND H BODIE, Jr

Nassau,

September 27, 2021.