Crisis manufactured by NDP

Editor: Please allow me to comment on the recent arrest of Paul Scrubb. The NDP has offered various reasons for his arrest and not surprisingly, all of them point to government overreach.

What the NDP is not saying is the role of its leadership in creating a manufactured crisis on the day in which the remarks were posted on Facebook by a person called Paul Scrubb.{{more}}

I have no way of knowing whether the person charged and the one who posted the remarks are the same, but I know that these remarks were posted on December 10, 2015. On that day, the NDP leadership irresponsibly called out their supporters in the street, urging them to stop the swearing-in of the Prime Minister and Attorney-General.

It was also on that day that photographs of ballot boxes were circulated on social media, claiming that they were of boxes that were missing. It was on that day that the leader of the NDP was seen in Layou nearly engaging in a physical encounter with Sir Louis Straker.

These and other activities, in my opinion, were all orchestrated with the intention of riling up the NDP supporters, hoping to achieve by mob rule what they failed to win at the ballot a day earlier. The situation on that day was that there were a lot of angry NDP supporters, who were led to believe that the election was stolen and who wanted to do something about it.

The crisis was one that was manufactured by the NDP. The Central Leeward vote was not close. There should have never been an issue there. I am still perplexed as to why the NDP chose that constituency to make their last stand.

While I do not condone the recklessness of some persons who posted in WARROOM 7.0 on that day, I think that the leadership of the NDP contributed in no small measure in raising the temperature that day. In fact, a number of their supporters believed that Mr Eustace would have been sworn in shortly as Prime Minister. The leadership encouraged them to believe that.

It was in that atmosphere that Paul Scrubb responded to the following post from one Jeffrey Providence: “Look how nasty Ralph is… he call for patel n nature to be recount he get it but for central leeward he nah win he trying to leave it and push his way to get sworn in with out the supervisor of election declared a winner..

“Trust me this is not ralph plantation it nah stay so it will be hell in svg.. we will forward ralph like Sadam Hussain.”

This was a virtual word salad that was not complimentary to the Prime Minister. In fact, I think there was a threat on his life contained in that post. Paul Scrubb first responded with the words that the PM and his family need to be assassinated. Another poster called Yankey Yankey posted the following in response to Paul Scrubb “that is not nice”. Paul Scrubb, responded that he is not going to sit back and allow that immoral man to further corrupt our country and that he believed in chopping off the head of serpents. To further illustrate the mood in the WARROOM, another poster named Milded Hussie said “Boy I love your spirit”.

The NDP seems to have circled the wagon around Paul Scrubb. They see nothing wrong with calls for the assassination of the Prime Minister. Paul Scrubb would have his day in court, but in my opinion the NDP leadership definitely played a role in creating an atmosphere that persons like Paul Scrubb and Jeffrey Providence thought they could threaten the life of the Prime Minister with no consequence.

Theo Thomas