By OSWALD T. BROWN
WASHINGTON, D.C., May 1, 2024 – The current political discourse in The Bahamas within the opposition Free National Movement (FNM) is no longer centered around its obvious need for inspired leadership, but rather whether or not former Prime Minister Dr. Hubert A. Minnis will attempt to regain the leadership of the party during the upcoming one-day June 1 convention recently announced by current FNM leader Michael Pintard.
Dr. Minnis, who unquestionably was the worst of the five Prime Ministers The Bahamas has had since it was granted its independence by Great Britain on July 10, 1973, apparently is seriously considering attempting to regain his leadership control of the FNM.
He seemingly has strong support from former FNM Deputy Prime Minister Desmond Bannister, who has referred to the planned one-day convention as a “farce” and said, according to an article in The Nassau Guardian, that if Dr Minnis runs for the leadership, he will be “on the frontline” to support him.
Here’s a question: Rather than being “on the frontline” supporting Dr. Minnis for the leadership of the FNM, why doesn’t Mr. Bannister make his bid to provide the kind of leadership the FNM so badly needs? To be sure, among the current group of capable political operatives within the FNM, Mr. Bannister has a luminous presence. My assessment of his capabilities is based on the fact that I know him very well from he was a young boy growing up at Stanyard Creek, Andros. His mother, Joyce Clarke Bannister, and his father, Horatio Bannister, were both teachers at Stanyard Creek All-Age School during my youthful years.
Of course, there is no question that Prime Minister Philip E. Davis and his Progressive Liberal Party government are doing a highly commendable job compared to the former FNM government led by Dr. Minnis, and it is highly unlikely that the Bahamian electorate will vote to change the progressive direction in which the country is currently headed politically.
As a founding member of the FNM, there is no question in my mind that the party has gone astray from the core founding principles espoused by the Dissident Eight who left the PLP in 1970 and subsequently established the FNM.
Sir Arthur A. Foulkes, my mentor professionally and during my growth and development into a responsible human being, was one of the eight elected members of the PLP who left the party in 1970 following a failed vote of no confidence in the leadership of Lynden O. Pindling.
Known as the DISSIDENT EIGHT, they subsequently joined forces with moderate members of the disbanded former United Bahamian Party (UBP) to form the Free National Movement in late 1971 after a series of meetings held at the Fox Hill estate of the late Jimmy Shepherd, who was also a member of the Dissident Eight. Other members of the DISSIDENT EIGHT were Cecil Wallace-Whitfield, Warren Levarity, Maurice Moore, Dr. Curtis McMillan, Dr. Elwood Donaldson and George Thompson.
Having been a member of the PLP from 1960 during the struggle for Majority Rule, it was a foregone conclusion that I would also leave the PLP along with the Dissident Eight after my journalistic mentor Mr. Foulkes decided to become a member of the Dissident Eight.
I have told the story on numerous occasions about how I met Mr. Foulkes for the first time when I joined the staff of The Tribune in May of 1960 and he was the newspaper’s News Editor. Mr. Foulkes took a special interest in my development as a journalist from day one, and along with the late Sir Etienne Dupuch, the then Publisher and Editor of The Tribune, they established a solid foundation for whatever journalistic skills I possess today.
Beyond my professional development, however, Mr. Foulkes also gave me some very beneficial and sage advice during my involvement in the Black Power Movement in the 1960s that in retrospect I am convinced stopped me from making some life-changing mistakes that could have quite possibly resulted in me having a prison record as part of my personal-life resume.
This was especially true after I left The Tribune in 1965 and joined Mr. Foulkes at Bahamian Times, the PLP’s newspaper that he and other members of the National Committee for Positive Action (NCPA) — an activist group within the PLP — had established after Mr. Foulkes ran unsuccessfully as a PLP candidate in the November 1962 general election.
Of course, when Mr. Foulkes made the decision to run along with Arthur “Midge” Hanna as the two PLP candidates in a constituency in the Far East that included Fox Hill, he was fully aware that he was essentially submitting his resignation as News Editor of The Tribune, given the fact that the two UBP candidates he and Mr. Hanna were running against were the late Geoffrey Johnstone and Pierre Dupuch, the youngest son of Sir Etienne.
One of the curious aspects of that particular election that has always bothered me is that with voters being able to vote for two individuals on the ballot or cast both votes for the same individual – under a voting procedure called “plumper” – Mr. Hanna was elected as the senior member for that constituency with more than 100 “plumper votes” and Mr. Johnstone became the junior member, winning over Mr. Foulkes by considerably fewer than the 100 “plumper votes” received by Mr. Hanna.
However, losing that election resulted in the establishment of the Bahamian Times, and I don’t think that anyone involved in the struggle for Majority Rule would dispute the fact that the Bahamian Times played a monumental role in the PLP’s victory in the historic January 10, 1967 general election.
It was at Bahamian Times that my activism in the Black Power Movement increased as a result of vexing and openly racist occurrences, to which I was exposed personally under the UBP government or were brought to my attention by persons who were aware of my “by any means necessary” approach to dealing with overt and covert acts or racism. At one point after I was involved in a situation that potentially could have had serious legal consequences, Mr. Foulkes eruditely advised me that rather than get physically involved, I should use my skills as a writer to deal with racist behaviour that made me angry. It was this sound advice, I am sure, that prevented me from possibly ending up in Fox Hill Prison.
Sir Cecil Wallace-Whitfield, who died on May 9, 1990, at the relatively young age of 60, was the founding leader of the FNM, and as the founding Editor of the Torch of Freedom, the FNM’s newspaper, I often accompanied him on campaign trips around the Family Islands
Indeed, although I was a protege of Arthur A. Foulkes, I was also one of the armies of young men under the supervision of Wallace-Whitfield when he was Chairman of the PLP during the national campaign leading up to the historic January 10, 1967, general election, with headquarters upstairs in Dr. Claudius Walker’s Reinhard Hotel on Baillou Road in Nassau.
