By FAIR SHARE FOR ALL

Finally!!! I see the technicians here and I see the lights being tested. So it is quite possible that by the time this article is published, the traffic lights will have replaced the traffic police and the traffic wardens in downtown Basseterre.

So with our traffic woes cured, the government can now focus its attention on controlling crime.

On Wednesday there was a murder in Nevis. The first one under the new premier’s watch. So it fell to him to say something to his fellow Nevisians.

While he said that government alone couldn’t solve crime, he didn’t say what a Mark Brantley-led Nevis Island Administration would do to try to bring an end, or, at the very least, control this scourge that has menaced the federation for far too long.

It’s funny how he spent so much effort trying to convince his loyal subjects that they must stand when he entered a room as a mark of respect, pun intended, but didn’t seem to me to quite know what to say to convince anybody that he had any answer to these senseless killings.

Because these killings are senseless. And the police do not seem to know what to do to prevent it, to solve it, nor to get a conviction that can stand the test of the Appeals Court.
Everybody knows that in the majority of instances, the persons of interest held by the police are in fact the right people.

So why are they not being convicted?

Have we the most incompetent police officers in the world or the most corrupt?

We cannot go into 2018 with the same uncertainty and fear as we did since we discovered that despite their many boasts, Team Unity really has no clue about fighting nor solving crime.

And that is why Mark Brantley gave a nothing speech in response to the murder of the young man.

It seems to me that the government is waiting for the criminals to get tired of their useless lifestyles and hand in their guns and go in search of productive and gainful employment.
I really thought that this last addition to the numerous crime-fighting efforts of the government would have borne some fruit. I really thought that the man came with a workable, practical plan.

For how he came so highly recommended, I was hoping, no, expecting to see criminals so terrified of the good gentleman that they would be fleeing their gangs and criminal life like cockroaches running from flit.

But I am not feeling the man. It seems as if he is just sitting in an office waiting for a situation like Tivoli Gardens to let off some mortars and some other weapons of mass destruction.

It seems as if his strength, his skill, is in times of riot and unrest. Then is when he shines.
So in reality, he is of little use to us in fighting and solving crime.

But this had to happen to the government.

They knew that crime was indeed trending down under Labour, but they had to say that it was not good enough and that they could do better. And they made all these pronouncements knowing full well that they had no clue, no idea at all as to how they would combat crime. Much less to do better than Labour.

Now they are fishing. Shooting in the dark. Totally and completely unaware of their next move. Hoping and praying for miracles. And giving away bananas, I hear.

And because more and more people are seeing them for the waste of time that they are, they are trying to muzzle, intimidate and threaten any dissenting voice.

But we only need to recall what was said about Sam and Jean Condor, Valentine Lindsay, Big Lice, Douglas Wattley, just to name a few, to recognise that this government is not nice at all.

So we have just got to take on this government and to expect the unexpected from them.
We cannot be afraid nor silent. And when they go low, we can either go low with them or go high but we must take them on.

We have to show them, just as we have to show the criminals, that we out number them.

And when others take them on, we must support them fully.

The clock is ticking. The countdown is on.