by Claude Gerald
Governor Adrian Davis continues to qualify for an instant recall to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in the UK.
Hesitancy is not an option in calling him to book for staining the name of his office and those he has misrepresented since taking office.
His latest assault on the integrity of the workings of the Police Force, his constitutional responsibility, amounts to an abuse of power and calls into question the level of his sanity, integrity and fitness for the job of Governor. We recall the high-handed way in which Governor Davis humiliated Commissioner Foster by suspending him from office only to order his reinstatement subsequently. This Governor acts and then thinks; it is a characteristic of a dysfunctional mindset, dangerous for any administrative power.
It is official that he has recanted his demotion of the two Police inspectors. That was predictable. This is even as the Officers were recently written to by the Deputy Commissioner, the centre of the impasse with the senior officers, advising that they must get their sergeant’s uniform ready for the lower grade positioning. Flip- flopping is the Governor’s essential administrative nature, often backed by mind boggling explanations to the media, whenever he chooses.
Adrian Davis is a paradox. He arrived on island with a series of meet-the-people town hall meetings. He impressed as a libertarian desirous of handing more autonomy to the people whilst promoting himself as a champion of a new order of governance. Reuben T. Meade, Premier, dubbed him derisively the ‘other Chief Minister’ having regard for his enthusiasm, on coming here. Reuben did not take long to mince the Governor’s initiative and his ego forcing His Excellency to declare that ‘Reuben is a bright fellow’. Perhaps he is but does it require such to unravel Governor Davis essential nature relative to his posting?
The Governor had a huge following on his village outings. Many, with a few exceptions were fooled. Governors are a collection of imposed undesirables; with no real worth to people empowerment – judging for many years, close-up, their mode of executing their various responsibilities on island. Davis simply flatters to deceive; he once ordered a critical citizen, who watched Davis’ flippancies, his poor judgment of public servants and his inclination to make the taxpayer liable for lawsuits, to desist from contacting him, after earlier volunteering his email address, supposedly to bolster his image as a listening and caring Governor.
His stint on Montserrat is full of gratuitous interferences in the management of the Police. It is never about structural improvement. It is silly, boyish and thoughtless actions that emphasizes the petty and the trivial. It is not even about flexing of his muscles.
It is rankly stupid to exercise power given in such an irresponsible manner. It is giving a child a gun hoping that he would not at least show it off or threaten to use it, given his embrace of power.
Each time this governor seems to be falling on his sword, he makes the news once more with more acts of banality that rock at the heart of administrative law and practice anywhere. His record is one of binding scandals that will follow him into a retirement, of which age ought to be only one factor in assessing his perks post retirement.
Unburdening him now will not necessarily ensure rational decency at his level of service. His successor, in light of trends is not expected to improve on the administrative low of this representative of a globally respected Queen Elizabeth. In fact if Her Majesty had the inclination to track the machinations and daily decision making of the Davises that act in her stead, she may well nudge Prince Charles to ascend the throne in utter disappointment at the level to which governance has fallen from the heights of Rule Britannia Rule.
The seeming empty store of proportionate human resources, in the former divinely blessed and powerful Britain is simply alarming. Governor Davis is a symptom of the declining pace-setting might and values of an island country that was an exemplar to the world, in every sphere of human endeavour and this was not by mere coincidence.
Never in all the history of mankind did anything such happen. A tiny island nation had political mastery of a Commonwealth of Nations forming the greatest world empire of all times; controlling nearly three fourths of the earth’s cultivated wealth and resources. Britain was divinely ordained for special distinction amongst other nations, always first amongst equals.
Its multicultural policies amongst other bewildering positions is undermining and obliterating its hallowed institutions from within; the tail is wagging the dog as it remains stupefied in leadership; the famed English Legal System is being threatened with the practice of other enemy nations’, right in its back door. Britain’s original purpose is shattered and a follower status is in the offing.
Britain’s history was blessed with an accumulated spiritual wisdom that was a priceless gift to the rest of the world. Britain’s elites in all walks of life now trumpet other nation’s history, pawning its own rich culture and assets in deference to that of other nations, paving the way for a destruction of what essentially is British.
It is a Britain without a will, lacking the virtues of a Winston Churchill. Britain has given up that exemplary moral and spiritual compass that was the foundation for its unrivalled first world prowess.
That is the environment that is fashioning this string of governors to our parts of the world. They cannot help being worthless; even reckless and careless to the rule of law as such is not a defining feature of the English culture anymore. They do so with impunity as the system of accountability is an ugly configuration of what once was.
Premier Reuben T. Meade is unlikely to buy this notion of a banishment of this wrong fitting top executive as collective good is not a strong point of the Premier’s persona. He makes a treasure of incompetents and uses them to his personal benefit in maintaining his grip on the power leverages of this island. This shores up his autocratic tendencies even as he publicly bemoans the lack of leadership that lies in the human resources cupboard of Montserrat.
It is a case of speaking without meaning as the will to act is weakened by a lack of commitment to benevolent changes that impact lives for the good.
Premier Meade enjoys playing games with these governors. He knocks them off their keels and sidelines them in cleverest ways. It is the nature of the game and Reuben seeks to win as Davis always looses the plot and its execution. Winning implies saving Davis for the moment.
As Reuben has endorsed the extension of Governor Davis’s stay on island, we can only guess at the motivation behind this gesture of the Premier.
We may be wrong in this guessing game anyhow.
Claude Gerald is a social commentator. He lives on Montserrat, West Indies. Ceegee15@hotmail.com
