“…run away…”

Some weeks ago, I was burdened with a premonition as to what fate awaited Orville Alton Thompson Turnquest; better known to his friends and foes alike as Tommy.

While I would prefer calling him O. J. I’ll do as others do and call him Tommy.

Incidentally the Rt. Hon. Hubert A. Ingraham refers to him as Tommy.

And since I’ve sworn to God Almighty that I am not going to carry any one’s burden or baggage for too long; I unburdened myself of the weighty premonition in a satirical piece that I dubbed and labeled ‘…salivating sharks…’

So said; so done.

As I wrote some weeks before the fateful day, I noted that:

Whether Tommy Turnquest knows it or not, it is lunchtime in shark-world.

Beware Tommy, the "sharks are salivating."

I also pointed out to Tommy that whether he knew it or not on that blessed Thursday, the sharks were proposing that he should be their main course.

Back in April, Tommy Turnquest was in the news. The news then was that his days as leader of the Free National Movement were being numbered.

Even then, the sharks were salivating.

This is how one story reported the matter:

"Amid reports that he is facing fierce opposition from within his own party, Free National Movement Leader Tommy Turnquest called a press conference on Tuesday to reassure FNM’s that all is well in the party.

"Mr. Turnquest told reporters that he is confident that he has the full support of former Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham and that as far as he is aware Mr. Ingraham, despite reports, is not interested in returning as leader of the party.

"We in the FNM will not allow our political opponents to capitalize on make-believe issues in our party," said Mr. Turnquest, who added that he is not troubled by opposition within or outside his party.

"They want desperately to take the focus off their incompetence, ineffectiveness and inefficiency. We must continue to reveal their total ineptitude as a government. The old, pompous, all-for-me nature of the PLP is back and we must resolve to rid our country of this rudderless, incompetent and unfocused government. This is the focus of the FNM – nothing more, nothing less."

"The FNM leader called the press conference to respond to a Bahama Journal article published on Monday under the headline "FNM’s Want Tommy Out."

"That story revealed that an advisory council of the party headed by former Deputy Prime Minister Frank Watson has advised Mr. Turnquest that there are many FNM’s who want him out and Mr. Ingraham back in as leader."

Today –some months later- barring some miracle, Mr. Turnquest is set to become history.

This is all so sad for those people who know little or nothing about sharks.

Today you know the rest of the story. Dinner has been served; history has been made and Hubert Alexander Ingraham is back.

By now you would also know that I am not to be trusted when it comes to premonitions. Sharks might have been salivating. But as we now know, I was simply wrong when I talked about sharks salivating over what they would have for lunch. The sad record suggests that the sharks were salivating over what they were to have for their late evening victuals.

The truth –as we now know it – is that the sharks had an evening dinner appointment. And keep it, they did. The rest of that story is also history.

Tommy, Dion and Carl are today revealed as three wonderful ‘old boys’. It seems that Zhivargo Laing escaped that fate. He was probably put in tune with part of the wisdom in the proposition that he who fights and runs away; lives to fight another day.

Zhivargo Laing stepped out of harm’s way.

Tommy’s fate has been sadder. Mauled and bloodied, he has been left –with eyes wide, wide open- holding a gift of an appointment to the Senate as Free National Movement delegated leader to that place.

But seriously, seriously, seriously; Orville Alton Thompson Turnquest, Jr. should not have accepted that post. Instead, he should have graciously embraced and accepted as reality the emergence and political pre-eminence of Hubert Alexander Ingraham.

My unsolicited advice to the brother is that he should have taken the former prime minister’s words of commiseration with a tad more than a pinch of salt; take time to weigh them and thence and thereafter resign from the Senate.

Good brother, please remember that there is much truth in the pithy proposition to the effect that he who fights and runs away lives to fight another day. So Tommy, get out from under and run as if your life depended on getting up from under.

And good brother as you run away as fast as you can; please ignore for the love of God spurious and overblown apoplectic rhetoric about Mr. Ingraham and Mr. Brent Symonette which purports to defend the thesis that an Ingraham-Symonette ticket is inherently evil.

One apoplectic Bahamian is hopping mad at this new development in the Free National Movement.

The writer says, among other things he said about Hubert Alexander Ingraham was that, "Hubert Ingraham is a political louse. He is a political cutthroat. He is a man who cannot be politically trusted. He has an Uncle Tom philosophy of the first order. "

And the venom continues, "Politically speaking, he will sell out everyone to everybody in order to gain the political prize. He deceives himself and the truth is not in him. He does not work for peace and build up the common life. He is intent on dominating Bahamian politics and destroying the fabric of our political life. He has wrecked the FNM and eaten its cubs. He must be stopped, and he must be stopped by all political means, and by expending all political capital."

And then the angry brother provides this information in his conclusions and peroration, "The world must know that there is no one in the PLP who is afraid of Mr. Ingraham. When Keod Smith and Sidney Stubbs and others in the PLP finish with him, he will damn the day and curse the hour that he decided to come back into active politics."

All I can say is to echo the monkey who had the ill fortune to lose a portion of his tail to the tender ministry of a machete. When he checked the outcome of the machete’s work, his response to the tail was simple enough; it isn’t long now.

What I know is that it isn’t long now for all those pumped up jumped suckers who thought five years ago that they had arrived. Time flies. It is now time for some of those impudent, malicious perverts to pack their georgie bundles and leave.

And I still say to Tommy, take heart and remember that he who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day. Run away, Tommy; run far from front-line politics in The Bahamas. Run far away from front-line politics, Tommy.