She is seen as the quiet and before now, not very visible partner of Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo but after one conversation with Sita Nagamootoo, one quickly realises that she is a woman of strength and resilience and one who has been the rock her husband sought refuge in whenever the political punches came fast and furious.
Married to the recently sworn in Prime Minister for some 43 years, Mrs Nagamootoo has never wavered in her support of him in his quest to make Guyana a better country and one in which all Guyanese can have a good life. And so, even though he put his life at risk, was thrown in jail and many times left the raising of their four young children to her, Sita Nagmootoo stood by her man.
And it is a man she is obviously still very much in love with as her eyes lit up when he stepped into the room almost an hour after she began the conversation with the Sunday Stabroek at their Sophia home. She is not shy to talk about their journey together, which started since they were in school, but indicated that it would take an entire novel tell that love story. It must be told though that the first conversation the two had was while she was shopping in the market with her grandmother. It was not a conversation of substance but it was the start of what resulted in her being married to the man of her dreams at the age of 21; he was 23.
As we sat in her cozy kitchen, with the aroma of curry in the air, Mrs Nagamootoo let her guard down drew this reporter into her life and who she is. One can quickly gauge how family-oriented she is given the various family portraits on display in her living room along with trophies and awards that would have won by family members.
Mrs Nagamootoo is a trained teacher by profession and a woman who could stand on her own at any given time. She majored in Mathematics and minored in Language and later read for a degree in Education followed by a post-graduate diploma in Administration in Education at the University of Guyana. She is not sure what her role is as the Prime Minister’s wife but she has interests and passions, not least among them, differently-abled children. Her interest also lies with working-class women especially those living in rural Guyana, who sometimes get lost in the bigger scheme of things. She envisions working in a team as she knows there is no office designated for the Prime Minister’s wife, but wants to make a contribution and is willing to do what needs to be done to help the citizens of the country she loves dearly.
Mrs Nagamootoo, now retired, started teaching at the tender age of 16 and at one point also lectured at the Cyril Potter College of Education. She has seen and heard horror stories of children and their families and many days she was not just teacher but counsellor, friend, mother and at times even investigator. To say she has firsthand knowledge of what goes on the lives of ordinary children, especially those who live in extended families or in single parents’ homes, is an understatement. And while she would have done what she could have then there is much more she wants to do. For this reason she would like focus to be placed on children who are forced to drop out of school to help earn for their families or take care of their siblings.
At present, Mrs Nagamootoo is secretary of the Ralph Joseph’s Foundation, a charitable organisation which has given assistance to single parents, widows and students.
Describing herself as a workaholic, Mrs Nagamootoo said she loves gardening and she proudly displayed her plants to this reporter. While she has been a career woman she enjoys making her home comfortable for her family and even though all four of the Nagamootoo children now live overseas, making time to spend with her grandchildren is a priority.
Politics
When she met Prime Minister Nagamootoo he was already in the PPP’s youth arm and she was just a Sunday school teacher and one who volunteered her services but he soon
won her admiration with his hunger to make the country better.
“His heart was always with the working class people, he always wanted Guyana and Guyanese people to be better…,” she said of her husband.
He spent most of his youthful years fighting for a new government which he expected to bring about change and this did not make their life easy.
“We had a very hard time during those times… Very often he was in prison, a lot of policemen would come and search our home; he would be taken away and we wouldn’t even know where he was…”
But then a change came and the PPP/C came into power and she said one the day when the late Dr Cheddi Jagan was sworn in, she “really thought I was breathing fresh air” and they wanted to be a part of bringing about the change.
Mrs Nagamootoo said her husband was at one time helping out with three ministries but as a Headmistress she was earning more than him. She knew Dr Jagan was an honest man and one with a plan but he died suddenly and “things went haywire.”
When Bharrat Jagdeo was handpicked to be president by then president Janet Jagan, the Prime Minister’s wife said, they were away on vacation and had to be told by friends. Eventually her husband was called asked to return home and work with the new president to present a united front and he did because at the time that was very important to him.
For her it was from this point that the alienation of her husband from the party started, which she believes was orchestrated by Jagdeo.
He did not agree with the direction of the party and while they had no actual evidence they knew people were putting their hands in the “cookie jar.” She pointed to their simple home, one they built before 1992 and improved over the years through two loans and assistance from relatives. Yet they saw very young politicians living in mansions and leading luxurious lifestyles and felt the source of their finances must be questioned.
And so while she has been supporting Moses Nagamootoo throughout his political life, when he announced in 2011 that he had decided to quit the PPP/C—a party he had served for almost all his life—Mrs Nagamootoo breathed a sigh of relief and told him he should have done it sooner. However, her plan for them to enjoy their children—Angela, Maria, Adela and Moses Ernesto—and five grandsons just living out their days quietly was not to be. The Prime Minister, being a politician at heart and a man yearning to contribute to change in Guyana, soon joined the Alliance for Change (AFC). She supported him then and when the AFC decided to form a coalition with APNU she supported him even more. This time around as she actually made it on to the campaign stage and was an instant hit with ordinary women.
“The experience was good. I wish I had done it before. You know you have to go out there and connect with the women,” she said of her days on the campaign trail, smiling broadly.
As a wife it was not easy to read and hear some of the things said about her husband by people he once called brother and sister, but at other times she sat and laughed it off with her husband because of the sheer ridiculousness of some of the statements.
“I didn’t feel any pain because you know when they go out there and they say their nonsense and they curse and they carry on I would say ‘Look at these guys they are doing all these things because they want to fool people and because they want to make themselves look better’.”
For her those utterances only exposed the character of those persons and those who know her husband were not swayed by the “low class” behaviour of his former comrades. Former president Donald Ramotar calling her husband an “intellectual jackass” for her just showed the level of his intelligence.
One reoccurring criticism of her husband was that he wanted to be the presidential candidate of the PPP/C and left because he could not get the leadership role. Mrs Nagamootoo does not agree but pointed out that “ambition is not a sin, it is one of the values of life because if you are not ambitious about something you would never move up.
“So when they go out there and talk about his ambition I would say to him ‘you spent all these years in politics and they don’t want you to be ambitious, who wouldn’t you want to be a leader but you wouldn’t go and do bad things to be a leader’.”
She questioned where Jagdeo was when her husband was in jail and working in the trenches for betterment. She added that she had never seen him before she was introduced to him as the country’s new junior Finance Minister.
Mrs Nagamootoo believes that those in the PPP/C had something good but just never recognized it because they “were all engrossed in their evil doing and so they did not look to see the good side.”
She believes the coalition government will work towards making Guyana better and delivering on the promises made on the campaign trail and she has every intention of making her contribution wherever possible.
The second family has a designated home on Main Street, but Mrs Nagamootoo said there is a lot of work and repairs that need to be done to the building and as such she is unsure of their accommodation there in the near future.
