Dear Editor,
It was amusing to see several retired military officers who had mutinied against their erstwhile Commander in Chief in order to unseat him as PNC Leader in the 2021 congress had themselves been unseated from that party’s central committee in the 2024 congress. The army pensioners should learn four laws of political survival.
First, they broke the iron law of common sense by becoming involved in an internal party intrigue without the support of their own independent political constituency and by ignoring the fact that their elevation to the PNC’s central committee had been achieved not by their own effort but by being co-opted onto someone else’s successful slate. Second, they broke the party’s internal code of respect by attacking the party leader but, by so doing, damaged in the minds of party diehards any prospect they might have had to be considered fit for a leadership position in the PNC.
Third, they broke their military code of honour by attacking their former Commander-in-Chief and forgetting that their own conduct in the army during the crime spree on the East Coast under the PPP regime was far from stellar. Finally, they seem to have forgotten that they served under a Commander-in-Chief who has remembered their military performance and who has commented publicly about it. The pensioners should learn that military rank is not necessarily a guarantee of public trust. Trust is not a privilege of status; it has to be earned. The pensioners should reflect on these laws and lessons on their path to political oblivion.
Sincerely,
Frank S. Grant