The leadership of the AFC is investigating itself

There are two ways in which the leadership of a political party can initiate an investigation into its conduct. One is that the brand new leadership will feel that it must make itself responsible to regain national credibility, so that it will investigate the wrong things that the previous leadership did.
In this situation, the organization’s task will be tough because the alleged offenders would have left and will refuse to cooperate. What happens then is that the party’s new hierarchy will have to gather information from party members who witnessed the misconduct over the years and who were not sycophants of the old order. Documents left behind by the old order can also provide useful information.

The second method of investigation is situational, meaning the party investigates a situation that occurred in which one of its big wigs or a group of key leaders failed to meet standards or allegedly committed an illegal or immoral act. In this case, part of the leadership is investigating another part of the leadership, because the consensus within the party is that such an investigation is necessary to prevent a recurrence. This second type of research is as common as the perennial grass and is becoming more common around the world.
What the AFC has recently proposed is comical, stupid and lacks common sense. The AFC has decided that it will conduct an internal investigation into how the party responded to the 2020 elections to determine what it did and did not do. How does this bizarre study differ from the two types I mentioned above?

First, there is no new leadership in the AFC that wants to fix the mistake made by the previous hegemonic players. What the AFC has announced is that the AFC will conduct its own investigation. In other words, the current administration will investigate each other’s conduct during the 2020 general elections. Secondly, the AFC’s investigation into an investigation into the party itself and not into a section of the party that committed indiscretion.

This becomes comical because John will have to testify to what Sunil did, and Mary will have to testify to what Sita did. The stupidity lies in creating a pantomime in that Sita, Sunil, Mary and John have done the same thing, so what are they giving evidence of? And what they’re going to do is a mockery of human action, because they all believe in what they’ve done together and there’s no disagreement about that.

The current management committee and executive branch of the AFC are the same people who were involved in participating and supporting efforts to change the election results, with one exception: current Vice Chairman Michael Carrington, who was there in 2020 and admits that things were done by the AFC in the 2020 elections that were wrong. Will these people conduct the investigation?

For the sake of argument, let’s say that the AFC will hire an outside agency to perform the task. But the same absurdity will result because the current leadership of the AFC at the first and second levels has a pyrotechnic unity of perspective: the APNU+AFC won the 2020 poll.
This is what they will tell the external examiners, so what purpose does the investigation serve? Nigel Hughes says and I quote: “I’m not saying we won’t find fault, but once we complete that process… what we did and didn’t do in the 2020 election then we can have a discussion about that apology… you ask me to anticipate what the AFC will find in its investigation….”

I think these words are clear and unequivocal – an investigation will be launched. But in an investigation, researchers and researchers ask questions. Who will be the persons called upon to answer questions and queries about what? Let’s be specific. What will David Patterson, the 2020 Secretary General, tell the panel about his role? What will 2020 leader Raphael Trotman say about his role? And the list goes on.

The curious thing is that we are a year away from another general election and only Michael Carrington has spoken about the wrong things the AFC did in the March 2020 elections. Why should we expect the current leadership of the AFC to change their minds change and admit that the results show that the ANPU has lost AFC? Nothing in recent politics has been more comical than a political party asking every hierarchical member what he/she did on election night 2020, when in fact they did what they did together. “Everything is consumed. Everyone is involved” – Martin Carter
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