In this period of time surrounded by the air of change, there are those among us who capture this moment in history and leave an indelible footprint in the sands of time.
This 2011 chapter in the life of the world has seen great moments of transformation in our world. When we look back, we remember the uprising in the Middle East and the movement of people who sought to no longer tolerate abuse in leadership. One by one, leaders around the world were given the boot by the people. Tunisia, Egypt, Lybia, Italy, and Spain, just to name a few, all saw and felt the Hand of the People.
In our own country – right here in the Bahamas – the sale of BTC no doubt was a watershed moment in the life of this country where hundreds protested its sale. Marches on Parliament continued one after the other and, for the first time in the history of the country, dogs were brought to Bay Street to control the heated tempers.
Leaders, who the people once trusted, sold the national asset for pennies and watched as scores of talented professionals left the Corporation in disgust. In all this, we at Bahamas Press monitored the collapse within the Ingraham government, which began to boil into a pot of molten magma. Before we knew it, following the sale of BTC, Branville McCartney, a former Cabinet Minister, left the FNM. He was the sixth Cabinet Minister to leave the embattled Ingraham Cabinet.
As time progressed, the country then saw the departure, axing, firing of Kenneth Russell and what transpired in that episode left Bahamas Press editors with no other choice but to name the former Cabinet Minister Bahamas Press’ Person of the Year 2011.
Russell’s departure alone was not the big watershed moment that turned our attention towards him and crowned him with this honour. It was his bold, unpadded, assertive response to his firing.
From the steps of the airport on that fateful day, that man who carried out Ingraham’s plan to regularize foreign nationals turned the gun on his former boss and unleashed a relentless attack which will go down in Bahamian history.
Russell told reporters Hubert Ingraham was “A TYRANT” and characterized his “UNGODLY” attitude as something that is unbecoming of a Prime Minister.
Kenneth Russell further described HIS FORMER BOSS, Hubert Ingraham, as a man who cannot be trusted, and said, “I thought Hubert Ingraham was my friend, but I found out that is not the case.”
Russell in our book heis a BIG man among men. Here is the man who sat at the right hand side of the throne for over four years and also foiled attacks aimed against the nation’s chief.
It is against this backdrop of bold defiance that Bahamas Press knights Kenneth Russell to be our Person of the Year 2011.
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Editor’s Note: Due to technical difficulties we apologize for the delay in the publishing of this article…
Some people just frig up bey, that’s why I stay to myself. All I have to say Brent and Kenneth couldn’t have been cool like that. If Kenneth was one of his boys and he was looking out for him, he would have taken the profanity out that message before delivering it to the PM. Either way when you look at it that wasn‘t going to make any difference, I believe the PM had his mind made up about letting Kenneth go and Brent and everybody know just how that man go once he’s set on doing something, that’s why I am trying to understand what’s the point of carrying a message like that to the PM for him to say Kenneth acted disorderly. You never know though, Kenneth might have said some things the rest of them wanted to say a long time ago and never had the courage or balls to do it. This might have been a good opportunity to let papa know what time it is and use Kenneth the same time to do it, because he was on his way out any which way. You cannot help but to feel for Kenneth though, the fact that he loved the PM so much that he would of taken bullet for him and on top of that he saw him as a friend and a father, then to have him turn around and embarrassed him in front of the nation, I could only imagine how big he felt in that room. I mean Papa look straight through the man and stand up there and discussed him like he was even there. How cold could one person be? Well blow me down, I can relate to why Mr. Russell was crowned by BP as the person of the year.
As Hitler declared, “It does not matter whether I live or not. It does not matter whether you live or not, what matters is that Germany lives on forever.”
He only found the courage after he got fired!!!!!!!!! Other than that he would still been there grinning his teeth at everything his former boss had to say.
Ingraham needs to be commended for protecting his party’s policy nonetheless he needs to bevoted out because he doesnt have poor people intrest at heart. The FNM is THE UBP
it’s about time they began to serve the bahamian people and not one man
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