I Say What I Mean and I Mean What I Say: HUBERT A. INGRAHAM In His Own Word (eBook)

Introduction

EARLY YEARS

Hubert Alexander Ingraham was born in Pine Ridge, Grand Bahama Island on 4 August 1947, the son of a single mother, Isabella Cornish. He was raised in the small settlement of Coopers’ Town, Abaco by his maternal grandparents, Prince and Elizabeth (née Cooper) Cornish. At age 11, while on summer vacation in Nassau with his mother, he met his biological father, Jerome Ingraham for the first time.

Ingraham received his early education in a small government-operated primary school in Coopers’ Town. Later, he studied at night institutes at Southern Senior School and the Government High School in Nassau, and was an articled student at the law firm of McKinney, Bancroft and Hughes. He was called to The Bahamas Bar in 1972.

Ingraham, in many respects, is a self-educated man. He is an avid reader of history, political biographies, and current economic and business news. Among his standard consumption are the two leading Bahamian newspapers, The Tribune and the Nassau Guardian daily and regular reading of the Economist Magazine, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times of London. Ingraham says that he enjoyed opportunities to read regional newspapers whenever in the Caribbean. With the advent of the internet, he became a more frequent peruser of e-editions of major Caribbean newspapers, including the Gleaner and the Observer of Jamaica, the Advocate of Barbados and the Express and the Guardian of Trinidad and Tobago.

As with many autodidacts, his quest for knowledge and information is insatiable. His phenomenal ability to retain and analyse information and to command it in support of his views and agenda, made a great impression on Dame Ivy Dumont. A Minister in his first two Governments and, eventually, the first female Governor-General of The Bahamas, Dame Ivy was led once to describe his mind as “a computer so complete is his recall and so great is his command of an extraordinary range of subjects.”

Ingraham was appointed a Member of Her Majesty’s Privy Council in July, 1993.

He was awarded an honorary Doctor of Science degree from Buckingham University in the United Kingdom in March 2000. In October 2018 he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws (LLD) by the University of the West Indies.

In 2001 he was awarded the Gold Paul Harris Award by the Rotary Club of Lucaya, Freeport, Grand Bahama.

CHARACTER AND PERSONALITY

Ingraham’s language is laced with the expressions and sayings his grandmother repeated to him as a child. His familiarity with the Scriptures is no doubt the result of his reading passages from the Bible to his illiterate grandparents from an early age. His belief in fairness, justice and equity and strong values of service were also formed early on. He credits his grandmother, whom he called ‘Mama’, as the inspiration for these attitudes. Eulogizing her at her funeral in 1995 he said:

“Mama prepared me for life and living. She imbued in me a sense of fairness and love of truth. She instilled in me a powerful commitment to serve and to succeed. She taught me how to love family, neighbour and community; how to respect one’s elders and to show compassion. She instructed me to stand up for what I believed in, not to be jealous of others or of their possessions. She taught me to be satisfied with whatever I had, however little or much. Her instructions direct me each day of my life.”

Hubert Ingraham was aptly profiled by a guest commentator in The Tribune on the 18 August 1992, the day before the historic first FNM general election victory:

“…His jaunty gait, the twinkle in his eyes, the spontaneous smile and unrestrained laughter – all suggest a man in love with people and in love with life.

…One side is mirthful, ebullient; the other side is tough as nails, no nonsense, intimidating, even… He tests each individual’s limits, sometimes none too gently. But he is always ready to hit the trenches, he is a hands-on leader.

Despite the occasional brusqueness, Hubert Ingraham is a man of genuine compassion, and a rare passion to right the wrongs of his society.

Even then, he is walking faster than most people can run. His cellular phone stuck to his ear, while conducting several meetings concurrently.

On the road with Hubert Ingraham, you see a man who belongs to the people.

He speaks often, and with conviction, about his intention to ensure social and economic justice for all in The Bahamas, and stresses delivery, accountability and fairness as key imperatives in an FNM administration.”

POLITICAL JOURNEY

Hubert Ingraham first entered frontline politics in 1975 as a member of the Progressive Liberal Party. Quickly recognized as a young Turk of significant ability and strength of conviction, his advancement through the ranks was rapid.

In the same year, he was elected to the National General Council of the then governing Progressive Liberal Party (PLP). By the next November, he received the body’s nod as National Party Chairman of the PLP. While eight members of the PLP were denied nominations to contest the 1977 elections, Ingraham became the Party’s nominee for the Cooper’s Town, North Abaco Constituency. He continued to receive his constituents’ favour and would hold the seat for 35 years until his resignation from Parliament and departure from frontline politics.

During his career, he would prove that he was no one’s pocket politician. Nor did the PLP government’s policies sit well with his ethics not long after he joined them. As early as 1979, he began openly questioning the PLP’s handling of the country’s affairs, accusing Prime Minister Pindling’s government of mismanaging the national budget and neglecting the Family Islands. Nevertheless, he ran on the PLP ticket and was reelected to Parliament representing North Abaco. He would serve as a Minister of Government under Lynden Pindling between 1982 and 1984.

In 1983, in the midst of an almost unrestrained trafficking of illegal drugs through the Bahamas archipelago and concomitant international censure, a commission of enquiry was established to examine allegations that top public officials, including Cabinet Ministers, were complicit in the trade. Emerging testimonies implicated at least two Cabinet Ministers. Ingraham’s consequent scathing indictment against the Party’s failure to censure these members was the beginning of the end of his tenure with the PLP.

Ingraham was charged before the National General Council (NGC) of the PLP for acting against the general best interest of the Party, specifically in relation to his speech during the 1984 Parliamentary Debate of the Budget (December 1984) and his May 1985 speech in support of an Opposition “Resolution of Condemnation of Members of Parliament commented upon unfavourably by the Commission of Enquiry”. His sentence included loss of a nomination to stand for North Abaco.

He was sacked from the National Cabinet in 1984. When he took delivery of the Governor General’s official letter of dismissal from a young policeman, Ingraham commented to the officer that he, Ingraham, intended to fire Pindling. He was finally expelled from the PLP in November 1985. The Beacon, a newspaper he established that year, was to become an important organ of his protest and continued political activity. Notwithstanding the upheaval, Ingraham won re-election for North Abaco as an Independent candidate in the 1987 elections.

April of 1990 saw Ingraham join the Free National Movement, which party was then the Official Opposition in Parliament. He rose quickly to the forefront of the party and was elected leader in May following upon the death of Cecil Wallace-Whitfield.

ROAD TO THE OFFICE OF PRIME MINISTER

Prime Minister Lynden Pindling and the Progressive Liberal Party (PLP) machinery dubbed him “Delivery Boy” during the 1990 bye-election campaign in Grand Bahama to fill the Marco City seat left vacant by the death of Free National Movement (FNM) Party leader Sir Cecil Wallace-Whitfield. In so doing, Sir Lynden had sought to make light of Ingraham’s promises to rescue Bahamians from 23 years of PLP domination.

Ingraham took the moniker on as a badge of honour during the Marco City contest and, later, during the 1992 general election campaign. It became the custom during that period for individuals managing the telephones at their Party Headquarters to greet callers with a cheerful “Deliverance Centre”. He would revisit the theme of “delivery” throughout his three terms in office, proud of his and his Government’s record of delivering on campaign promises and commitments. In 2012, the tagline for his last general election drive as Leader of the FNM was “We Deliver”.

Proud of his heritage and the goals he had set for his leadership of the Free National Movement and The Bahamas, Ingraham used his fierce intellect and forceful personality for the benefit of all. ‘Hubbigity’, the nickname given him by a cartoonist in the media in the mid-1980s, played into a favourite Bahamian description for an individual full of bravado or hubris— ‘biggity’. Ingraham was also labelled a ‘rude boy’ by some political opponents. Throughout his terms in office, “too bad, too sad” was often enough his retort, when told that he was being less than diplomatic.

Still,...