VAUGHN MILLER SLAMS THE DOOR ON THE FNM

“ The FNM will not repent. I will not recant”
House of Assembly
11 December 2019

This is the full statement by Vaughn Miller MP as he left the Free National Movement:

I am guided by Psalm 26:1;

“Judge me or Lord for I have walked in my integrity; I have trusted also in the Lord; therefore I shall not slide.”

This day saddens me deeply. 

When I was fired for voting against the increase in VAT I said to the Prime Minister It would’ve hurt me to vote against his policy more than it hurt him to fire me, because I do not oppose leadership publicly, especially Black leader ship.

I did not become a part of this team to be known as a political dissident.

Dante wrote and I quote:

“the hottest places in hell is reserved for those who, in times of moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.“

The late Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Junior wrote and I quote: 

“Cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency asks is it political? 

Vanity asks the question is it popular?But conscience asks the question is it right? 

And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor political, no popular, but one must take it because one’s conscience says it is right!“

Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Junior also stated: 

“the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.“

Mark Twain wrote: 

“patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it is right.”

Sinking sand is not what I stood on when I rose to oppose the Government’s lease of the Town  Centre Mall owned by the Member for St Anne’s, then a sitting Cabinet Minister.

I stood on principle, I stood on righteousness, which is the only SOLID ROCK! 

I stood opposed to the deal because it had the most offensive stench of political filth.

Many of my FNM colleagues reviled me; Many FNMs, near and far, persecuted me and spoke and plotted all manner of evil against me.

It was said that I was finished politically; that I would not win the Party’s nomination in 2022. But the Party itself, losing support at an alarming rate, and on this current trajectory is headed for a crushing defeat in 2022.

It was said that I would be destroyed by the Party, but the Party itself, if it continue on its present path, is on the path of self-destruction.

A political martyr is one who suffers political death for standing up for righteousness. Let me be a martyr: it is the greatest honour that  could bestow upon me; and if I am to be forcibly removed from the political stage, the record shows that I took my stand, INSTINCTIVELY, for righteous governance.

My objection to the Town Centre Mall deal was that it was wickedness and that my supporting vote would itself have been foolishly corrupt, even if the House had not been misled, because it is patently WRONG for a sitting Cabinet Minister to enter into a contract with Government. PERIOD.

It is unfair, it is greedy, it is unethical and it is immoral. PERIOD.

One ought not to sit in Cabinet, at the people’s pleasure and use the opportunity to enrich oneself through a lease contract that will be paid out of the People’s Treasury.

I did not need the Member for St Anne’s to disclose months later that he was indeed involved in intimate discussions with the Prime Minister, regarding the lease.

All he did was to confirm that it was indeed a corrupt deal, from the moment of its conception.

And he knew it instinctively, for one moment, and then he was internally overpowered…

Consequently, Cabinet, in approving the lease, made another one of its unwise, regrettable decisions, since that institution was established in 1964.

And the source of this corruption is the devilish philosophy that Party loyalty over-rides one’s morality, one’s integrity and one’s conscience.

Blinded by party loyalty, men and women are likely to fall, like fools, into the ditch of institutionalized corruption.

I am not a fool; but I would have felt like one, if I had voted for that egregious Resolution, that has now put the Prime Minister and the Party in an unenviable and almost laughable position.

NOTHING CAN OVER-RIDE my sense of what is right and what is wrong.

I say to young men and women coming up behind us: “Refuse to support ANYTHING that your moral instincts tell you is WRONG. Don’t let ANYTHING overpower your sense of righteousness, even if your livelihood or your very life is threatened. Let NOTHING over-ride your conscience. Be like Shadrach, Meshach and Abdednego, those Negroes went against the established protocols and refused to bow!

Party philosophy must be a CONSENSUS of ALL the individual consciences in the organization, expressed freely, without fear or favour. Only then, is party loyalty morally and politically correct.

I am not a political parrot; I do not dumbly recite what I hear, without understanding the nuances and ramifications. I speak what I have meditated on; and my meditations are grounded in my upbringing as a young Christian man in The Bahamas.

If I offend ANYONE by my insistence that it was a wicked deal, I offer no apology for how my parents and the people of Eleuthera raised me.

Guided by the Holy Spirit, I struck out at the Lease Agreement, totally unaware at the time, like many others, that there were misleading assertions in the Resolution; and I dealt a mortal blow.

When it dawned on me what was happening, naturally, I mutinied, I rebelled!

So, I can boast, through Christ, who strengthens me and gave me the courage to say, “NO”, in the face of so-called political destruction.

It should have never come to this: A VOTE OF NO CONFIDENCE AGAINST A PRIME MINISTER FOR MISLEADING THE HOUSE!

That innate sense of integrity should have made the lease proposal dead-in-the-water, when it reached Cabinet.

Why would a Prime Minister conspire with a Cabinet Minister to mislead the House?

In the Westminster system, which was invoked against me, what is the custom regarding misleading the House?

Why should a Prime Minister not be smartly punished for misleading the House?

The bad example set for the younger generations is that nothing is wrong with misleading people, so long as it achieves the desired results and so long as one is not caught.

I can guarantee you that that kind of mind-set will not help to reduce crime. And one can rest assured that that kind of mind-set will not generate efficiency and integrity in the public service. 

Based on the rhetoric of my colleagues before and during the election campaign of 2017, rhetoric that spoke to integrity, honesty and transparency and other lofty and noble ideals, I was convinced that we were on a glorious road to a Golden Age: no more corruption, no more un-tendered contracts, no more victimization and persecution, no more favouritism, no more neglecting the poor.

I recognized that integrity was being desecrated, but I will forever praise integrity and despise corruption.

Two cannot walk together, except they be agreed! our differences are irreconcilable!

The FNM will not repent, And I shall not recant!

Therefore I am requesting as of the next sitting of the House of Assembly, I am seated among the Independents.

May Almighty God, Yahweh Elohim, continue to bless the Commonwealth of The Bahamas and make the wealth common.

LONG LIVE THE COMMONWEALTH OF THE BAHAMAS!!