Landscaper and activist Aster “Ras John” John says host of Boom FM’s OMG, Dwight “Bing” Joseph, invited him to appear on the programme in August and he was not paid to do so, as Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves has alleged.
John was a strong supporter of Gonsalves’ Unity Labour Party (ULP) but made headlines in August after he made a scathing verbal attack on his MP, Saboto Caesar, over his management of the agricultural sector.
John appeared on Boom FM on Aug. 16 and Gonsalves said sometime later that the station was paid for the appearance.
The prime minister also speculated that John was paid for the appearance, adding that he would be stupid not to have been paid.
On Thursday, lawyer Jomo Thomas, who does a “Plain Talk” commentary on OMG, threatened to sue Gonsalves over statements the prime minister has made about alleged efforts by China to unseat the ULP government.
Thomas, who was a candidate for Gonsalves ULP in 2015, then served as Speaker of the House of Assembly for four years, denied being involved in these alleged efforts by China to unseat the government.
He called on Joseph to say whether he (Thomas) pays to make his commentary and whether he paid the station to allow John to appear as a guest.
After Thomas had left the programme, Joseph said:
“You, Counsel, Jomo Thomas, do not pay. And you, Counsel Jomo Thomas, did not pay for Ras John to be on the programme. If that is what you were asking, and I could verify that you, Counsel Jomo Thomas, did not pay.”
However, Joseph’s intonation caused some listeners to question whether he was suggesting that someone else had paid for John’s appearance on the show.
iWitness News contacted Joseph on Thursday and he said that the programme on which John appeared was not a paid programme and also reiterated that Thomas does not pay for his programme.
iWitness News also contacted John separately and he said he was not paid to appear on the show and that it was Joseph who had invited him to be a guest on the programme.
“Nah. Nah. He know better than that. Me nah geh pay. Pay by who?” John said when asked to respond to the PM’s allegation that he was paid to appear on the show.
He said he ended up on the programme out of coincidence because of a statement he had made at an event at the UWI Global Campus in Kingstown.
“I went to a meeting by UWI and then Saboto was there, they were talking about agriculture and Oscar Allen and Oscar Allen used to be my really good friend and Saboto is still my friend but I am not voting for them,” John told iWitness News.
He said that since the forum focused on agriculture, he saw it “as an opportunity to tell Saboto how me really feel, how he ah mismanage agriculture — live and direct.
“…Then Boom call me and tell me he wah me drop a little talk pon the radio. Me and Bing ah friend. So, me just go and mek a little freelance talk and jump off the thing,” John told iWitness News.
“Bing call me and say, ‘Ras John, boy, everybody ah talk ‘bout you how the night you go up UWI and you mek a statement and Saboto was so embarrassed and it was a very good thing and the whole place talking about you. So, me wah get you pon the station. Can you come, please?’”
John told iWitness News that he and Joseph are personal friends so he accepted the invitation.
“So, me just go, mek me talk, jump off the radio station, head back ah mountain, do me wuk, because me ah busy man.”
John said the prime minister then began saying he was paid to appear on the radio show.
“Me say, ‘By who?’ Me say me wuk for the prime minister from since ‘84 right up to 2012, me never collect a dollar from the man. Me just ah help the man for free because me is ah man who love my country and me wah see the best for my country because me know my country ha’ real potential fuh be 10 times better than how it is….
“Bing is my personal friend for years. So, Bing called me so me say, ‘Alright, me go come through.’ So, me come through and mek ah talk and then me just run off. And the prime minister say how we get pay.”
John told iWitness News that while his opposition to the ULP administration gained national attention recently, he has been campaigning against the party since 2015, over the government’s handling of the agricultural sector.
He said Thomas did not pay him to appear on any show and did not know that he was going to appear on the programme.
In his commentary on Boom FM on Thursday, Thomas addressed Joseph directly, saying Joseph asked him a few years ago to do a commentary on the station.
“And I came on. I relish the opportunity. I get to share my views, my ideas on so many issues,” Thomas told Joseph.
“And you can tell him if I pay you to come on here. Ras John came in your radio station. you can announce as a member of the Fourth Estate, you have a responsibility to declare that I have never paid you any money, I never paid Ras John to appear. I never paid you or anyone else to host Ras John…”
Thomas presented Gonsalves as unable to stand criticism.
“… if you have the slightest shade with anything that he says, slightest shade of difference, then you must be anti-Ralph,” Thomas said.
“This can’t be right. It cannot be right to take the name, the good name, the good efforts of people like myself — this is the same man who said that he would ensure that I would never be able to establish a practice in St. Vincent, and I would have to go back to New York,” Thomas said.
“Now he has gone to the bottom of the barrel, scraping the bottom,” he said, adding that this is a sign of desperation.
“And I hope that this desperation on his part does not lead to nefarious activities on his part, because he said that people are being nefarious, and in talking about people being nefarious, he has engaged in a defamatory statement, a slanderous statement, a total untruth manufactured for political purposes with the hope that he’s going to gain sympathy for what he’s doing.”
Thomas said Gonsalves “miscalculated badly with the person whom he describes as the short man.
“Because I’m not lured by money or all of the other vices that he may ensnare and entrap others with. I am of the considered view that whatever usefulness Prime Minister Gonsalves and his ULP party had, they have outlived that usefulness.
“And I’ve said that repeatedly, I am not here making a case for the opposition. I make a case for the future of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, for those young people, those children, born and unborn, who would come and reside in these places long after Gonsalves is gone, the ULP is gone, Jomo Thomas is gone. So, the slander is sickening.”
Thomas said that he has instructed his lawyers to write a pre-action letter to Gonsalves.
“And I just want to put it out there to him, where he can expect a pre-action letter from me, because what he’s doing is wrong. It muddies the discourse in St. Vincent and the Grenadines,” said Thomas, who was also a candidate for Gonsalves’ ULP in 2015 and later served as the speaker of the house of assembly under the administration.