‘Evil so rampant in the country’

Paul spoke yesterday at the Spiritual Shouter Baptist Liberation Day Celebrations held at the Chaguaramas Convention Centre, Chaguaramas.

“At the moment,” he said, “the Prime Minister of the country has indicated to the nation that he wants to meet with the IRO to have discussions about the vulgarity linked and associated with Carnival, so we are awaiting that invitation from him and when we meet with him, we’re certainly going to take the opportunity to raise the whole crime issue with him and what has happened and what continues to happen to children.”

He said he was all in favour of a national day of prayer.

“The IRO always stands for that and we will give our support to that,” he said.

Paul continued, “Right now, evil is so rampant in the country that we need prayers to help us through it and we believe that with prayers and fasting and our coming together as a nation, it could make a significant difference.”

On the recent killing of six-year-old Sean Luke, he said he felt very sad when he heard about Sean’s mother not getting any help from the police whom she called upon to find her missing son.

“I felt so very sad when I heard of Luke’s mother saying that she called the police and appealed to them for help but they did not respond,” he said, “so, that really hurt me and I was waiting to see what would happen. I’m also glad to see that the Commissioner of Police has said that he’s going to call for an investigation into that as to why the police didn’t respond.”

He stressed that the citizens must feel secure in knowing that when they are in trouble and they call upon the police for help, the police will respond.

“As a citizen,” he stated, “I feel very devastated and upset about it because this could be anybody’s child, this is a child of the nation and the pain inflicted to that child is not just the mother’s pain but it’s the pain on every citizen in this country. And I certainly empathise with the mother.”

During his brief address to the large audience of Spiritual Shouter Baptists, he urged his audience to stand up, speak out and call for evil acts and deeds to be stopped.

“Let’s all together hold each other’s hands and unite to address the evils around us and the challenges that still confront us,” he ended.