Farley urges supporters to ”stay focused”

Chief Sec­re­tary and To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty leader Far­ley Au­gus­tine last night en­cour­aged sup­port­ers to stay fo­cused and pre­pare for “dis­trac­tions” as the par­ty host­ed a Prayer and Con­se­cra­tion Ser­vice at Rovanel’s Re­sort last night.

Speak­ing dur­ing the event, themed “Eyes fixed on pur­pose, hearts fixed on God,” Au­gus­tine warned that the cam­paign ahead will bring po­lit­i­cal at­tacks.

“Dis­trac­tions will come. Ridicule will come. Threats will come. Sab­o­tage will come. False ac­cu­sa­tions will come,” he said. “But we serve a God who knows what it is to part red seas… and part it he will in this sea­son.”

He used the bib­li­cal sto­ry of Ne­hemi­ah to frame the par­ty’s mis­sion.

“I am do­ing a great work, and I can­not come down,” he quot­ed. “We have an as­sign­ment, and that as­sign­ment is to re­build the walls… of fam­i­ly life, of youth de­vel­op­ment, and so­cial co­he­sion.”

Link­ing the mes­sage to re­cent events, Au­gus­tine said To­ba­go’s fam­i­lies and com­mu­ni­ties were show­ing signs of strain.

“What about our young peo­ple… fac­ing great moral threats at this time? The dig­i­tal nois­es… iden­ti­ty con­fu­sion just this week. Mur­der in Ma­son Hall. This is not the To­ba­go we know.”

He said re­build­ing re­quired uni­ty and com­mit­ment.

“Ne­hemi­ah couldn’t build the walls alone. I can’t build these walls alone,” Au­gus­tine told the gath­er­ing. “Get ready to get your hands dirty. We have work to do.”

Tak­ing di­rect aim at his op­po­nents, he in­sist­ed the TPP would not be de­railed.

“Not a sin­gle op­po­si­tion — not the la­dy with 28 votes, not the one-man par­ty, and cer­tain­ly not the one that is try­ing to re­sus­ci­tate from its co­matose stage — will stop us from build­ing walls of pro­tec­tion around this is­land,” he said.

He al­so used the mo­ment to set ex­pec­ta­tions for the com­ing elec­tion.

“This elec­tion is more than just turn­ing out the vote… It has to be about how we put To­ba­go back to work, how we im­prove our pro­duc­tiv­i­ty,” he said. “Every one of us have a part to play.”

Au­gus­tine told sup­port­ers the TPP’s can­di­date launch on Mon­day at the Scar­bor­ough Es­planade will out­line how the par­ty in­tends to gov­ern.

“When we launch all 15 can­di­dates… we will be sig­nalling to the is­land how we in­tend to gov­ern for the next four years,” he said.

He closed with a mes­sage of de­ter­mi­na­tion.

“We will work and we will fight and en­sure we will build a safer To­ba­go, a bet­ter To­ba­go, a more pro­duc­tive To­ba­go, a more lov­ing To­ba­go, a more peace­ful To­ba­go — and a To­ba­go for which we can all be just­ly proud.”