RICHARD Currie’s tenure as colonel of the Accompong Maroons officially ended on Wednesday, and potential candidates are anxious to know when the next election will be held, as they believe the community is divided and needs a change in leadership.

According to former Colonel Ferron Williams, who is a potential candidate, the Maroons of Accompong “are saying anything but Currie” at this time.

Williams surmised that Currie feels threatened and that is the cause of his failure to announce the date of the election.

Calls to Currie for a response went unanswered.

Williams suggested that Currie was buying time.

“Currie’s time expired February 18 and he should have been seeking to look at the voters’ list to verify it from six months ago. Now that his five years have expired, he cannot give any direction again. Unlike during my time when people called meeting before my time expired, I waited until his time expired.

“I am going to have a meeting with people from Accompong and people directly attached to Accompong in Elderslie, Aberdeen, Bethsalem, Whitehall, Cedar Spring, and Windsor. These are people who are Maroons. I am not talking about people whose names go on the voters’ list and they are not Maroons,” Williams said, adding that the Accompong voters’ list is in need of a purge.

He further claimed that well over 1,000 of the names currently on the list are not Maroons and appealed to the Electoral Commission of Jamaica to assist in overseeing the impending election as he is not confident that Accompong is in a position to host a fair poll at this time.

“The genuine number of people on the list is about 1,500. We need to go and have a talk with the prime minister of Jamaica so that funds can be made available to have this upcoming election. We are not in a position in Accompong to oversee our own election. The time has come and he is buying time,” Williams said of Currie, dismissing a theory that the Accompong leader might not want to call an election so soon after people’s homes were destroyed during Hurricane Melissa last October.

“Hurricane has nothing to do with people voting. He was the one who said he doesn’t want the Jamaica Defence Force up there to fix the houses after the hurricane. The people are ready to vote,” Williams said.

He claimed that there was a notice being circulated recently which allegedly contained a new rule that prohibits individuals living outside of Accompong to run for colonel.

“There was some garbage put out that for people to be eligible for the election, they should be living in Accompong for three years or more. At the time when he ran he wasn’t living in Accompong and that is one of the reasons I have to come out now. People are saying I was the one who brought Currie there. He was not born in Accompong. He didn’t grow up in Accompong. In 2017 he was introduced to me by his uncle and I decided to make him my public relations officer.

“Right now, Accompong is divided. I had written to Mr Currie suggesting ways we could reunite the community. As the old African sayings go: ‘When two brothers fight, the strangers benefit’ and ‘When elephants fight, the grass suffers’. However, I am not prepared to back down from anything again. I have been threatened on more than one occasion, the latest being on the 6th of January. Nobody will be stopping Ferron Williams,” he said.

Meredith Rowe, another former colonel who plans to run in the next election, indicated that he was not pleased with the current relationship between the Government and the Maroons of Accompong. The relationship, he said, has been on shaky grounds since Currie became colonel five years ago. It is his intention to fix that issue if he is elected colonel.

“There was some indirect crosstalk between Colonel Currie and the prime minister over certain things because the proper approach was not being taken. If I become the next colonel I will have continuous dialogue with the prime minister of Jamaica.

“For the Maroons to be locally recognised by the Jamaican State we will have to have dialogue with the Jamaican Government, which is what I am prepared to do. I wouldn’t mind meeting with the prime minister and whichever relevant Government officers now to have some dialogue and to guide them as to the way forward,” Rowe said.

He added that it was incumbent on Currie to begin the process to have the election as soon as possible, to look at the voters’ list because there might be flaws in it.

Cadein Wallace, another potential candidate, said that he would love the opportunity to be colonel to rescue the failing culture of the Accompong Maroons.

“Over the years the community has been divided and it bleeds my heart to see how the community has been divided mainly because of outside influence. They are introducing Jamaican politics and are using that to stifle Maroon business.

“We have a practice where the leader would stay above the fray and not get directly involved and choose a political side publicly. That can only lead to division and that is the main problem we are facing at this time. The community is torn apart completely and I have never seen it like this before. Somebody has to steady the ship and I think I am the right person at this time. People have been calling upon me for years,” Wallace said.

Ferron Williams (left), who was colonel of the Accompong Maroons in St Elizabeth from 2019 to 2021, in discussion with Minister of Tourism Edmund Bartlett. (Photo: JIS)

CURRIE.. his tenure as colonel of the Accompong Maroons officially ended on Wednesday, February 18