Sudama was a member of the NAR cabinet. He walked away from the Robinson administration and became a member of CLUB 88, which was the political embryo from which the United National Congress was born.
Sudama said he is still disturbed at how members of the Jamaat al Muslimeen were allowed to leave their headquarters on Mucurapo Road and head into the capital to invade the Parliamentary Chamber and TTT.
"We should have proper security organisation, in terms of intelligence gathering, oversight, and equipping security in terms of collaboration with foreign governments. It is an entire package of things which places security as a critical issue in governance," Sudama said.
Sudama questioned the relevance of having a government if it cannot provide security for the State and for its citizens.
He also spoke about the political climate at the time, noting that the prevailing view was that East Indians taking political power would shake the country's ethnic balance since Indians were already dominant in the professions of law, medicine and business.
He said against this background A.N.R. Robinson became the leader of the National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR) although his support base was only in Tobago while the United Labour Front of Basdeo Panday was the party which had real power in Trinidad.
Sudama said once the election was won things began to unravel and there was talk that Panday should take his ten members and go.
The former minister said the problem began when Ken Gordon, who was a minister of state at the time came up with the names for state boards .
“Only four per cent were people of the Indo-Trinidadian race and Ken Gordon was told he should come back and he did and it went to up ten per cent,” Sudama said.
The issue of an ethnic imbalance caused a heated exchange of words between Panday and Robinson, he said, which led to a request from Robinson for all cabinet ministers to resign.
He accused Robinson of failing to address the race problem. “There was great hope in the country that we could have broken this," Sudama said.
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