WhatsApp became the tool that galvanized us as a people, and the final nail in the coffin of the Jammeh tyranny. The WhatsApp tool became the nexus for Gambians living in small villages and hamlets to Gambians living in the Diaspora, as we shared the platform to remind all of us the need to come together and bring sanity to our homeland. We were tired of the fear, disappearances, impunity, and the realization that our Gambia was off the cliff of becoming a failed state. The Diaspora was seen by our folks back home as the enlightened sons and daughters who are only driven by love of country, and irrespective of our partisan divide and whatever perceived difference we may have, there is a known truth that we will never engaged in processes that will threaten the stability of our country. The irony of it all is that the WhatsApp, the tool touted by president Barrow wherever he goes as the most effective tool that finally brought down the Jammeh tyranny and gave us our freedom, is now seen to be threatening and poised to put us back in the path of self-destruction
I am sure some of my good friends will find the above statements leaning close to rhetorical hyperbole, but after twenty-two years of what we went through as a country, taking things for granted should be avoided at all cost. During the last twenty some years, I have met folks from the UDP, PDOIS, NRP, PPP and non- partisans, and I am absolutely certain and convinced that the majority will never engaged in some of the ugly rhetoric being spewed through the WhatsApp tool. Like most people, I do not believe these folks speak for any singly party or party leader for that matter, and I have to assume that whoever wants to become president eventually, you would want to be a president of a country and a stable country for that matter. These dangerous minority can and will never help anyone become president, or to build a country that all of us can be proud of.
It is important for the good people and leaders of the struggle that made the sacrifices and the inconveniences over the years, not to allow their focus for partisan successes only to capitulate to these small minority of dangerous folks spewing hate and ready to highjack our successes. Let us all work together and remind every Gambian that we can have our political differences, but that’s just what they are because ultimately the preservation of our country and all our people is the most important goal. Heated and contentious debates and discussions are part of pluralistic democracy, especially at its infancy, and I can understand, but when it transitions to something outside the norms and values that we fought for as a people, together we should repudiate and lean on our leaders to do the same. It is too early to destroy the very work we have engaged in for the past twenty some years, just because….
Musa Jeng
