Mr. President, it is more than 100 days since we, the sovereign citizens entrusted you with the mantle of leadership of our beloved country. Our expectations as a people and a country are high. We are with the hope that your leadership will bring us the most needed change we have been yearning for in decades. We are with the hope that, our education system, a rotten one for that matter, will be properly looked into to address our development needs as a people. We are with the hope that, our crippled economy will be brought into life through rapid promotion of both foreign and local investments couple with diversifying the sector to boost growth and productivity in order to meet the economic challenges of the 21st century and provide a good living for our people.

Mr. President, we are with the hope that, our deteriorating health care system will be fixed to significantly reduce deaths in both infant and maternal mortality, improve or increase our life expectancy rate and more importantly, build and sustain a healthy nation. We are with the hope that, our agricultural sector which has failed in the previous regime, considering the level of investment in the sector, yet yielded nothing but low productivity, poor management of projects and more disheartening, hunger among our people. We are with the hope that, our energy sector will equally be fixed to meet the demand of electricity supply across the country; in addition, providing clean drinking water to our people.

Mr. President, we are with the hope that, one of our most pressing issues, unemployment among our young people will be addressed so as to keep the human resource base of our country; indeed the most energetic ones and avoid brain drain which serves as a key challenge for our governments on the continent today. We are with the hope that, our workers will not be exploited to the profit need of the exploiters, rampant in both the public and private sectors, especially in the latter; but concomitantly and more importantly for that matter, we are with the hope that, our government will review the working conditions of Gambian workers and ensure that each and every worker lives a better life and die in dignity. We are with the hope that, our people living with disabilities will be fully integrated into society and be given the required training and position in life so as to become active players in national development endeavour.

Mr. President, we are with the hope that, our foreign policy will be directed towards countries that will first and foremost recognize and respect the sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity of our country and ensure that mutual interest is the ‘social contract’ or cornerstone of our relations. We are with the hope that, our various other sectors will undergo serious reforms to ensure that, over 50 years of underdevelopment in both human and other areas do not repeat itself. Mr. President, our country needs to move with minimum delay. We are very much cognizant of the fact that our transition has not been smooth and that the system inherited was a total bad one which we fully recognize and understand; but we must equally bear in mind that our development under no given circumstance can be adjourned. No one expects all these range of issues to be addressed anytime soon, but the surest way to address these challenges in short, medium and long-terms, is to have a proactive government with active citizens.

Today, no nation can be proud of its development gains without creating an aware citizenry through massive education which will inculcate the spirits of civic consciousness, patriotism, and service to the nation and humankind. No nation can equally be proud of its development gains, inclusively democracy, without building a robust and a sustainable economic base. It is for this reason that Afrifa Gitonga taught us that, ‘democracy works on full bellies and peaceful minds’.

In addition, no nation can be proud of its development gains without building the capacity of its people through training, the young ones for that matter, and additionally providing employment opportunities to in return boost the economy. No nation can as well be proud of its development gains without having a healthy population. Unfortunately Mr. President, Africa, especially the Gambia has a sick population.

From energy to Agriculture, trade and commerce etc, our government, the government you are leading must come up with a development blueprint that will guide its operation within the given mandate. This blueprint should serve as your action plan for the coming years in addressing these problems. In your statement on the 18th February, 2017, you briefly made mention of some of these sectors but did not tell us how you will fix them. Yes, we did not even expect you to tell us how to fix them in that statement, rather we expect these problems and their solutions to be documented in a clear blueprint in the form of an action plan that will guide our development under your leadership. Over 100 days in office without a development blueprint only sends a message of ‘no clear direction’. Aid in the forms of loans and grants are flowing from left right and center, but are their plans in place as to how these loans and grants will be utilized to address our problems? This is the fundamental question we are to ask ourselves? From 1994 to 2016, millions and billions of dollars and euros and pounds were pumped in. But with no clear direction, policy slippage and financial embezzlement brought us to this stage of underdevelopment. To avoid a replica of this, not only must the government under your leadership come up with a clear blueprint soonest, but a workable and an attainable (realistic one) to address the needs and aspirations of Gambians.

Yours in the service of the nation
Essa Njie

A sovereign and a concern Gambian citizen

A people’s leader. Actually isn’t the most educated, revered, charismatic or even powerful. He is often strikingly ordinary, compassionate and a complete embodiment of his societal customs, beliefs and values. In sum, his voice naturally resonates his people but still remains charmingly imperfect. Above all, he listens, learns and acts as dictated by popular demand. This perhaps explains what some social scientists meant by ” Leadership is an ongoing evolution in thought and progress not only a mere title or role. To be a great leader, you have to constantly adjust your ears and stay attuned to your people listening to carefully what they have to say”. Abdoulie Lowe buttressed, “A leader must have a vision, keep hope alive, inspire greatness, and create avenues that will bring the very best out of people”. Despite anything your sceptics hold against you, they cannot deny you are anything but a people’s leader who does not fall for anything but always “calculating his steps”.

 
I want to discus two points on the cabinet compact on delivering good governance, accountability and exemplary leadership to the people of the Gambia: inclusivity and detribalization. Inclusivity is best punctuated as a process of chancing every citizen to equally and fully participate in driving expected national development spurts. In sum, it discourages the snubbing of sceptics and opposition leaders and their supporters. We have seen some attempts to package some as anti-establishment. As such their persons and integrity were littered with disgraceful decors. Maybe many of us believe life is a bed of roses beneath with a river of milk and honey flows. Perhaps it explains why most lose their bearing when an unexpected huddles surfaces its ugly head. But soonest the dusk finds a resting corner, we say ah it was just a misunderstanding. What makes the misunderstanding even deadlier is the profanities and character denting which decorate our discourse dazzlingly. Without the ugly dazzling adds on, our discourse is educative, engaging and entertaining. Therefore, we must help the emotional ones to start using their heads first. We must build a civil and vibrant society which is tolerant and supportive as enshrined in our national anthem. Despite our different political alignments, we are a nation that is interwoven and related by either marriage or friendship. Thus, any owlish effort to segregate us on political dispensation will only backfire. “Politicians”, Foday Jawla observed, “only have permanent interest but not friends”. Despite his controversial takes on some issues of national importance, he is spot on here. Consequently, we must abdicate being one another’s keeper.

 
On detribalization, I charged, what is noble about tribe? I am proud to be tribe this, I will defend tribe that. To hell with tribal foolishness. If any tribe is that significant how come it doesn’t have its own country, passport, currency, tribal flag and anthem? Our personal being and life isn’t measured by the tribe one is born into but how significant your being and life have contributed to the development of society and human mind. What life you live and the legacy you leave behind matters more than whatever tribe you represented. Never has anyone been eulogised and celebrated for belonging to a tribe but what you have added or subtracted from society. A tribes worthiness and nobility is immaterial if all it gives back to society is hate, backwardness and waste of space. Any human being who isn’t a beast of burden that lives each day as it comes and on others does not hide behind tribe to punctuate his or her worthiness. He transcend beyond these insignificant and pernicious yardstick of success, development, consciousness and greatness. Can anyone name me a tribe whose members did not betray one another with backstabbing, theft, murder and screwing one another’s wife and husband?

 
Notwithstanding, our tribes have great worthiness in inculcating moral values and instilling sense of responsibility on its members such as initiation rites, respect for elders, jealously protecting family and marital institutions etc. When politicians began to use tribe for political gains, it became a dangerous tool of segregation. Our national anthem is explicit in its take on detribalization when it accentuates, “…all may live in unity, freedom and peace each day” and “…join our diverse people to prove man’s brotherhood”. It never cajole to “prove man’s tribalhood”. So luko fii jarr di daw baye danu?

Sulayman Jeng
Birmingham, UK

One would think that The Edward Francis Small Teaching Hospital (EFSTH) being the main referral hospital of the country which receives critical patients from the other health facilities in the country and also being a place where Doctors and other health workers are expected to be trained on the best standards of patient care will be given due attention by any government that considers itself fit to preside over the affairs of the people.

 
Unfortunately for our country this has not been the case under the former government of Yahya Jammeh and so far nothing has changed under the new Coalition Government of Mr Adama Barrow either. Since the new government took over and the subsequent appointment of the health Minister the situation in EFSTH which was inherited from the former regime is getting worse by day without any effort been seen to done by the government to improve it. Almost two months after her appointment we are yet to know who our health minister is. She didn’t come even once to see how things are going on and to know the problems we are faced with daily in our work. It is said that knowing a problem is one step towards solving it.

 
The prevailing situation under our current Chief Medical Director Professor Khalil is deplorable to say the least. That man who is already senile needs to be allowed to go home and have a good rest and sleep before his final departure to the next world which all of us are awaiting instead of being tasked to head an important institution like a teaching hospital when our country and the hospital is not lacking young, intelligent, vibrant and patriotic professionals like Dr Samateh and Dr Roberts, just to name a few.

 
The unwise decision of making professor Khalil as the CMD of EFSTH was made during the time of Yahya Jammeh. I believed they settled on professor Khalil who was unable to even effectively manage a Unit of the hospital [The laboratory] because of the fact that none of our able professionals at the time were willing to accept an offer due to the irrational behavior of president Jammeh who is fun of firing people from their jobs for no good reason.

 
Thanks to professor Khalil and Yahya Jammeh the whole hospital [EFSTH] is in shambles. There is a shortage of almost everything ranging from bulbs for lighting the rooms, thread, oil and sewing needles, spare parts for very essential and expensive machines, Bed sheets for patients, absorbent gauze and other essential consumables. How can we continue to operate under this condition without the tools to do our work and yet expected to deliver quality services to our people? What kind of Doctors and health professionals do we expect to produce when they are learning and being trained in such an environment?

 
Whenever one makes a request to the hospital authorities, the CMD in particular for almost anything the only response is that there is no money; Full stop. He is not seen to be doing any effort after that.
The coalition Government of Mr Barrow needs to act fast now if they have any desire to redeem the situation in this very important national institution unless if they intend to have it closed.

From: A Concerned Staff

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In the Standard issue of 8 May 2017, a statement by the police was published. Unfortunately, the statement by the police leaves much to be desired.

The police should know that words matter and let them ensure that they use the right words in their statements. This is a sentence in the police statement: “Police in the Kanifing Municipality intervened and resolved a situation, which was heading to be a serious confrontation between the Muslims and Ahmadis of Tallingding on Saturday.” I unapologetically say here that this statement by the police is very disappointing. This statement by the police has deliberately put the Ahmadi Muslims outside the fold of Islam. The police of Kanifing Municipality know very well that this is the second of this kind of incident in Tallinding within a two year period and that the main cause of the problem is that those obstructing the burial believe Ahmadis are not Muslims.

Therefore, what does the police think it is doing by deliberately referring to Ahmadis as non-Muslims? The police is in effect supporting the position of the people of Tallingding and further inflaming the problem. Ahmadis consider themselves Muslims and the police must always refer to them as such if they make their statements. The police should not discriminate. If this statement was an error, then they must apologise to the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at through the media that they have used to send the message. If the statement was deliberate, then they have failed in being nondiscriminatory and impartial.

The other issue is that the incident is considered a misunderstanding. This contradicts the facts. How was it a misunderstanding? Two different episodes of an issue in the same community in two years! You termed that a misunderstanding? You have got it all wrong or you deliberately twisted it! This is what happened and you know it very well: a handful of people around Tallinding Sicap tried to obstruct the burial rites of a deceased resident of Tallinding. The police were informed and they came there before the arrival of the burial team. When the burial team arrived, the police did not open the gate of the cemetery until after almost two hours of waiting. This delay increased the tension as more obstructers gathered.

To further clarify that this was not a misunderstanding, I refer you to the previous incident in September 2015. The words of the President of the Supreme Islamic Council were that the council was appealing to the entire Muslim Ummah to strictly monitor their cemeteries in order to know who will be buried in these cemeteries and that if they, the ‘custodians’ of faith, receive reports that Ahmadis have buried their dead at any Muslim cemetery and the people are not happy about it, the Ahmadis will be asked to exhume it and bury it elsewhere. It is therefore absolutely wrong and dangerous to consider the incident a misunderstanding. The police should not mince words. The police should present the facts as they are.

It was not necessarily the intervention of the police that relatively resolved the issue; it was the sense of maturity and respect for the rule of law displayed by the Ahmadiyya Muslm Jama’at. The members of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Jama’at will never put the law into their own hands because they consider obedience to the law a religious duty. Anyway, the point I am trying to make is that considering the incident a misunderstanding is a misrepresentation of the facts.

Another issue that needs clarification is the role of the Supreme Islamic Council in the whole issue. What makes them stakeholders? Were the obstructers under the command and instruction of the Supreme Islamic Council? If no, then why are they considered ‘stakeholders in the conflict’? If yes, then they must be taken to task for instigating a potential national strife. If they are considered ‘stakeholders in the conflict’ because they are considered as the body responsible for Islamic religious affairs in the country as they ascribed to themselves in their press release of 23 January 2015, then some other questions also have to be answered. Who has given them that mandate? Are they a branch of the state/government constitutionally mandated to take up such a responsibility? If no and also if they are not the force behind the obstruction, then I believe they should not have any role in the further dialogue. Let us please try to distinguish the State and its apparatuses from religious groups and/or organisations.

I have always said this and I will repeat it once again, no individual or group of individuals own a cemetery. It is a communal property and a deceased resident of a community has the right to be buried in the cemetery of the community or any other cemetery in the country.

Let those parading themselves as custodians of the faith be told their limitations by the Police, the Ministry of the Interior and by extension the entire Government. The authorities should take to task whoever is trying to create disorder and unrest. That is the only solution to the problem. What is there to dialogue when what should be done is clearly known? The statement by the police is in fact more dangerous than the obstruction of the burial by people who took the law into their own hands. The Police must not turn a blind eye to the facts. The police had better not even given any statement on the issue than giving a statement that could be more inflammatory.

May Allah Almighty continue protecting the Gambia. Aameen

Written by:

Tahir Ahmad Touray

Being an inexperienced leadership in a young democracy minted from the debris of a very repressive dictatorship is the toughest, most delicate and often prone to derail on the crisp of failure in driving expected change spurts. As a consequence, your leadership needs strong supplements to boost its immunity strength in anchoring its feet on course. Unlike other leadership in similar predicament, your leadership is blessed with a citizenry who partakes and simultaneously chance you to learn on the job while protecting you from making those derelictions which could desk your leadership on an unpleasant detour.

The mere thought of you failing kept me up many nights. How I not only want you to succeed but be a living lesson for modern leadership and democracies. Suddenly, an inner voice charged, “Does Barrow’s heart rhyme in unison with yours?” That thought. Palpitated my heart worryingly. What actually almost drained life out of me was not the realisation of our hearts might not be hitting the same notes but the thought of you swaddled with broken promises, unmet expectations and naked failures to drive the expected change spurts. That really froze my marrow.

 
Momentarily, my thoughts shifted to the victims and their families. What sort of closure will they have? Most often than not what is aportioned in similar situations is elusive statistical justice. But listening to Hon Tambedou speak to Pa Nderry Mbai on Freedom Radio, all paranoia of thinking that victims and their families will not have a sstisfying closure was erased. That is what communication does. It dispells fears and restores confidence. Modern technology has made communication easy, affordable, quick and effective. Therefore, incessantly hashtag, twit, voice message and where necessary Facebook live, Mr President. Talk to people. Be heard and seen often.

 
You are blessed with many Gambians who are giving genuine advice free of charge. Sadly, most of these genuine and honest opinions on how to drive the change and development are ungratefully snubbed. When some of us highlighted very strongly the essence of detribalising our political dispensation, many rubbished us by accentuating there is no tribal issue in the Gambia. Well guess what? Your cabinet compact on delivering good governance, accountability and exemplary leader to the people of the Gambia has one of its foremost objective as detribalization. You see, Mr President, some of us don’t do backside sniffing because we has crossed that threshold of being a liability many many moons ago. We have and honed our potentials to be productive anywhere on this planet. As a result, we don’t engage you for a pine of please.

We just want you to succeed and be a living lesson for modern leadership and democracies.
Mr President, you government has pledged to deliver the following during your tenure in office:
i. Probity, accountability and transparency;
ii. Inclusivity;
iii. Justice and rule of law;
iiii. Effective Civil Service delivery;
v. Patriotic Altruism;
vi. Togetherness;
vii. Resort to legal means for dispute resolution;
viii. Pragmatism;
ix. Openness to new ideas and criticism;
x. Detribalization;
xi. Modesty in lifestyle; and
xii. Collaboration with regional, continental and international stakeholders.

 
Very lofty in words. Euphemistically, rhetorics which are not transformed into actions are nothing but condescendingly preposterous deceit, Mr President. Probity, transparency and accountability reminds me of the hay days of the “Soldiers with a difference”. You are on record that you will declare your assets and so will all your cabinet soonest you come to power. That is yet to see the light of day. Gambians want to know how much it costs the taxpayer to maintain you, your cabinet and other senior civil servants. The extra allowances they pocket etc.

 
Openness to new ideas and criticism. On this one you cannot be faulted excepted most of the new ideas given for free are disregarded. A funny reason just crept in my head. Cheap goods and services are often viewed with a pinch of salt whereas cutthroat ones are trendier and more valuable. Could that be case Mr President? This cabinet compact didn’t bring anything new that has not been highlighted by many of us on the Gambian social media. I am not trying to teach any old dog new tricks here but both you and I know how useful the social media can be. Admittedly, not everything dispensed on the platform is valuable and constructive. Take on board the good and discard the bad. Job done.

 
In the next couple of days, I will look at and discuss the compact in detail. For now, have a blessed day.

Sulayman Jeng
Birmingham, UK