By: ALHASSAN DARBOE

He goes by the name His Excellency Sheikh Professor Dr. Alhaji, Nasirudeen,Babilimansa Yahya A.J.J Jammeh. As the tiny and oppressed nation of The Gambia goes, so goes the many titles of its’s tyrannical ruler. For a man whose names and many pompous titles are a personification of sainthood,wisdom,maturity thrust upon his fat and short frame, for one who had wisdom associated with him wearing all white ‘khaftan’ , for the leader who carries the last revelation of God on him, The Holy Koran, a sword and rosary beads, it is becoming increasingly very obvious that the Sheikh ,or shall I say the PROFESSOR , simply lacks the capacity,maturity,intelligence and right mental state to rule and move The Gambia, our homeland forward.

Without a shred doubt, I love Yahya Jammeh, albeit mostly for his theatricality and inability to grow. No; actually I like his foolishness.Haahahah. I have watched and observed with ever increasing incredulity the possibility that His Excellency Sheikh Professor Dr. Alhaji Yahya AJJ Jammeh may have a screw or two loose or at best maybe suffering from some form of mental disorder .After reading up on some cases of mental illness, I have come to the conclusion that our man at the helm maybe suffering from bipolar disorder or better still Obsessive compulsive narcissistic disorder. For so long I have written this and almost got it published but decided to sit on it and keep my ‘super Kanja’ mouth shut because speaking truth to power in The Gambia only gets you charged for treason and giving false information to the public, which is Jammeh’s favorite when he wants to send you to jail.

The other day I was talking to my mother and she warned me since its election time in The Gambia, I should keep my mouth (BAADAA) shut and not say anything about what’s going on in The Gambia because I don’t mind my business most of the time and I’m not the only educated Gambian in America who can write against the system. However, it is my business to speak truth to power since our HOLY MEN, I mean pastors and Imams have abdicated their role to fight for the wellbeing of the masses. Instead they preach about the next world, hell and sin in the mosques and churches while leaving the helpless masses to their own devices. Like a kid throwing a tantrum, the nightmare the rough kid from Kanilai is unleashing on Gambians is un-abating. An opposition youth leader is tortured to death and the entire executive of UDP who protested against his killing were arbitrarily tried and jailed by a Nigerian mercenary judge.

From whatever angle you look at events unfolding back home, you only come to the very stark reality that the political, judicial, economic and human rights mess back home will not get any better, anytime soon. All we have on the ground is state sponsored disappearances, Jugulars on rampage, sham trials, imprisonments, torture, unbearable sorrow, tears, blood and men killed and even in DEATH denied the dignity to be properly laid to rest by their families. The killing of Solo Sandeng promises to lead to the down fall of the man at the helm. The sycophantic followers and HOLY MEN at the hem are not telling the man at the helm the truth. Our so called HOLY MEN who should have been the voice of reason have lost their true role in society and have themselves become victims of a dictatorship. Instead of being advisers to a president losing his mind, they have become the advised. Instead of becoming mentors to the president they have themselves become mentees and reduced to running spiritual errands for a superstitious president.

We have a president living in denial. Instead of dealing with the corpse of an unburied protester, Solo Sandeng, he tried to deflect attention by embarking on a nationwide tour but the desire of Gambians to take back their country never ceased because the spirit of Solo Sandeng and the hostility of the dictator has not abated. Unnerved on his throne, Jammeh could not exorcise SOLO’s ghost. He said, “Avaunt and quit my sight SOLO. Let the earth hide thee, thy bone is marrowless and thy blood is cold.” yet the spirits of SOLO continues to hunt him.(Credit to Shakes Spear)

It is so hard to believe that Yahya Jammeh, the malnourished military kid who came to power promising to stamp out corruption, tribalism, parochialism, nepotism and waste in government spending is the very one leading it on a massive scale .His favorite charges against ministers of his government is abuse of office, economic crimes and misappropriation of public funds yet he is the chief mis-appropriator of public funds. Just imagine the number of ministers Jammeh hired and fired since 1994.Hardly does a week go by without Jammeh appointing, firing and rehiring ministers. What a waste of public funds!! This only happens in The Gambia and I recommend that Jammeh should be charged with abuse of office, economic crimes and misappropriation of public funds for failure to do his due diligence in hiring the right persons for ministerial positions or rather arbitrarily hiring and firing them thus wasting public funds of The Gambia.

Mr. President ,we Gambians at home and abroad and future generations deserve much more than a sword wielding president only known for disgracing us everywhere we go, because of his bizarre rantings at home and abroad, diplomatic blunders, murders. You owe the family of Solo Sandeng his dead body so they can give him a decent burial. You owe Ousainou Darboe and the rest of his comrades wrongfully jailed at mile 2 their freedom. You owe us maturity as our president your Excellency. You owe us wisdom and coherence Babilimansa .You owe us transformation and the change you have promised since you came to power over two decades ago.Mr. President please give up your idiotic ways, grow up and before I even forget, why not even think about not running for another term as promised. Believe me, I will love you for it.Ohh another thing before I forget again, since you are a man of tradition, don’t be mad at me for telling you the truth unlike the sycophants you are surrounded by, my last name is Darboe and I have the traditional license to say anything to you and you can’t do anything about it because tradition dictates that you don’t.

It is painfully evident that, the repeated harm and humiliation of Gambians at the hands of Yahya Jammeh is getting worst each time. Not so long ago, Ebrima Solo Sandeng was murdered in cold blood and yet again, Gambians are dissolved into tears and hanging our heads in shame when we learnt about the death of Solo kurumah — one of the jail UDP sympathizers under states custody. Yet again, we have witnessed one of a string of extraordinarily and increasingly brazen attacks on Gambians at state institutions such as hospitals, many of which bear the mark of regimes responsibility. The reality can’t be altered anymore because our country is in the hands of our adversary. As Pressure cranks up on Yahya Jammeh, he averted his anger against UDP by indiscriminately continuing to kill its supports, jailing its leaders and he is already setting a lousy example by schooling Gambians about what is to come next if he is allowed to lead Gambia again.

It’s innately unhuman to have a thirst of killing of your citizens, let alone cease your opponent’s dead bodies or deny people burial but— those are the things which thrills Yaya Jammeh to happiness. It’s hard to imagine when what Yahya Jammeh wants is impossible or things doesn’t palpitate to his likings, he tosses his tantrum on the defenseless Gambians by murdering them, thinking that will solve his problems. What is more strange about this man is — he extols killings, he is the archetype of tribalist and he grew significantly more intolerant of Gambia culture. He continues to exploit Gambians by selling them the theme “Development” in exchange for patriotism and legitimizing dictatorship. This is a stark sign of how flat-footed some Gambians are in buying in his theme and still trusting him despite his failed performance or not delivering on his promises.

it is worthwhile for Gambians to apply some common sense to abandon Yahya Jammeh but so far, fear and milquetoast response of world leaders has unable them to caught up with that trend. We have seen string of systemic targeting of renowned popular people at the very highest level in their party and little unknown in the opposition for sacrifice. Abandoning his party is treated as a crime and we have seen clear an example in the case of Tina Faal — whose bail was revoked by the regime without knowledge of the presiding magistrate or prosecutor. This leads to the conversation about the new Party GDC. I am sure they are working diligently to earn the freedom of their colleague behind the scene with the best way they thing possible. However, most Gambians are very concerned of another woman in the hands of the dictator. They want the leaders of GDC party to project confidence and competence in forcefully condemning Yaya Jammeh, communicate a clear compelling message to challenged Yaya Jammeh to end this business of arbitrary arrest of all citizens. The failure of communicating the message clearly is particularly galling to many Gambians because GDC still continues to campaign for elections despite Tina is in state custody.

With Ousainou Darboe and most of his party executives in Jail, some Gambian see the election route as means of taking on the dictatorship even though they know very well he will rig the elections. The urgency of ending dictatorship is making some Gambians willing to skip the screenings of the new candidates torridly and willing to do away their reservations of Mama Kandeh. Maybe this is why GDC arrival on the political scene have been welcomed with unanimous “thumbs up” and allowed to shoulder its way into the political scene without rigorous evaluations of their leader or stamp of approval of his policies. Some people asked questions about rushing towards someone we don’t know enough about and his ethical lapse of working with regime in tandem whiles in the parliament. Others say Mama Kandeh is willing to step up to draw the line against Yahya Jammeh for a good reason whiles people with academic abilities or charismatic personal characteristics are watching on sidelines.

What is clear to our nation and the world is— Yayha Jammeh isn’t looking for legitimacy through elections because predictably, his crimes already indicted him. Nevertheless, self-congratulatory tributes in the campaign trails, speaking in vague understatements often to hide unpleasant words such as a “Dictator”, or putting every statement for reconsideration and revision before it is uttered will not make him stop his violence or incomprehensible hatred of Gambians. What Gambians want to hear is —release all our political prisoners, release our fallen heroes’ dead bodies, release all our women in prison and the final red line drawn on dictatorship.

By Habib ( A Concerned Gambian)h

t is unconscionable, more dispiriting for the regime’s justice minister attempt to rewrite their despicable human rights abuses — which in fact continues on an alarming scale of unprecedented levels of serious violations and to this day, continues to send hundreds of thousands of Gambians fleeing their homeland. It’s hard to imagine the regime that confessed to murdering a man simply calling for electoral reform, calls women “Onions”, use rape as a tool, jailed baby Aisha -one-month old nursing infant, sentenced tortured women to 3 years in jail and now is expressing disingenuous calumnious deceptive statements about human rights for all Gambians. The same brutal regime that few months ago laudably pushed back on Banki Moon of UN calls for investigations to “get to hell” and refuses to listen to the voices of civil societies by thumping out their chest against respecting human rights. More significantly, they made good on their promise by backing their rhetoric with arrogance, hostility, and a steady stream of arrests of numerous political opponents just the last couple weeks.

Nevertheless, grave concerns remain because It’s difficult to fathom that, the same regime which openly campaigned against the EU 17 points human rights issues by holding steady propaganda demonstrations, parliamentary sessions to vote it down, can hardly contribute anything useful to Gambia except murder and mayhem. They have grown more intolerant and surprisingly, they are spewing propaganda by wearing a much friendlier face to fool the international community as if they have arrived at their destination. And yet, it is sad that those same international communities, UNDP — are not paying attention to circumstances inside the now “Islamic Republic of Gambia” self-declared by Yaya Jammeh himself, and might be lulled by the regimes bogus statements into more wishful thinking that human right reform is just around the corner. Gambians cannot be fool by APRC Regime attempts to mask the ongoing Human Rights abuses with empty sentiments, when so many innocent Gambians are languishing in jails and the largest opposition party executives are serving 3 years’ jail sentencing for requested their dead colleagues body handed to them, just to avoid targeted sanctions from the EU Parliament.

Indeed, the bully tactic of the regime even in talking about human rights certainly seems to indicate a lack of contrition because their misdeeds are punitive, and essentially re-abusing their victims by just watching them otter the word “Human Rights”. The ferocity of this regime is further validated — when confronted with their own record. They will dispatch ego-fueled heart harden people who do not make only outrageous comments, but peddle inaccuracies, self-aggrandizing nonsense, irrelevant talk, and revisiting details of already determine facts. The abuse of political prisoners is no secret and must end. Several eyewitnesses have made consistent revelations of inmates or people perceived as threats to the regime — gradually eliminated through deliberate poisoning, secret executions, torture, and rape.

We the Gambians hope — that gathering will highlight all the array of concrete examples of the APRC regime human rights violations and make an end to the very poisonous ideology that apparently rewards those who torture with confiscated homes and meat to feast on. This meeting is in fact a waste of time over revisiting details of already determine facts in which the recommendations made will not be implemented. The regime does not even have one eye opened to recognize their human rights abuses, let alone lend UNDP their deaf ear to hear anything. Similar initiatives by the UN rapporteurs in 2014 failed last time. Lastly, it is common knowledge and it is worth noting that the disregard of human life by the regime, also drives them in paying top dollars to criminals in helping them to eliminate diasporian whom they perceived as enemies abroad. What a shame!

By Habib ( A Concerned Gambian)

Yaya Jammeh, a rock-ribbed divisive dictator who rules Gambia with a clench fist accordingly, with mysterious spiritual ideology and brilliantly fooled many of his platoon of armed guards, professing of having a third eye and forfeited himself with deceptive psychological powers which many would fell on his sword. It’s difficult to fathom his incestuous relationship with religious leaders who glorifies his sins and shortcomings as never to be mentioned in the parlors, his transgressions against the Gambian citizens makes other known dictators around the world crimes seem trivial and he doesn’t care what anyone else thinks except his trophy wife. His dependence on spiritual adviser has ruin our economy, continue to witch hunt people, and sadly has brought with it a reign of terror— anyone who doesn’t adhere to praising Yaya Jammeh or is viewed as a threat to his power — have been rounded up in jail or exterminated. This continues to be a nagging concern for all Gambians.

He is strangely reticent about the everyday hardships that bedevil the lives of the poor Gambians — particularly women and youths, lacks similar sympathy for our struggling farmers, and opposition members according to him are meant to be killed or jailed for treason. What baffles most Gambians is— he throws Gambia’s national wallet opens to musicians, foreigners, and his undeserving friends for admiration whiles he does the bare minimum for Gambians. Oddly enough, it is very troubling for 22years, this man whom was entrusted with safeguarding the life of the former Gambian president, took over the country by the barrel of the gun with an ego of self-entitlement to everything and he is very well known for his unanimous calumnious statements despite staining our country with his albatross scandals. He continues peddling his narrow minded political aims which does not fit Gambia, whiles tapping the empathy and sorrow of many unsuspecting Gambians as a crybaby victim of anathema, sadly with a bold straight face despite all of the tortures, extrajudicial killings and breaking our Central bank broad daylight.

As the saying goes, “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me”. Gambians are fatigue by the rancor lately between Yaya Jammeh and the civilians, they are more fatigued by endless court proceedings, and rightly disdained about his use of excessive force against our women and elderly men. We are further confused by the bad tone set by his administration, especially with his laundry list of numerous executive orders that impose policies against our will. The fact is that, the ramifications of his policies, whether with good or bad intentions, their consequences will be around with us to deal with for a long time. Yaya Jammeh does confessed to crimes during overheated crusades of bad news especially when he is cornered, but does not admit any wrong doing, rather— wants his surrogates defending his character, or flatly denying charges for him. Well, now he has more explaining to do because many of his actions has an odor about it that won’t be easily perfumed.

The man who took over Gambia with the naive belief that rampant corruption, breaking the barriers of tribalism in work place, extending privilege to all, reignited dozens of conspiracy theories in Gambian minds about the first republic and he vowed all what was needed was to trust him with a fresh start to lead Gambia to prosperous nation the west would be coming to seek jobs as maids. Okay that was funny! It is hard to comprehend today and it is equally troubling that those were words of Yaya Jammeh. He tapped danced all over everything he accused of PPP and become extraordinarily skilled now in looting nations resources, seizing properties, stubbornly devotion to his thorny agenda policies, reshaping the nation to match his vision, blaming colonialism for all our problems, very oppressive, our economy is in a free fall, Gambia is stained with blood prints, human rights problems continue to fester and made Gambia very isolated regime. After what Gambians went through for twenty-two years, words are not enough to thrill us anymore. What worries most Gambians is election is around the corner but Yaya Jammeh isn’t deterred by the failing economy, he isn’t bordered by the hardship around the country, he is more resolute on terrorizing Gambians, more lethal, continues his arresting spree of Gambia and endangers people of all political persuasions.

Here is the answer from him though hard to swallow. According to Yaya Jammeh’s internal numbers which he shared with the country months ago during his tour in May 2016, there are over one million Gambians and eight hundred thousand foreigners in “his” country. So you do the math and ask yourself if his social re-engineering is a success. Let’s recap 1994 to date events that is worthy of the nation to remember. When Gambian journalists started asking questions that he seemingly had no clear answers, he started burning media houses such as radio one FM and independent newspaper, killing journalist like Ebrima Chief manner and Deida hydara etc. When Koro Ceesay questioned the junta about stealing from government coffers, they beat him to death and burnt him off in his car. When patriot military personnel were concerned about their reputations being ruined by bandits like Yaya Jammeh, he exterminated them all and lied about coup in November 11th. After the commissions of inquiry, he set- up exonerated first republic of any wrong doings he accused them of, he shields the records and justice Algahly mysteriously died. Fast forward to 2016, when Solo Sandeng ask for reformed, he beat him to death and they buried him “like a dog” according to lawyer Darboe. When Lawyer Darboe and his executives asked for his body, he was given 3 years in jail sentence. When Tina Faal got fed up and left the APRC party, she was accused and kidnapped at mile 2 prison. When the youth asked for jobs, he showed them the high seas for backway travelling. So when he asks for our vote this time, we shall not be fool again. So does Gambia deserve another five more years of this hell? You be the judge.

By Habib ( A Concerned Gambian)

The conviction of Fanta Darboe and rest of tortured women by a very unprofessional unelected judge Nigerian mercenary judge without empathy, using false narrative regardless of the facts whiles dismissing Yaya bah case, is certainly unusual, puts our high court at nadir and undermines the Constitution of The Gambia. This pretty much created unnecessary confusion, and it merits attention of Gambians and world at large. It couldn’t come at a worse time for the country when UDP youth wing leader was killed for merely asking about electoral reform for the most important election year calendar in our era. The conviction calls into question whether the high court now presided by mercenary judges is really serving its purpose as independent branch of government.

In an examination of Fatou Darboe Jawara’s case, despite a clear nexus that she was not part of the protest according to several accounts, one could conclude the mercenary judge — Justice Dada flawed reasoning was dictated to her by her overreaching or unjustified pursuit of conviction against her. Her actions of playing semantic games of the legal language as reasoning to exonerate Mr. bah, whiles scolding of defense team, disrespecting a veteran senior lawyer Ousainou Darboe, disgracefully convicting innocent and tortured vulnerable victims, makes us questioned her independence, judicial craftsmanship, more so her judicial temperament because she is a kind of a bully on the bench. While in her statement of trying to command public respect as a thoughtful mercenary judge soaring above unfairness, her actions revealed otherwise given- her disrespectful statements against our elderly citizens. It does not give us confidence about her ability to serve on any bench because she is just another mercenary rubber stamp judge for regime, whose efforts are to terrorize Gambians.

 
It is time for the radical mercenary judges without empathy towards Gambians in our courts- most of whom in a matter of fact their credentials appear not to be in order; to stop abdicating their role and take seriously their duty of preserving our liberties by interpreting existing law, rather than making policy choices of conviction whiles terrorizing us in our own country and soliciting our dollars. Gambian people are very good people but there should be a limit to our generosity by spending our tax dalasis prudently instead of hiring these mercenary judges who continue to draw a long line of battles for our citizens to encounter. The county should stop wasting resources on these people whom Gambian lives and wellbeing means nothing. The action of these mercenary judges has only recently made waves in news but they have been systematically terrorizing, tarnishing the images of decent citizens, destroying Gambian families for longtime.

 
A suspiciously high number of her decisions, beginning most notably with Taranger FM’s MD case, even further, to April 14th/16 event protestors, justice Dada — an evildoer who does not care about tortured vulnerable women, thus far is one of the worst unproductive legal mercenary judge Gambia ever had. She is notorious for orchestrating offensive language on her victims as she did with Ousainou Darboe, unsatisfactory reasoning, allowing cooked evidence, altering defense reports, tarnished our high courts image. so, what are we supposed to believe — live pictures showing UDP executives holding their hands whiles walking in lockstep or foolproof method of using service men coached by mercenary DDP, who only have a vested interest in making an embarrassment out of our elders by lying about stones being hauled at buildings which does not exist.

 
Gambians have a simple question for her and her fellow colleagues: Given her Judgment against tortured women and innocent Gambians, can she be fair to all Gambians? Also without a clear condemnation of the violence against our women and her determination to jail them, one can draw a conclusion about her distasteful judgment stemmed primarily from her jealousy of Gambian women.

By Habib ( A Concerned Gambian )

The concern of our founders worst fears for our nation falling in the lurches of dictatorship, is where we are at this moment in history. And, yet to make matters worse, our nation continues to dishonor their memory and here we are with the worst form of deadly dictatorship of staggering proportions that grip our nation. As Surreal as it may be, it is even more disheartening that our nation’s trouble is caused by a free rider con man whom was given a chance in life with unconditional love and the best from us. The truth is simple but it’s too complicated to adequately process because he has turn out to be the enemy of the people, destroyed our society, a danger to our beliefs and employing fear to distract and divide us. The plethora of dictatorship has weakened Gambia so much to its knees and now the country is incapable of sustaining itself, Jammeh and his buddies have become an unparalleled burden on our economy, they continue to disregard our personal liberties, peddling negative atmosphere of political manipulation, and even fail to defend our principles for first time in history after independence.

We’re not sure what is causing us more despair — the slaughter of people, unfortunate act of violence by the regime, injustices to our citizens, lack of unity on the ground or whether we are still under military rule because most of our institutions and foreign embassies staffed by military personnel. We all hope that all these draws more attention to where it can help bring about change. Right now, we find ourselves yet at crossroads because Gambia is now full of dark-sad stories. Our questions are still unanswered by the regime. So many people have mysteriously disappeared, our sisters are sold out as domestic slaves in Arab counties, our dead are denied burial and instead used as rituals for devilish satanic acts. It would be easy to pretend all is well in Gambia or we shrug off horror events but death without decent burial of our civilians have been too prevalent and it is morally wrong. There may have been scores of Gambians who met their untimely death in such fashion. We will not apologies for standing up for our fellow Gambians even though we find it difficult that—some still lionize Yaya Jammeh with cautionary misleading tales regardless of all what he has done to our people.

For many years, the pleas of human rights groups and concerned Gambians about the regime consistently fell on deaf ears. But attitudes are clearly changing towards regime as a result of never ending—pausing cycle of bad news. Public discourse about recent events of injustices against our fellow citizens elicited strong emotional reactions, driving the national conversation about regime change. Ultimately, our love for our country got further strengthen by recent injustices against our mothers and helped renewed our nationalistic fervor which in turn helped spur actions to see the regime become history soon. In just the last few months, more specifically, we’ve witnessed the shift to Gambian interest to our fellow countrymen because—matters that Yaya Jammeh thought would have gone unnoticed or Gambians would have little actual interest become issues debated with furious passion.

Lastly, Complicated problems require multiple solutions because a dictator will never sign for his warrant. We acknowledge some of unfortunate events that lead to loss of lives place parameters for us to be much sympathetic and sensitive on our discussion of how to achieve our ultimate goal because —most of the respected leaders in the struggle are very principled on certain things. We need all-hands-on-deck approach to untangle the clutches of dictatorship. Gambian Diasporia and other right activist have done brilliant Job exposing regime and advocating for regime change. Gambians have been greatly enlightened by online mediums as never before and are now living witnesses of the effects of dictatorship which have seep into every aspect of our lives. The APRC regime is well aware of this. Hence we see an unprecedented disturbing trend of increased censorship, obsessive control of information, other restrictions of the internet and disgraced former junta leaders — now suddenly redeemed apostles with fluffy rhetoric, coming out to reinvigorate a dying brutal regime. We have one word for the apostles of the regime “There you go again”.

That said, we cannot continue to delude ourselves from admitting the obvious that we need a united front to take on this dictator as an alternative, simply because we know that he will steal the election. There is a noteworthy commendable initiative by the party youths to prevail on their leadership for a coalition. We shall honor the legacy of our fallen heroes such as solo Sandeng and many more who desire to see Gambia free by doing our part as citizens, to come out and vote for opposition in large numbers. We need to have overwhelming majority in parliament to impeach Yaya Jammeh in case he steals the election and we win the popular vote by God’s grace. Let me ask you my respected fellow Gambian. If you are tired of the killings, dreadful humanitarian catastrophe, flat wages since 1994, lack of medicines, meaningless visions 20XX, roads still ruining our donkey carts, our taxes wasted, attaya prices skyrocketing, our children failing their exams, our youths dying on back way, our sister sold as slaves, a leader who can’t deliver for his people but scares them, prolonged stagnation of failed vision dreams, disrespecting our elders, NIA knocking your doors midnight and lots more horrors. Please come out to attend opposition rallies and vote for change we believe in. Do it for our tortured women, for Solo Sandeng, for the sisters who died in slavery, for our infants fed to crocodiles as ritual sacrifice, for the grieving mother of the child whom the convoy killed, for the victims of tribalism, for the boy with good grades but can’t afford tuition, for the people wrongly prisoned and for your own future. Yes, we can Gambia. Come out all and let us bring back the beautiful smiling coast shining again and wipe the tears of Gambia to prevent another 5 years of monumental human disaster. Gambia counts of you!

By habib ( A Concerned Gambian)

Governing a country requires more than a slogan and so does educating our children requires more than rhetoric of free education. The education department and the regime had their work cut out for them because those very rhetoric’s were put into practice in the recent 2016 WASSCE results calendar year. Suffice it to say, less than 450 students out of whole country passed all subjects. According to WAEC, out of 11,659 candidates who registered for the exam, only 444 obtained credit in five subjects and above, including English and math’s. 1,871 candidates obtained only one credit, and 1,100 two credits. Unquestionably, building many schools is a great initiative and positive step by the regime. Review, refinement and rationalization of our education sector are undoubtedly required. While teachers cannot shoulder all the blame for the range of deficiencies shown on the WASSCE results, the regime need to put in new measurement standards in place to make our school more accountable.

Furthermore, hiring unqualified personnel’s or having departments lead by incompetent people who display more than the profound ignorance that we’ve all come to expect from them instead of accomplishing our education system’s desired end. That end, of course is, it failed our children and the education system is getting progressively worst as a result of many things but most notably, disengaging the intellectual diasporian as bad citizens, wasting talent and a massive brain drain. Yet again, this exposes the educational apartheid that has plagued our beloved country. Unfortunately, when you do not acknowledge the PPP government contributions to Gambian life, and continue to distort history by fanning resentment, minimizing the sacrifices of people to burnish your own legacy with false tales by being arrogantly dismissive, blaming everything on colonial rule, becoming less forthright about your mistakes, pillorying decent people as criminals, the end results are the facts catch with you.

The regime could have ceased on PPP short comings and allowing Gambian intellectuals to come up with a blue print solution to pressing problems for current education crisis, strengthened teachers training programs to equip them with the required skills, and career advance structure development in order to help meet the demands of the country’s vision and the dynamic global skills market. Every chance Yaya Jammeh gets to pushes our country forward, he resorts to deeply pessimistic vision where he is always appealing to the worst in people to turn against each other, and turning away from the rest of the world. The APRC platform fails to offer a single idea to address the education crisis because only one man has all the solutions — Yaya Jammeh. We need honesty and transparency in priotizing our education for our children’s future. Anytime there is grant to help prospective students access to best education, the funds are squandered, the regime does comply with regulations to meet specific educational standards, would resist such measures coming from opposition and instead provide egregious misrepresentations.

Moving forward, while it is certainly important to revamp our education system, teacher’s salary must increase to match the high living cost. One can only shudder at the thought of teachers not able to educate our children due to lack of resources, limited knowledge of the curriculum and limited access to teaching materials which are needed to empower students with both skills and analytical tools. These are the basic rights of every Gambian that the country has to provide its citizens with quality life. it is hard to conceive what all those children’s whom the system failed at a time of stalled growth, stringent visa processing requirements, rising unemployment and offering too little relevant preparation for 21st-century life to complete with other African children.

By Habib ( A Concerned Gambian)