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)
