Surrogates who were grafted to man-mark your online sceptics hoped they could sandbag the looming impatience flood rising against you and the #GambiaHasDecided rainbow government only to realise their political tackle backfired with a retributive yellow card. With the abysmal failure of tasteless slogans such as “I will defend Fulagou to Futa and back” to rekindle the cheered-for encore drove home a blunt reality for any political party to elbow its way to victory, it must be inclusive and persuasive. Such myopic and laughable sentiments instead of galvanising political sympathy, threaten to puncture their propagators’ party bubble. Hence the absolute necessity for party leaders to mark their space well away from such political dregs and liabilities.
For some strange reasons, sometimes we are found wanton in holding back from sanctioning someone for cutting edge, omission of duty, negligence and even abuse of authority. Sadly, anytime we reincarnate the proverbial ostrich to avoid confronting our leadership and one another on broken their failures, disregard of duty, broken promises and ineptitude, we are inadvertently compounding the malaise. Perhaps, our shortfall to hold others accountable often sterms from the notion when we excuse a first error, it will be bettered next time. Some are due to blind loyalty while others are just pure greed and utter selfishness.
Lamentably, for us to drive the change we all fought for, we must turn the tides by committing to command our destiny with immaculate integrity.
In other words, we must be honest to ourselves and refusing to be short-changed by others. This means being true to your words, honest in your judgement and fair in your take on others. Excusing leadership on the basis of according them support nurtures a ripple effect is far-reaching and often profoundly costly. Some also opined that lowering the bar of transparency, accountability and probity brings about positive results. Unfortunately, by so doing, we not only compromise our own integrity, influence and reputation but equally soil that of others. The end product usually becomes unmet expectations, lost of trust, abdication of duty and mismanagement of funds.
Talking about funds, Sainey SK Marenah discussed a salient issue on his Facebook. “Our government should support Gambian owned businesses to boost the fragile economy. In Senegal, for instances, government contracts local contractors for most government development initiatives but sadly in The Gambia, is the opposite.
When will we be empowering each other’s products and services? I’m shock to learn that government has given a contact worth millions of dollars to a foreign company for the production of biometrics cards while we have a qualified Gambian company specializing in such ( Pristine)”, he charged. Very legit Mr President.
In conclusion, those who think that holding one’s leadership accountable is unpatriotic need to take an expedition on soul searching and reality check. You have no qualms with dissenters, so what is their beef? Yes, the country is emerging from challenging moments but we cannot excuse the unexcusables. Dressing in borrowed dazzling haftans will not do you any good. Similarly, unfairly calling you out too is immoral. Gambia before anything else.
Until tomorrow, I remain a fervent support.
Sulayman Jeng
Birmingham, UK
