Celebration. Yes, it deed there is a good reason to celebrate. Well, the only one not celebrating is the pathetic loser, Goloh Friday. How I wish I was there giving him Barrow’s signature stare as he learns of the freezing of his assets and watch his face twist in rage. We are getting there. And that is what matters. Hon Tambedou warned that there will be no cutting corners and the results won’t be announced now but when tomorrow comes, justice will be appropriately served. Very uplifting. And there was no tint of flakiness on Hon Tambedou as he unveiled the temporary freezing of Goloh’s assets and companies directly associated with him in the Gambia. Cheye aduna. Goloh who was only worth D150 when he stole the presidency from Sir Dawda had 131 landed properties, 88 bank accounts, 14 companies, numerous herds of cattle and chains of farms. No wonder accountability, transparency and probity were judiciously annulled from his glossary. I recollected what Sukai Gaye said when the Minister of Finance disclosed how Goloh wettingly malnourished our national cow by milking her dry. “Okay, I knew #DumbJammeh was enriching himself all that time he was in office, but boy, I didn’t know it was to this magnitude, D48 billion? Dang man! Hana dafdon ngiroo during his last days? This man really did us dirty. We need to organize a search party and get his ass asap”. I am curious to hear what she has to say when she learns of Goloh’s latest loot.
When Goloh and his cronies arrived on that black Friday in their bright khakis, we were told they are “Soldiers with a difference”. And we believed them. We trusted them. When others raised eyebrows, they were cajoled to give the young brads a chance. Chance was given. When all chance was spent and reality dawned, we demanded what was ours. Daay date. Bay day, chimed Goloh. It took long, hard and bloody 22 years. To regain our sigh of relief. And now we got Barrow. But they say he slept in Saudi. Who wouldn’t nap when boring Trumpoline is trumpeting? I will snore and dream of smacking his orange cheeky cheeks. President Barrow is a servant leader. The other positive development is the renaming of some of the hospitals. Their new names abolished all reminders of Goloh. Next it will be the streets. Then some of his cronies from amongst us. After, the search party for Goloh and the freezing of his assets and landed properties abroad.
Now let talk about us, the diaspora. Our sweet togetherness was fulfilling and yielded amazing breakthroughs. The most fundamental was ushering Goloh to the exit margin. Then came the disarray. We can do it again to help steadied the government we birthed. All we need is to separate our personal from national ambition. Here I will reference Kemo Conteh. “Femi is calling for the Gambian diaspora to establish a civil society organization at home and I agree with him. A diaspora backed CSO of some sort will most certainly always leverage the position of the diaspora community in the political dynamics of the country. This cannot be an unwelcome idea. Its mainly social media that link us at home with our brothers and sisters in the rest of the world, and social media has now become a permanent and decisive feature of our culture as a nation, as we can see, debating national issues in Facebook and other online platforms on a regular basis contributes to enriching the on-going political dialogue..
In fact, I know that there are plans in the framework of the proposed national think tank for a dedicated website and other appropriate online platforms precisely to give some kind of structure to this, but I don’t think we can expect government to make it a strategy of picking policy decisions straight out of the bag of sporadic flows of ideas and opinions across the net. I know also that the think-tank will establish among others a database of civil society organizations and individual national consultants and consultancy firms as well.
The purpose of the CSO network is for a responsive consultative framework with all citizens through their various interest groups across all sectors and levels of society on national, regional and local area issues and concerns as appropriate. And the database of consultants will seek to identify available national capacities and expertise, and will be reviewed as needed to select and deploy national experts to lend their specialist advice and technical assistance as issues and concerns arise, for the information of national policy. A diaspora backed CSO, dedicated to articulating and networking diaspora issues and interests in the policy web of the country will be a good idea and I think it should be encouraged”.
Sulayman Jeng
Birmingham, UK
