By Sulayman Jeng, Birmingham
The Wolof holds “What got missing in a house, can only be search for in the house”. In a similar and enlightening truism they assert “On whom everyone spits, you get soaked”. Therefore, Mr President, everyone cannot be partial in the conclusion that your leadership is ineffective. I find it worrisome for a head of a household to sit and watch his house in flames then kneel in prayer for an angel to descend and extinguish it for him. At worst, if you can’t fight the fire, shout for help. But your continued silence despite all the calls for your intervention to defuse portentous political climate is worrisome and irresponsible.
It is not my desire to teach you new tricks as head of a household. However, as a responsible head, when you see your children reaching out for each other’s throat, you do not only stop them but put each in his place with reasonable sanction as a deterrence. It is crucial for you to clean your emotional debris to reinstil public confidence by asserting your leadership authority with a statement of political and national unity. Failure of which will only further compound the cracks in your rainbow government.
As a result of the stifling distraction of this political fiasco, the government and people of the Gambia are missing out potential investors who are kept at bay by lack of facilities in reaching you. Your ministers are like headless chicken in disarray. Stop chasing shadows in silence and call your cabinet to order. Give Ceaser what is due to him and jumps tart sanity. Have you stopped listening to popular demand? Or is it the discovery of a new mine under your presidencial sofa? What can your government tell us this is what we have achieved since we assume office in January 2017? The only visible change is regime but nothing much has changed in terms of governance, policies, directives and operations. The threats to dissent are still lurking.
Hon Mai Ahmed Fatty encouraged holding the government accountable. Very ideal but if a government is selective on who to listen to and cherry picks which of its allies to give an audience, it will be preposterous to believe that government will be held accountable? Did Mai listened to the calls to replace the current police administration? Talking the talk alone with walking the walk equates searching for a well in the dessert.
By now we could have been discussing policies and programmes for economic growth but no if it is not party leader this is tribal that. When we will mature and develop as a nation? Due to all these immature politics, I had a nightmarish dream of the monster and it wasn’t funny. At a certain mosque, a group of noncomformists, Monster Jammeh and I converged. I can’t recall what it was he wanted to implement through the mosque I shouted “No to state interference…There should be a clear separation between state and religion”. He turned and looked at me. Someone next to me warned “Be careful oga is looking at you”. That energised me to shout louder and suddenly from the distance we saw a TV crew approaching. I remarked awesome GRTS is here to cover the protest live. Like a fleeing thief running to safe dear life, I saw the dictator walk away in humiliation. I took some papers and a pen to write a story on the incident. Mr president there are always three interpretation to a dream. There only explanation of my dream is I have been worrying too much about the current political narrative in new Gambia that it featured in my dream.
Can you please get this sorted once and for all so that we move on with more pertinent issues?
