In the face of opportunity that presents itself to mark the end of the regime, one major problem most Gambians have is — trying to accomplish conflicting goals or revived old our habits of waiting on the eleventh hour sticking point — even though the odds are failure are high in both cases. In some ways, this trend has become a bellwether of societal norms. This should be a national concern because — it is what fuels our national crisis and gives the regimes the much needed lifeline. No one knows exactly which opportunity would have been the expedient solution to our deepening crisis, but it doesn’t also help when we take the best ideas and help it in the worst way. In brief, we largely dismissed people’s efforts of speaking truth to power with suspicion — and thereby missed the revolution their actions could have sparked.
It’s fitting to say that our opposition leaders political calendar should only be marked with “Next Coalition meetings” to send the clearest message possible, with immense courage to show that they are ready this time around. It’s a simple fact that any stumble by the political parties in this arena, Gambians will have to deal with repercussions. Clearly, that time had come for all party surrogates to show more actual remorse of the dire situation our country is in and accepted the one independent candidate leading the coalition — instead of fighting it at every turn. There’s a sad truth each time we hear a news of a major step forward on coalition talks or reason to celebrate, party surrogates with misguided vision- waffle – sometimes within minutes on social media to filter speculations and rushed to online media to paralyzed our enthusiasm.
It’s a no-brainer — these are some of the many causes for the problems that plague us. There is so much; loaded hyper-partisanship coarsening our public discourse, to name a few. No one is served by business as usual of one sided statements that confuses the Gambian electorate instead of helping people with well-informed decisions. No kidding. A Coalition is the collective strength of the Gambian people voice and thus far is the only way we can fix the broken system of our country. Our freedoms are at stake in this election — not the least of these being — the lives of our fellow countrymen. We plea with the indulgence of party surrogates, to feel as our kinship in Gambians sorrow. This flip-flopping and screw-ups of party surrogates on national interest is putting their parties on defense instead of focusing on Yaya Jammeh. Meanwhile, Yaya Jammeh is left free using misinformation as an art form to mislead Gambians whiles forcing his defenders to spin one yarn after another, for them to carry on the narratives as they barnstormed across the nation.
What got us to this point is a harmonic convergence of circumstance that makes some people fell into Yaya Jammeh’s trap — as they continue fishing around Creeks of dictatorship. Unless we start feeling our fellow kinship’s sorrow to help us answer the clarion call to rally behind the opposition, dictatorship will sunbake our society and our cultural norms into a full Islamic State of Yaya Jammeh. Furthermore, when we always cringed on our opportunities and continue to let it slide because — some Gambians could not care less, Yaya Jammeh will continue to tie the shoes strings of dictatorship around Gambia. Some Gambians shouldn’t continue to feel indifferent about others pain and feel a little sheepish when the regime jails certain women, but only show outrage if their wives and daughters seem offended. Unless we understand that Yaya Jammeh is cozied up to dividing Gambians around the country with his chameleon tendencies and discourage his palm greasing of thousands of dalasis to our community elites, we will not be able to shun him out of these practice. In the face of opportunity, we should all recognize “Coalition” is where the center of gravity in our politics is shifting to claim back our country.
By habib ( A Concerned Gambian)
