What Gambians, and the world, saw on Friday if they sat through Dr. Isatou Touray convention, was not only history in the making as the first women Presidential candidate, or a woman with enormous experience to tackle a long list of our inventory of our pains from all directions, but it was rather how she brilliantly articulated powerful narratives of how the grace that flowed in her, gave her the confidence in taking on difficult issues head on , her tenacity in fighting for the ordinary people, and her capacity to fight for the ordinary people grew out her even more stronger. Furthermore, she is committed to her country and suppler to carry on her fight to rescue Gambia. We appreciate UDP flag Bearer Mr. Barrow, UDP deputy party leader, Ousainou Darboe’s wife, three NPR party executives and others party members who all grace the occasion. Historically, it was a revealing moment. Dr. Touray came out of that convention with so much political capital and strength as a credible voice. People come alongside from all directions of the country to show her support and trust in her candor to lead the Gambian cause when given the chance. Meanwhile, it was refreshing to hear from someone who understands our advent of sophisticated issues our nations from the grass root level and her wiliness to addressed the legitimate concerns of many Gambians who feel left out, used and misused by the regime. I have derived three pills of wisdoms from this historical day Gambians have to pay attention to.
First Pill of Wisdom for Gambians: It is our country too and the era for next generation
Her uplifting message of hope resonated very well to the Gambians and she delivered with the utmost humility. The graciousness she displayed in her looking for the good news in people and not the bad habits in contrast to the current regime seeing us as material to use and disposed of was so refreshing. She embraced Gambians at home in the most gracious manner, greeted Gambians in the diaspora openly — by giving us the respect, recognizing our nationalism whiles pledging to maximizing our influence and effectiveness for the good of our own homeland. she pledges to relinquish power after one term in an effort for all the political parties to come under one umbrella because we cannot afford another 5 more years of momentous humiliation. She is brave enough to step forward and have gone through a lot of experience of hell with this regime — like the challenges ordinary Gambians face daily. As our elders often say, you can learn some lessons from other people’s experience but wisdom is not lodged inside of you until its truth has been engraved by some moment of disappointments — when you are falsely accused, humiliated, and some other firsthand experience. So her goal is to end Gambians losing their lives in high seas through back way — as a result of dictatorship, put an end to people dying in the hands of the regime, put an end to one man controlling everything and instead replacing it with projects for whole community to benefit from.
Second Pill of Wisdom for Regime: APRC Regime have overstayed their welcome
We all know the APRC regime ways of misleading Gambians with reckless language is too often their preferred method of running the country and scapegoating some of the most vulnerable people in the country. Yaya Jammeh who felt he is a “Mr. know it all” and does not need to engage the advice of Gambians, preferring to try to ignore them, have put our nation in total collapse by killing all our pillars of democracy. The APRC regime with military mindset and a very superstitious leader who believes in “jalangs “, misinterpreted government as a battlefield and perceived citizens as enemies to be killed or those loyal to their cause be rewarded on the expense of the country. This system of governance will not move a nation towards its development goals and has failed us with filthy littered streets, poor roads conditions, stagnant drainage, and failed institutions. Yaya Jammeh and his military APRC regime wants to maintain control at all times — even if it means killing people, mismatching positions with unqualified people to break system of good governance, hoarding access from public and close themselves off to those who can help. The results are the failures we see today and total collapse of our society. The wisdom we learn from this is: If you treat the world as a friendly and hopeful place to find developmental projects for your country, as a web of relationships to seek buyers of Gambian products or farm produces, the whole nation will succeed. On the other hand, what have Yaya Jammeh gain form making headlines for the wrong reason? In places of competence or facts, Yaya Jammeh relies on spiritual jalangs and witchcrafts which have only caused doom and gloom for our country. And this is not the type of faith most Gambians believes in. He will promise Gambians every magnificent vision around election time and he makes sure it is has a five, ten or twenty years life-span difference. when pressed for how he will produce those visions? He answers “Have faith and believe me”. What a con man! We don’t believe in these evil things.
Third Pill of Wisdom for the politicians: Perils of going it alone is too risky for the nation
For decades, experts and ordinary Gambians have debated the perils of individual parties trying to go it alone with Dictator who have dismantle everything about Gambia. But no clear consensus emerged, especially when the political parties tangled up with exactly who should lead among themselves which further kept us trapped in a dysfunctional brutal dictatorship era. That’s not to say there haven’t been some genuine advances but they failed to bear fruit. All of the party leaders have sacrifice a lot for Gambia and UDP have bear the scars of brutally by this regime. The scale and audacity of the attacks of their party members over the span of twenty-two years, have cause them to lose lives, some of their members thrown in jail, there executives serving in mile two prison and some exiled. To this day, an unconventional and frightening assault on the opposition parties continues daily. This is something that Mama Kandeh and his party have to remember as they feel a sense of personal privilege of entitlement because of having the backing of “closet” APRC backers or connections, hundreds of followers and praise singers around you makes you feel that you are quite better than what you think about yourself, stonewalling information about you, dissembling facts, and unwillingness to ever come clean. The momentum you forget the sacrifice of the other opposition parties have made over the years, partisans showering you with all kind of praises, will lead you to care less about what others think, less self-conscious, and to get out on own way. Nonetheless, the argument still doesn’t hold up. It is a senseless and dangerous idea to go it alone. Take that lesson to heart and work hard with all of the parties involved for a united front. Otherwise GDC and their leader will become a polarizing political figure or provocateurs who infiltrated the election venue to give victory to the dictator.
Fourth Pill of Wisdom for spoilers: last-minute tinkering issue to cause delay
In an election year as contentious as this one, Gambians are facing a dizzying array of choices. The rare, last-minute tinkering of personalities meddling in both sides of the debate are causing further confusion must end for God’s sake. Certainly, we can see how the people putting their personal interest instead of preaching unity at this hour. More seriously, it’s a shame their points of arguments were addressed but they are always doing the kind of devil-in-the-details situation to cause further delays. We should all be working together to support the initiatives from politicians convincingly and provide or suggestions were necessary to do-over languages we disagree with to enhance the process of uniting all the parties. More seriously, unaffiliated members of the major parties are decrying issues which are not the position of the party leaders. I wonder sometimes Yaya Jammeh’s men are infiltrated among us to further delay any genuine initiatives. Indeed, we should all be united in anger to bring this bad system of governance for our country. And reasonable people should not be quibbling at the last minute botched to delay us coming together. It could not have been more clear that Gambians are tired and want change. We all know Yaya Jammeh will be shopping for an activist willing to overturn the public will. However, not surprisingly, some people have been working hard to downplay the significance of Dr. Touray throwing her hat on the race and their predictions all along have proved unfounded. Yaya Jammeh and his regime can no longer have the luxury of turning a deaf ear to the cries of Gambians because we know how she has taken on difficult issues and deliver.
Finally, the destruction of Gambia by Yaya Jammeh hiding behind his service man and development must be ended. Gambians don’t trust Yaya Jammeh anymore, and we don’t think the nation is ready to follow him to his Islamic state and terror. From the time he took over our country by coup in 1994 and scarifying his comrades to gain the seat of power, the air of Gambia has never quite been clear of from scandals to national embarrassments. One issue Yaya Jammeh does well is to use nations wealth to destroy anything that seems to have a sort of unity. The willingness of some Gambians to be inconsistent when it is in their own personal interest with nations interest have been a problem of the past. it not our desire as Gambians to referee anything but expect all political parties to rally one candidate. We cannot afford Gambia continuing to face an even more dispiriting future and increase the chances of a harsh tradeoff of our lives for the Dictators liberty. We encourage all voters to participate in the elections and to follow their consciences in making the best choice of voting in the opposition to save our country. Let’s get it done .
Habib ( A Concerned Gambian)
