By: Christian Conteh

According to Afrobarometer’s latest surveys, a majority of people across the region think corruption is on the rise, while simultaneously expressing dissatisfaction with the way democracy works.

This is not surprising, persistent corruption has gone hand-in-hand with unconstitutional changes of power in various parts of the continent.

On a continent where corruption persists, natural resources and its attendant benefits impede access to public services for millions of people rather than facilitate them, the result is decades of stagnation laid bare by the 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). This cannot be more devastating.

With an average score of 33 out of 100, Sub-Saharan Africa shows no significant improvement on the 2021 CPI. The gains made by a handful of countries are overshadowed by backsliding or stagnation in others and the region’s poor performance overall, as 44 out of 49 countries assessed on the index still score below 50.

With the COVID-19 pandemic severely hitting the previously less-affected continent, alongside protracted armed conflicts and rising terrorist threats, 2021 was a turbulent year for Sub-Saharan Africa. These worrying trends exacerbate the serious corruption problems that exist for long before.

To keep corruption out of the public eye, governments across the region have limited information and cracked down on independent voices calling out abuses of power.

Elsewhere, governments imposed disproportionate restrictions on civic freedoms often under the guise of containing the COVID-19 pandemic limiting people’s ability to hold power to account.

On the 2020 Democracy Index Sub-Saharan Africa recorded its worst average score since 2006, primarily owing to a drop in countries’ civil liberties scores.

Repression continued in 2021, as governments used the COVID-19 pandemic and armed conflicts as an excuse to further crackdown on rights.

Mali’s (29) significant decline (from 35 in 2015) on the CPI has occurred concurrently with a drop in its civil liberties score. The country is facing political, institutional and security crises, having experienced three military coups since 2012. The ongoing armed conflict undermines key state functions, leading to a vicious cycle of corruption and human rights abuses

And while Ethiopia (39) registers a significant improvement (from 33) since 2012, its decline in civil liberties threatens to reverse any previous progress. The government has used the ongoing armed conflict in the Tigray region as a pretext to silence independent voices.

In 2021, authorities shut down a popular independent media outlet and arrested dozens of journalists for their coverage of the civil war.

The 2021 CPI results should serve as a wake-up call to societies across Sub-Saharan Africa. The magnitude of corruption challenges requires responses much bolder than ever before.

Sustainable progress on anti-corruption can only be achieved if societal and institutional checks on power are ensured. Governments must urgently roll back on the disproportionate restrictions on civil liberties and stop using the COVID-19 pandemic or ongoing conflicts as an excuse for stifling dissent.

And when allegations of abuse emerge, anti-corruption agencies and justice institutions must provide accountability no matter how high-level the culprit.

By: Dr. Manal Ghazzzawi

Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a global health catastrophe that affects how the body processes sugar due to either lack of the hormone insulin or issues that makes the body resistant to the action of insulin. Insulin is the hormone in our body that stores excess glucose to glycogen and helps the cells of our body absorb glucose for energy.

DM leads to devastating complications like stroke, heart issues, amputation, blindness etc, if left untreated or unattended to.

People with diabetes who live a normal life have a full-time job to ensure their sugar level remains stable. But in as much as such affected persons try endlessly to prevent sugar levels from escalating, they must also work so hard to prevent sugar levels not to go too low to prevent complications like coma.

People in Africa face lots of difficulties in terms of accessibility to diabetes care. Marginalised communities are unaware of DM and its consequences, and they must pay out of pocket for their drugs and continuity of care.

In a country like Sierra Leone, most tertiary and secondary facilities are clustered in the city, leaving villagers accessing health care at community health centres which lack the necessary expertise to manage and prevent DM. Unfortunately, many Africans are diagnosed late after complications have already set in.

There are about 4 types of DM: Type 1, which is insulin dependent DM; Type 2, which is non-insulin dependent DM; Type 3, which is DM affecting women during pregnancy; and Type 4, which is DM due to drugs and other diseases affecting the pancreas.

Burden of DM in the Africa region

According to the International Diabetes Federation (IDF), the Africa region represents the highest proportion with undiagnosed DM, with 60% of its adults having it without knowing about their condition.

Below is a concise representation of types 1 & 2 diabetes in Africa and projections of prevalence of diagnosed and undiagnosed diabetes by 2030/2045, as well as projected government health expenditure by 2030/2045.

In summary, it is estimated in 2019 that 19 million people were living with diabetes in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and this figure was expected to skyrocket to 47 million by 2045. Among those with undiagnosed DM, 12 million people have diabetes unknowing to them and 366,200 people in Africa die because of DM.

The 8th edition of the Diabetes Atlas report estimates that 77% of all diabetes related deaths worldwide occur in SSA, in people under 60 years of age (IDF atlas 2017).

This information is quite a bit alarming, but the good news is, diabetes is a preventable disease if we adopt healthy lifestyle behaviours.

A systematic analysis on prevalence and sub-regional distribution of undiagnosed diabetes mellitus among adults in African countries reveal that West Africa has the highest burden of undiagnosed DM. Nigeria represents the top five countries in Africa with high prevalence of DM.

In Sierra Leone, inadequate data makes it difficult to ascertain national prevalence of DM.

It is inevitable that uncontrolled endemic and epidemic diseases affecting a nation can extremely place health expenditure burden on governments, especially with our fragile health system in Africa.

According to IDF 2019, government expenditure on health due to diabetes is US$10 billion and is projected to increase up to US$17 billion by 2045.

What could be the cause for the time-ticking-diabetes-bomb that awaits us?

DM is characterized as one of the leading non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in Africa. DM itself leads to increased risk of leading causes of communicable diseases like Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV), Tuberculosis (TB), viral hepatitis, pneumonia and Covid-19 infections (Davies K et al., 2020).

Food stuff like these increase the risk of diabetes. Image source unknown

Plausible reasons for the increasing prevalence of DM in Africa are due to common chronic communicable diseases on the continent, which cause inflammatory conditions, leading to organ dysfunction and damage. Even some drugs used to treat, for instance, HIV and TB, could also lead to DM (Davies K et al., 2020).

In addition, obesity appears to be a major issue among urban women aged 15–49 years, as demonstrated from the results of demographic and health survey from 24 African countries (Neupane S et.al, 2016). These women have high risk of developing gestational diabetes in the future, which in turn predisposes their poor babies to diabetes at adulthood or even childhood.

A study was conducted by me in 2017, to assess the risk of developing DM among adults in Freetown. A population size of 1013 was randomly selected, and the prevalence of participants to be at high risk of developing Type 2 DM (T2DM) was 17.8%. Though more rigorous and extensive research is needed to ascertain this, the study highlighted that age, gender, occupation, high waist circumference, hypertension and family history are associated risk factors that yielded statistical significance.

Body Mass Index (BMI) categorization by gender shows that more females (77%) had higher BMI compared to males (53%). Also, more females (19.2%) compared to males (8.1%) were found to have a high waist circumference (WC) which denotes central obesity. This study conforms to a systemic review and metanalysis conducted by Davies A et.al, in Nigeria, which demonstrated that there were 21 million and 12 million overweight and obese persons respectively, in the Nigerian population aged 15 years or more in 2020, and more females were over-weight and in the obese category compared to males.

Previous studies have established that West African Lineage is associated with greater BMI and total body fat. Many studies have shown distinct evidence to confirm that obesity is a major risk factor for T2DM.

Obesity is on the increase in Africa, due to adoption of westernized culture, urbanization, growth in economy, sedentary lifestyle, and introduction of processed foods (Searcey & Richtel 2017).

It is indeed poignant that improved standards of living is driving us to make poor health life choices. In Sierra Leone or in some regions in Africa, obesity is a sign of affluence, dignity, and respect (Janzon E et al., 2015).

Despite this fact, let us not forget that diabetes respects no socioeconomic status or boundaries in general. In a country like Sierra Leone, which probably other countries in the region can relate, people can hardly afford to buy fruits and vegetables. Healthy foods are not produced abundantly in our country, and the poor will continue to be deprived from eating healthy foods that could prevent the occurrence of diabetes. We are highly dependent on importation of most of our food items, even salt and sugar. It has reached a point where imported foods can be cheaper that home grown foods.

Poverty, which is our biggest killer, forces us to eat unhealthy foods to fill our stomach. Adoption of the Mediterranean diet, which mainly consists of fruits, vegetables, nuts, wholegrains and fish have been shown to prevent diabetes.

People with diabetes can prolong their health with the proper diet involving these kind of food stuffs. Image source unknown

Regular physical activity is undeniably relevant in the prevention and management of diabetes. The American Diabetes Association recommends 150 minutes of regular physical activity per week to prevent and manage DM.

Our road networks in Africa could be a turn off for citizens to be engaged in walking and jogging. That needs to be changed, citizens of African countries have every right to be able to exercise conveniently whenever and wherever they find themselves. People living in the rural setting walk miles to reach their farm or place of work, whereas in the urban setting we just rely on transportation. The latter provides such a convenience to people in the urban setting combined with the chair we sit in the whole day at work, highly encouraging us not to be active.

Among other factors that is causing high disease burden and undiagnosed cases in Africa are lack of motivation needed for health workers to provide service; shortage of health work force, brain drain, lack of organized structure for chronic disease care, fewer tertiary care hospitals, lack of awareness of prevalent diseases among the population and inappropriate health care information systems

Strategies to mitigate the epidemic in Africa

Without leadership, governance, financing, health workforce, health information systems, supply chains, and service delivery, we will continue to suffer from diabetes and many chronic diseases. Because diabetes is a lifelong disease and is associated with acute and chronic complications that could cause multiple organ damage, it requires several multi-faceted approaches to reduce the burden of the disease from a public health point of view.

Interventions to target obesity include nutrition labelling; marketing restrictions of unhealthy foods and beverages to kids; fruit and vegetable subsidies; physical activity policies and social marketing campaigns. WHO member states around the world, including South Africa, have committed to halt the rise of obesity and diabetes, reduce premature deaths from NCDs by 25% by 2025 and one-third by 2030. The latter target is in line with the Sustainable Development Goals.

How many countries in Africa are really committed to keep that ambitious promise? Many countries in Africa will be hesitant to execute laws that would prevent DM due to political reasons. In Sierra Leone, selling of alcohol occurs in the streets so freely that it can easily be accessed by kids. There are foreign companies that manufacture high percentage of alcohol beverages with no one to hold them accountable. Alcohol overuse and substance abuse is a rising pandemic that also needs to be addressed. Chronic alcohol use is an associated risk factor for the development of diabetes. Studies have shown a genetic predisposition to increased risk of DM among heavy alcohol users (Jang et al 2019).

As we know, diabetes was known as the disease of the rich. Though it is still affecting people living in developed countries, many strategies are being put in place to help protect their citizens. The political will is there. In Africa, some of our presidents themselves are obese, they are diabetic or are at high risk of developing T2DM. Politicians of African countries, including the health ministers themselves, will rather fly to the most sophisticated countries to seek medical care. They themselves do not trust their health system which they are supposed to fix, leaving their own citizens vulnerable and deprived of the basic health care they need.

With the exception of a few, the health system of Africa is highly fragile. In Sierra Leone, for example, we keep on putting the blame for our poor health system on the [1991-2200 civil war, Ebola and now Covid-19 pandemic.

If we do not finance our health system to achieve universal health coverage, life expectancy of Africans will remain low, with the potential of holding back economic growth.

Many people are pushed to extreme poverty when they must pay out of pocket for diseases other than TB, HIV.

A multipronged urgent control measure is needed to diagnose people at risk of developing diabetes to prevent subsequent complications of the disease that is affecting quality of life of people globally.

This is the time to take action towards strengthening our health system in Africa. We need to create a donor-independent health system, otherwise emerging and remerging infectious diseases will continue to claim our lives, further exposing our fragile health system. Sadly, this is a reality which we cannot ignore. Diversion of resources towards communicable diseases, away from non-communicable diseases, and provision of essential health services, further leads to more morbidity and mortality.  Africa needs to wake up!

The Gambia’s judiciary is officially calling for former head of state Yahya Jammeh to be prosecuted. It is now up to his successor, Adama Barrow, who has just been re-elected president, to set the legal machine in motion.

On 24 December, Justice Minister Dawda Jallow released the report written by the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparation Commission (TRRC), further tightening the noose around Jammeh.

The Gambian justice system cited the autocrat, who ruled the country for 22 years after seizing power in a coup, as being responsible for numerous abuses committed during his regime. Among them are several crimes against humanity, for which there is no statute of limitations.

‘The Scale Of The Crimes’

In the report, which was submitted to President Adama Barrow on the eve of the 4 December 2021 presidential election, the TRRC recommends prosecuting Jammeh, who had established an authoritarian system based on terror and impunity.

Alongside nearly 70 people, two of whom are now dead, he is presented as the main perpetrator of certain crimes committed between July 1994 and January 2017. “Even before we started our investigations, we knew that Jammeh, as a leader, was largely responsible for the atrocities committed during that period,” says Baba Galleh Jallow, the TRRC executive-secretary. “But we did not know the extent of the crimes.”

After listening to the testimonies of 393 witnesses, victims and former death squad members, and after two and a half years of investigating, the commission concluded that Jammeh was responsible for extrajudicial detentions, torture and the deaths of oppositionists and journalists. The former president was also found guilty of raping several people, including former beauty queen Fatou ‘Toufah’ Jallow, who had named him in her statement.

The self-styled ‘development dictator’, who was convinced that he had found a cure for AIDS, was also convicted of the deaths of 41 patients who had been given a fake HIV treatment – violent sexual acts were part of this ‘miracle cure’.

A Court Based In Dakar?

“If Yahya Jammeh is indeed being prosecuted for crimes against humanity, this means that under the principle of universal jurisdiction, he can be arrested and tried anywhere in the world,” says Jallow.

In its report, the TRRC states that the “best option” would be to create a hybrid court supported by either Ecowas or the African Union and based in Dakar. Not only is Senegal close to The Gambia and therefore to the evidence, but it also hosts the Extraordinary African Chambers, where Chad’s Hissène Habré was both tried and convicted.

According to the commission, such an option “is likely to receive more international support” and carries less risk of instability. “[Jammeh’s] return to Banjul is a real risk for the country. He still has a lot of support here,” says Jallow.

Supporters made their voices heard on the eve of the presidential elections, when the former leader made a comeback onto the Gambian political scene. From Equatorial Guinea, where he has been living in exile since 2017, he spoke out against the electoral agreement between his party and that of his successor. His reaction was so strong that it caused his political party to split. “If Jammeh had been part of this electoral alliance, it would have been more difficult for the executive to implement our recommendations,” says Jallow. “By withdrawing from the agreement, he is making things easier.”

Requests For Amnesty

The president and his justice minister are expected to submit a white paper, which will outline their strategy for implementing the TRRC’s recommendations, by 25 May 2022. A Gambian professional and an international expert recruited for the purpose will be part of a task force responsible for drawing up outlines. The TRRC has also submitted a set of recommendations for reforming and strengthening the judiciary and security forces, as well as initiating the reparation process for victims to the president.

Before it can be considered to have finished its work, the commission will have to tackle one last – and thorny – task: to review applications for amnesty from those named in its report.

According to the justice minister, any named individual who has testified before the TRRC “without omitting anything about their responsibility for human rights violations” and “expressed remorse” has two weeks to apply for amnesty. Several applications have already been filed, but those allegedly responsible for crimes against humanity are not, a priori, eligible for such a measure.

Could some of them slip through despite the seriousness of the crimes they have been accused of? In Banjul, all eyes are on Saul Badji, the presidential guard’s former commander and pillar of the former regime. This close friend of Jammeh returned to The Gambia the day after the 4 December presidential election. “It is worrying that soldiers exiled alongside Jammeh in Equatorial Guinea returned just after Adama Barrow was re-elected,” says a source close to the commission, who recalled that Badjie was “directly implicated in several extrajudicial executions, including the brutal murder of two American-Gambian businessmen and the execution of nine prisoners.”

Despite these concerns, the justice community hopes that the colossal work done by the TRRC will set a precedent in transitional justice mechanisms. US lawyer Reed Brody calls it a “historic” model and praises the justice minister’s efforts at “transparency”, as he decided to make the entire report available to the public.

“It took a great deal of preparation and financial support to establish this commission,” says Jallow. “By taking inspiration from other transitional justice mechanisms in the world, we have created a Gambian model that will serve as a landmark.”

Writing by Marième Soumaré

Source: The Africa Report

By: Momodou Ndow

I have no idea how many of you remember Watch Night Day? But I remember it vividly, and I have a story to tell.

Watch Night Day was the day when everybody should be on their guard because thieves are supposed to come to your house and steal from you. It was the night that theft was legal, I suppose. Kids would normally go out at night under the pretense of being thieves and steal stuff. Maybe to steal small items or fruits, not go out and climb a fence, dagi palanterr, and enter deh, just like real sacha kat yee ning deh deff.

My childhood friend, Saib Muhammed’s grandma sent him purr mu yobu ange. Ange bi was wrapped in a towel and put in a nice sized basket to keep warm. Sor mu nyow orsi ma purr ma gungay kor. On our way purr yobu ange bi, we saw that all the grapefruits Kerr Anafew, were all nice and ripped. Kerr Anafew was the compound just opposite the Bakau school, right next to suma Kerr torma bi fofu, si junction bi. It is a mechanic shop now.

But it’s not actually Kerr Anafew deh, we called the watchman, Anafew. He was very fast, so we called him “Anafew” (as in…anamu? Rek few, mu romba la! So Anafew. Get it now?). But du kerri Anafew deh, it was owed by bena Payi Aku, y fateh na turam sah! Anafew was good at catching kids attempting to steal fruit from the grounds, after a quick chase.

On our way home after delivering ange bi, the basket was now empty with towel inside. When we got to Kerr Anafew, we heard the grapefruit screaming our names on top of the tree. Tempted like Adam with the apple, we decided to go look for the forbidden fruit. The devil played tricks on us, and he also got us, just like he did Adam. We decided to do our Watch Night Day sacha during the day, baychayki ndara kama!

The plan was that we would both climb over the fence and enter the compound. I would then climb up the tree argi grapefruit yee, and Saib would fill up the basket. Then after ma chipalu and we make our getaway with our fruit basket! I got up and started shaking the branches so the grapefruits would fall off. After my first shake, the grapefruits started to fall, and I got excited. I increased the tremors and brought them to a violent level, and the grapefruits fell like rain.

After we went off with our “loot basket” and reached across the street, then Anafew realized a Hit and Run was carried out. The chase was on, chaapans! We ran off and headed towards New Town, as if Anafew had a gun with him. Soon after, the grapefruit started to fall out of the basket, one after the other. The faster we run, the more they fall out.

We would lose Anafew and decide to pause, di wahu nak, while always looking over our shoulders. Dehnyor tork rek, BAAM, Anafew is right behind us, rek nyu takeoff fat! This was how it was until we reached borri stadium. That was right before the stadium was built, it was an open land. That’s when we finally realized that we had lost Anafew, and started to rest and laugh at the ordeal. With our adrenaline pumping nak!

Then suddenly we saw aye Narri Gannarr, nyome three or four, nyungee jongkon taking a dump si birr nyahh yee fofu. Rek nyu start delen mock, “yakalbass yakalbass, bailen di poop si pirr nyahh yee”. They too decided to give a chase, having swiftly wiped off their tootsie rolls. Chase number two was on! At the level of our adrenaline at the time, Narr yee had no chance! That day, Bakau yepp leng worr! After all was said and done, we found ourselves with just a few grapefruits. Howma five or six. Mann dama fully live suma childhood days deh, bulen ma giss nee nak!

Is Watch Night Day still going on in Gambia? Dumako dey dayga fen sah! Or maybe with the way things are now fofu nonu, everyday is Watch Night Day, but purr real sacha kat yee. The ones that show up with a jassi.

Madi Jobarteh

From the outset, I must commend DA Jawo for his apt article, ‘A Piece of Advice to President-Elect Barrow’ in which he raised pertinent issues that require the urgent attention of the President if he truly wishes to succeed as a President hence make the Gambia succeed as well. In the same vein, I must express my utter dismay and concern at the reaction to that article by my dear brother Dr. Cernu Barry in which, in raising questions about non-Gambian voters, went further to make assertions which I consider to be only reinforcing tribalism.

Indeed, I agree with Dr. Barry that the issue of citizenship needs to be looked at carefully given the analysis he gave that there are individuals from the subregion who have lived for decades in this country and have offsprings yet who are non-Gambians.

In my view this is as a result of the weakness of our Constitution which needs updating. Surely, a Guinean or a Ghanaian who has lived in this country for decades and built his life and future in this country should obtain citizenship, not to mention his or her offspring obtaining Gambian citizenship. This is one of the failures of this Government in conducting the necessary constitutional and legal reforms in order to modernize our Republic in line with human rights standards.

That notwithstanding, the issue of non-Gambians obtaining voter cards is an open secret. In 2012, when the opposition constituted themselves in an alliance for electoral reforms, they spoke to the issue of what they called ‘fraudulent registration exercise’. In their 12-point demands issued in 2015, Point 5 spoke to the issue of illegal registration which is about non-Gambians, under-aged voters and instances of double registration. It was precisely because of such potential fraudulent registration that the opposition also proposed the abolition of the attestation.

Interestingly, as both Jawo and Barry noted, no political party contested the 2021 voter registration in the revising courts. Even when the civil society successfully took the issue of attestation to the courts, no party came to stand with them. Hence it can only be said that either the political parties do not believe that there were any non-Gambians registered or they were all guilty of putting through non-Gambians to register or just don’t care, or all of the above. Otherwise, I challenge each and every political party to come out to explain why they failed to utilize the revising courts to cleanse the voter registration list at the right time and place.

However, where I find Dr. Barry’s comments really concerning is when he went further to explain why some ethnic communities refused to vote for Darboe and gave their votes to Barrow. The narrative he came up with as he reported from those folks in NBR and URR is extremely weak at best and tribal at worst as far as I can analyze it. This is what Dr. Barry reported,

“I asked them why and they responded that they have observed the aggressive nature of some of their mandinka neighbours and the level of hostility against them, the fulas, made them afraid. They have had their fair share of hostilities during the Jawara era when they were constantly arrested for ‘Aliens’ cards or ‘Alliance’ and tortured indiscriminately without cause and sometimes their wealth taken. They are afraid to go through the same so they did everything to make sure their families vote for Barrow.”

I would like to know what form of ‘hostility’ exactly those Mandinka neighbours inflicted on their Fula neighbours? As far as I know, all reports from CSOs as well as from independent bodies and public institutions such as the police have only highlighted incendiary tribal messages or bigotry which have come from all sorts of individuals belonging to various religions, tribes, regions and political parties. There have been no reports so far of any physical or violent clashes between any communities in the Gambia on account of tribe and for the purposes of tribal interests.

Hence to claim that a particular Fula community received hostilities from their Mandinka neighbours smacks of incendiary language at best and tribalism at worst. I would be interested to see the exact evidence showing the incidence, form, place, and time of such hostilities.

Secondly, Dr. Barry made the wild assertion that Fula communities faced hostilities during the Jawara era which he connected to the use of ‘Aliens ID Card’. Once again, there has been no reports in the Gambia that show that there have been ethnic clashes in any part of the country from 1965 to 1994 when Jawara was in power in this country. Therefore, where were these hostilities? In fact, ‘Aliens ID Card’ did not exist during the First Republic. This obnoxious identity card emerged during the authoritarian regime of the Tinpot Dictator Yaya Jammeh. Hence how come this card was connected to Jawara?

More importantly, the immigration Department has probably as many Fula as Mandinka officers. Hence if any Gambian of Fula extraction claimed to be stopped because of being profiled as a Guinean, it must be that this malpractice is being perpetrated by immigration officers who could be Fula or Mandinka or Wolof, etc. Hence this abuse of our Fula citizens cannot be pinned solely to the Mandinka, as Hamat Bah had also spewed once at a meeting at State House in front of Pres. Barrow. Such malpractice cannot be UDP’s fault or caused by the Mandinka!

The epitome of Dr. Barry’s ludicrous claim was to state that the Fula were “tortured indiscriminately without cause and sometimes their wealth taken”! Again, Dr. Barry should give evidence to show that the Fula or any ethnic group were targeted under the Jawara Administration for discrimination and torture. I think this is a very unfair allegation against the Jawara Administration and Pres. DK Jawara in particular who was indeed one of the only two Gambian prominent politicians to be the most inclusive. It was only Jawara and Ousainou Darboe whose spouses have never come from their own ethnicity. A man who can do that in the Gambia can only be described as de-tribalized, inclusive and bereft of any form of bigotry.

In fact, Dr. Barry failed to mention the fact that during the Jammeh regime many Fula foreign exchange businesses were raided and their monies taken away. But even there, one cannot accuse Jammeh for purposely targeting these forex businesses simply because they were Fula owned. No. Jammeh did that only for his economic interests regardless of the ethnicity of the owners. Therefore, a Fula persecution in the Gambia is a very serious narrative.

Hence for the good Doctor to make this assertion requires further inquiry and evidence otherwise such assertion must be considered a tribal commentary which undermines national unity and peace. As I have expressed many times, tribalism does not exist in the Gambia in terms of our communities. I am from Fulladu Boraba which is Mandinka dominated but has Fula and Wolof families and the village is surrounded by majority Fula and Wolof communities. We have never had an occasion when the people of Boraba or those from the Fula and Wolof villages find it necessary to quarrel on the basis of tribe. Never. The same story goes for each and every community in the Gambia.

The form of tribalism we have in the Gambia as in most African countries is tribal politics. This is where individuals who seek political power and economic privileges exploit tribal and other sectarian sentiments to seek support or to eliminate opponents or to entrench and maintain their grip on power and access to resources. These individuals are usually politicians, public officials, business people, and the highly educated men and women in every institution.

Since Independence the Fula in particular have been key leaders and players in the politics and governance of this country. The idea that the Fula could be marginalized in the Gambia is utterly unthinkable. The Gambia’s second vice president was a Fula, Assan Musa Camara from 1972 to 1982, who later came to form a formidable opposition to Jawara, Mandinka, when he formed the Gambia People’s Party in 1986 and challenged Jawara in the presidential elections in 1987 and 1992. He was never persecuted nor were the Fula persecuted or marginalized for supporting GPP.

Hassan Jallow, a Fula was the Minister of Justice under Jawara from 1984 to 1994. One can list many other prominent positions manned by Fula politicians and intellectuals in the Government of Jawara just to show that the Fula, like any other ethnic group, has never faced hostilities of any kind from both the Jawara Government nor from ordinary Mandinka communities. If so, let the incontrovertible evidence come out. Even today the current Minister of Justice is a Fula, Dawda A Jallow.

I think our intellectuals, more than anyone else, should exercise utmost honesty and be faithful to history and knowledge in our analysis of national issues. The incidence of tribalism in the Gambia is the imagination and invention of our intellectuals and politicians but not by our ordinary folks in our communities. These ordinary folks may not be sophisticated enough because they lack the necessary tools of analysis hence are usually hoodwinked by politicians and intellectuals to believe that tribalism is real. Therefore, as intellectuals, we owe it to the country to clear the minds of our people and stand against tribal bigots and tribal politics. If I were Dr. Barry, I would have educated those Fula communities that their perceptions were false.

UDP is not a Mandinka party in any way just as APRC is not a Jola party nor is GDC a Fula party or PDOIS a Wolof party, etc, etc, etc. But, if UDP is a Mandinka party then all the rest are also tribal parties. As we all know, this disinformation about UDP is politically created by the Tinpot Dictator to alienate UDP and Ousainou Darboe by making all non-Mandinka voters perceive UDP in such a negative light. This was for Jammeh’s political survival given his incompetence and dishonesty. That nonsensical narrative is what we see NPP and Pres. Barrow and his surrogates also employ today to further demonize and alienate the UDP and Ousainou Darboe just to secure their political and economic hegemony.

Therefore, whoever perpetuates the narrative in any way or form that UDP is a Mandinka party or when they gain power all other ethnic groups are in trouble is himself or herself the very tribalist. Similarly, the claim that any ethnic group were or are marginalized by the Mandinka in any part of this country is false and a tribal commentary.

For The Gambia Our Homeland

By D. A. Jawo

Now that President-elect Adama Barrow has received a strong mandate from Gambians to rule this country for another five years, everyone is anxiously waiting to see how he is going to handle his new mandate. Is he going to continue with the same lackadaisical attitude, with corruption and malfeasance being the hallmark of his last administration, or are we going to see more positive developments, with head-on confrontation against corruption and mis-management?

Regardless of who voted for him and who did not, and the obvious fact that there were some irregularities in the elections, Barrow is still president for all Gambians, and as such, we should all pray for the success of his administration, because it means ultimate success for the Gambia.

It is a well known fact that several non-Gambians who had no business in our elections were mobilized to vote and they indeed voted. However, apparently because of their over-confidence in their poise to win the elections and trying to ward off the label of being anti-foreigner, the United Democratic Party (UDP), in particular, did not see it necessary to take the matter to the revising courts. Therefore, it is now too late in the day for anyone to contemplate challenging such irregularities, thus making all those non-Gambians who were illegally registered, acquire Gambian citizenship through the back door. This indeed has some negative implications for this country as some of those people may be criminals and other undesirable elements and giving them our citizenship on a silver platter just for political expediency by a few politicians bent on winning the elections by whatever means necessary, could come to haunt us in the long run.

It is unfortunate however that the UDP never had the chance to bring out in open court whatever evidence they claim to have had with regards to election fraud. It was also a disappointment to many UDP supporters that, with all their large reservoir of experienced lawyers, they apparently failed to do their homework before bringing their case to the Supreme Court, only to be thrown out on a technicality.

Whatever the case however, we need to move on as a nation and we expect the opposition to work hard towards the National Assembly elections to ensure that this country is not, by default, transformed into a single-party nation, which would spell disaster for our nascent democracy. It would be a big mistake if Gambian voters decide to give the National People’s Party (NPP) absolute control of the legislature, giving the Barrow administration the power to do whatever they want. If that happens, the very first thing they are likely to do would be to bring in a watered down new constitution that would help him consolidate his control over every aspect of the governance structure which may not be for the general good of the country.

While President-elect Barrow is waiting to be sworn in on January 19, we expect him to also use the window to choose a new team that would help him run the country for the next five years. Unlike his first five years when he was constrained by the coalition agreement that required him to satisfy the different component parties of Coalition 2016, we expect him this time round to have a much freer hand to run his own show rather than allowing any individual or interest group to hold him to ransom. Even though he has an extremely long queue of small political parties and other individuals lining behind him, apparently all of them looking for jobs and other parochial interests, but we expect him not to compromise the national interest just to satisfy a few people. He should focus on his legacy and get an efficient team to help him achieve that rather than trying to satisfy anyone’s individual interest.

On particular area that everyone expects President Barrow to address in his new administration is the unnecessarily large number of advisers he has surrounded himself with. Of course everyone agrees that he needs some advisers, but they should be seasoned people who can

speak with authority on the subject area they are supposed to advise the president not just any party militant. We certainly also do not need all those advisers, particularly people who lack the pedigree to advise even a village head let alone a head of state. It is seen by many people as sheer waste of public resources to pay people for doing virtually nothing for the public.

Also, the very fact that the next legislative elections would still be held with the 1997 Constitution, which requires him to nominate five members of the National Assembly, he should avoid the mistake he made in 2017 when for the first time in the history of our legislature, there was not a single member of the Christian community in the National Assembly. He had the opportunity to address it but he failed to do so. Let us therefore hope this time round he would take cognizance of such anomaly.

Among the most urgent things that we expect the in-coming Barrow administration to tackle head on include implementing the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC) report to its fullest. We certainly do not expect a repetition of the selective way they handled the Janneh Commission when they had to cherry pick those they wanted to protect. Also, the public is still in the dark as to how much had been recovered from the recommendations of the Janneh Commission, including what had happened to former President Yahya Jammeh’s assets that the Commission recommended to be seized by the state.

This time round, therefore, everyone is closely watching every move that the government takes, particularly when some of those adversely mentioned in the report are known to be ardent supporters of President Barrow. In fact, everyone had expected that those adversely mentioned and sanctioned in the report and still serving in the government would either take the most honourable step and quit or the government would interdict them pending the issuing of the white paper.

Another area that the administration should address is the high level of corruption prevalent in almost every sector of the government. We have all heard or seen the leaked audit report on the Ministry of Health in which millions of Dalasis of public money had allegedly been squandered without any justification. Despite the public outrage over the report, there has still not been any reaction either from President Barrow or his government, apart from the rebuttal from the Ministry of Health, blaming the Standard newspaper for publishing it and the National Audit Office for releasing it to the public.

Of course the public have a good reason to be agitated about the audit report because there have been examples of previous corruption scandals that seem to have been swept under the carpet. A good case in point is the Gambia National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) scandal which resulted in a serious fuel scarcity, and which seems to have been removed from the radar and apparently put on the back burner, with hardly anyone now talking about it.

There is also the huge shipment of hard drugs that was intercepted at the Port of Banjul almost a year ago and no one seems to know what had happened to it and whether anyone had been arraigned for it. We have been hearing the name of one Banta Keita being bandied around with regards to the shipment, but such a huge haul of drugs cannot just be tied to one individual. It must have been a big network and therefore, it does not make sense to assume that only Keita could be culpable, and no one else should be held responsible. There is certainly something quite fishy about the case.

In view of the socio-economic closeness of the Gambia and Senegal, President Barrow has the misfortune of being compared to Senegalese President Macky Sall in their development trajectories. For instance, a few days ago, we all applauded President Macky Sall when he inaugurated the Regional Express Train (TER), which is one of the flagship projects of his Plan Senegal Emergent (PSE) initiated by him at the beginning of his first term, with the objective of pushing Senegal to the status of a middle income country. It will definitely have a very positive socio-economic impact on ordinary Senegalese, particularly those living within the Dakar metropolis.

Of course, there is absolutely no doubt that our own President Barrow has also registered some remarkable infrastructural development successes during his first five years in office, including the roads and bridges in the Upper River Region and some other parts of the country. However, his development strides cannot be compared with those registered by Macky Sall, particularly in the area of projects that directly impact on the lives of the ordinary people. We can imagine, for instance, the direct positive impact that the Regional Express Train, which we are told departs Dakar for Diamniadio every 20 minutes carrying more than a 1000 passengers, would have on ordinary Senegalese, and it is said that plans are underway to extend it to the new airport in Diass, about 40 kilometres from Dakar.

While President Barrow’s roads are no doubt quite important, but what is the benefit of having good roads when public transport is virtually neglected by the government and the ordinary people can hardly move from point A to point B? We have all been witnesses to the daily hassle that ordinary Gambians go through to reach their various destinations. As a result of the apparent lack of attention given to the public transport sector by the Barrow administration, people seem to spend much more time on the road looking for transport to reach their places of work or other destinations. It is not uncommon to find people as late as midnight or even beyond still looking for transport to get home from work or other errands, including young school children returning from school. This is apparently because there is no proper attention given to the public transport system.

“Those who should address the problem do not seem to care because they and their families are allocated government vehicles and therefore, the daily struggles of ordinary Gambians do not concern them much,” complained a distraught commuter.

Another marked personality differences between President Macky Sall and President Barrow with regards to development is that while Macky seems to concentrate on carrying out his development work without much talk, President Barrow on the other hand makes a lot of noise about the projects he undertakes. While one would hardly hear Macky beating his chest about the development projects he had accomplished, but Barrow is always telling us how much development work he had done, claiming to have done much more than all his predecessors put together, despite the fact that many of those projects were initiated by his predecessors. While Macky would just appraise and execute his projects without much noise and publicity, President Barrow would not only go about promising every community that he would bring development to them, but he would also make so much noise about such projects. Humility should therefore be the watch word here.

A Happy New Year To Everyone

By Christian Conteh

President Adama Barrow and opposition strongman Ousainou Darboe both owe Gambians peace and development.

Yes, you heard me right! both the ruling National People’s Party (NPP) leader and the opposition United Democratic Party (UDP) leader must work hand in gloves if The Gambia must develop. After all, Barrow always says they are father and son.

President Adama Barrow comfortably won re-election on 4th December snatching about 53% of the votes cast in the process.

Ousainou Darboe of the United Democratic Party, won about 28% of the votes cast, followed by third-place Mama Kandeh of the Gambia Democratic Congress with about 12%.

The crumbs on the table were left for Halifa Sallah of the People’s Democratic Organisation for Independence and Socialism (PDOIS), Abdoulie Jammeh of the National Unity Party (NUP), and Essa Faal (independent) each taking home 5% of the national vote.

Public opinion and surveys conducted before the 4^th December polls reflected clearly in the election outcome, this means to a large extent the results were not a surprise to many citizens.

Although opposition parties led by the UDP initially rejected the election results many later realised the denial and rejection may just be an exercise in futility.

The UDP led the way, seeking the Supreme Courts intervention in declaring the Barrow victory null and void due to elections irregularities, a claim which the party strongly believed was true.

Ultimately after looking into the merits of the matter the case was thrown out of court for UDPs failure to follow due process. Barrow’s victory was maintained and a cost of D100,000 was awarded to the President-elect.

International election observers from ECOWAS, AU and Commonwealth, including local observers, all described the election process as free, fair, credible and transparent.

Barrows win greatly diminishes the relevance of his predecessor Yahya Jammeh in the country’s political landscape.

This win brings with it many questions and demands including the need for a new liberal and democratic constitution, the implementation of the report by the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC) and the repealing of repressive laws many of colonial origin used by Jammeh during his 22-year hegemony.

President Barrow has promised a new constitution before the end of his recently renewed five years and has made several statements expressing commitment to the implementation of the recommendations of the TRRC Report

The Barrow Victory, What does it Mean?

One of President Barrow’s most controversial decisions before the December 4^th election was his initial alliance with the Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction (APRC)

Many victims of the Jammeh brutality considered this a betrayal of trust. Coincidentally or luckily Jammeh himself denounced the alliance and called for his APRC members to support Mama Kandeh and his Gambia Democratic Congress (GDC).

Upon the president’s victory, it could now be seen that there is no love lost between him (Barrow) and Jammeh. Many who feared Jammeh would return to the Gambia are now at ease.

The president has committed to a new democratic constitution which would clearly state a presidential term limit, the implementation of the TRRC report and uphold the tenets of democratic good governance

What’s Next On The Political Stage?

Barrow is expected to continue his development strides, paying more attention to infrastructural development and building democratic institutions.

UDP Leader Ousainu Darboe is in his 70s and is expected to take a deserved rest. But without a pronounced successor, many believe the party will struggle to present anyone who matches his popularity in 2026.

Abdoulie Jammeh and Essa Faal are both in their 50s, but their abysmal performance in the recently concluded polls question their long-term political prospects.

Mama Kandeh also in his late 50s is sure to have another go at the presidency.

Veteran politician Halifa Sallah is in his late 60s and has officially announced that he has retired from running for public office. He seems to have found a young man in the person of Alhaji Mamadi Kurang who may succeed him, but not without a fight.

Overall, as things stand, Barrow may not have a serious political contender in the near future. Non-the-less things are bound to drastically change in the next five years. All we can do is wait and see.

By Capt. Ebou Jallo  31 December 2021

A Presidential election is like a metaphoric psycho-social barometer of our lifeworld.  It measures our collective emotional state, collective actions, exuberance, or despondency into the future.  Elections in Gambia have always been an existential zero-sum game, and the just completed election cycle this month has been a battle royale between UDP versus the rest; between factions; and between a father and a son—Freud would have loved to psychoanalyze the oedipal complex/patricide between the father Darboe and Moses Barrow the son: it was rich, deep and messy.

Darboe has made five Sisyphean drudgeries in his lifetime to get elected president and five times he has been rejected unequivocally by the Gambian electorate.  He has always been rebuffed by reality because Darboe thrives on river denial, and he is recently drifting fast towards an uncharted wasteland of irrelevance, ignominy, and social menace.  His denial of an impeccable ruling of the Supreme Court has transfigured the once United Democratic Party into the united deplorables’ party: incompetent, irreverent, irresponsible, and treacherous. I was told that the word “Yellow” means blood in one of our ethnic languages.

The Yellow party has lost the ballot and now they are ready to go for blood sooner or later. Darboe is choreographing an anti-establishment resistance by disparaging the sacrosanct decision of the Supreme Court and his troops of deplorable militants are mimicking him with a narrative of victimhood, “jamfa” (betrayal) and ressentiment towards Barrow/ IEC /Chief Justice Hassan Jallow for “stealing the elections”.  This blossoming hostile rhetoric from the UDP will soon turn into a memeplex of doom if president Barrow does not take proactive measures right now—it is reminiscent of a “Mustapha Danso Syndrome” back in the 1980s [Danso was a private constable who was radicalized by a faction of the opposition to springboard an armed insurrection by assassinating the commander of the then defunct Field Force paramilitary, Eku Mahoney].  The Supreme Court of the Gambia is the rock foundation of our constitutional democracy and social fabric. Calumniating the Supreme Court justices or vilifying this sacred institution through cynicism and mendacity is indeed crossing the Rubicon.  Gambians will never forget the UDP’s uncivil ripostes to the Supreme Court’s decision, and once again they will regret their behavior at the next polls.

Social media and the Internet have radically changed the structure of the Gambian public sphere since 1980. It is much easier today for a cult leader to instigate and remote-control mass hysteria with one single audio/video on WhatsApp or Facebook (Donald Trump’s deplorables storming the Congress in Washington DC is a quintessential example).  The threshold between epistemic violence (fake-news, trolls, black propaganda) and mass insurrection is now a very fragile tripwire.  And this is exactly the consequence of today’s political polarization overshadowed by a highly controversial TRRC Report that President Barrow will have to wrestle with after he is sworn into office next year.  Good luck mister president and may the Lord guide your actions towards the common good.

By Basidia M Drammeh

Now that the dust has settled following the Gambia Supreme Court’s landmark verdict to strike out the petition filed by the Opposition United Democratic Party (UDP) disputing the victory of the National People’s Party’s presidential candidate Adama Barrow in the December 4 presidential election, it behooves every Gambian take a moment of reflection and move on.

The UDP was understandably shocked and stunned by the wide margin with which President-elect Barrow won the election given its over-confidence that it would carry the day, prompting it to mount a legal challenge to the election results at the nation’s highest court. The move was yet another test for our judiciary and democracy, by extension.

Through its track record over the past five years, the post-Jammeh judiciary has proven, beyond any doubt, that it’s impartial, credible and transparent, ruling In certain instances against the executive. The famous Yakumba Jaithe’s case is a case in point.

UDP and other losing candidates must engage in a deep soul search and prepare for the upcoming parliamentary elections in April because a proactive and robust opposition is a prerequisite for a vibrant democracy. The Gambia cannot afford a one-party system, which will be a devastating setback to the country’s democratic gains.

There is a litany of priorities that the President-elect should focus on as he beings his new mandate in office for the second term. Now that the judiciary cleared him, the president-elect should take tangible steps towards uniting the Gambian people deeply polarized along political and tribal lines. The healing process must start now. About 47% of Gambia’s population has not voted for Mr. Barrow, and this segment of society must not be alienated for their choice to foster national unity. After all, the president-elect is President for all Gambians and not only those who voted for him. In this vein, the President may call a national unity conference or form an inclusive Cabinet.

The President-elect must demonstrate diligence in fighting rampant corruption in the Gambia. The Audit Bureau recently issued a report lamenting the disappearance of 147 million dalasi of COVID funds. Such incidents must be thoroughly investigated and prosecuted to deter recurrence. To stamp out graft, the long-awaited Anti-corruption commission should be instituted and empowered to serve as an effective watchdog that would keep malpractices in check.

Further, Mr. Barrow ought to fully implement the recommendations of the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission to ensure that the perpetrators of heinous crimes and gross human rights violations face justice and the tears of the victims wiped.

Maternal mortality has been on the increase despite the Government’s defensive approach towards the crisis. This issue should be treated as a national emergency and must not be seen as a political vendetta or propaganda,

Living cost is becoming unbearable for the average Gambian, with the prices of basic commodities skyrocketing every day beyond the means of the bulk citizenry of the impoverished nation. The Gambia has a liberal market system, but that does not absolve the Government of its primary responsibility of devising policies and strategies to bring down the prices and make life and livelihood affordable to the people.

All the above cannot be achieved without putting in place strong institutions manned by competent personalities. Therefore, an appointment should be merit-based and not on who you know and support the ruling party.

Good luck, Mr. President, wishing you a successful tenure.