Yesterday, Saturday January 23 the heads of state of ECOWAS held their 58th ordinary session via videoconference and chaired by the President of Ghana.

In the communique issued after the summit, the West African leaders have decided to extend the presence of ECOMIG in The Gambia for another 12 months, that is from January to December 2021. Secondly they said they want to transform ECOMIG into a police mission!

I hereby state my total and complete opposition to this decision by ECOWAS. I hereby condemn Pres. Adama Barrow for agreeing to such a terrible decision that undermines national security and national unity.

The Gambia has a national police already and they are enough to ensure law and order. All they need is the right support from the President with effective leadership from the IGP and the Minister of Interior.

The decision to keep ECOMIG in The Gambia as either a military or police mission must have National Assembly approval first. Hence I demand the National Assembly to stand up to defend the sovereignty of The Gambia and ensure good governance by rejecting the ECOWAS decision and order The Gambia Government to remove ECOMIG altogether out of The Gambia.

The Gambia is not at war. The Gambia is not a post conflict country. Much as we highly appreciated ECOWAS’s intervention in ousting the Tyrant, this country does not need any foreign force anymore.

The continued presence of ECOMIG has caused the slow progress of security sector reforms which is no fault of ECOMIG. Rather it is the fault of the political and security leaders who are the only people benefiting from ECOMIG presence to the detriment of the country.

Now find in these two following paragraphs the exact decision by ECOWAS about ECOMIG:

30. The Authority congratulates the President of the Commission for the implementation of the Decision of the Authority of Heads of State and Government, taken at its 57th Ordinary Session held on 7 September 2020 in Niamey, Republic of Niger, to transform ECOMIG into a Police Mission.

31. The Authority decides to extend the mandate of ECOMIG for a period of twelve (12) months from 1 January 2021 and transform it into a Police Mission after December 2021 elections. It expresses its gratitude to Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Senegal and Togo for agreeing to contribute Constituted Police Units to ECOMIG, and the European Union for its financial and technical support.

ECOWAS leaders also talked about the constitution building process and its unfortunate what they reported!

No to ECOMIG! Thank you ECOMIG.

For The Gambia ?? Our Homeland

By Musa Touray

AU member states will converge on February 6 to elect a new deputy chairperson for the AU commission headquartered in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

The plebiscite will be pitting The Gambia’s former vice president Fatoumatta Jallow Tambajang with five other challengers. All five come with vast CVs but none can match that of Jallow Tambajang.

“I have an edge over the other candidates,” Jallow Tambajang tells The Fatu Network.

And she’s right. Jallow Tambajang’s leadership competence has seen her climb up to the role of vice president of a country, running the affairs of a whole nation when the president is not around. That’s no small feat. None of the other candidates have ever reached that level.

The AU commission will be richer for the arrival of Fatoumatta Jallow Tambajang. And member states must know this.

By Famara Fofana

There is no gainsaying that the Gambian media has seen it all in in the recent past. Not only were disappearances of journalists, closure and arson attacks on media houses, but some paid the ultimate price.

There were also well-documented instances in the past when leaders of the opposition parties were covered by state media at non-political functions only for their messages to be filtered or not aired at all. That was censorship at its best and that state control of public media is yet to nipped in the bud.

But even in the face of growing media pluralism in our country these days, there still remains some teething gaps that need plugging. With a proliferation of both traditional and digital media platforms, the quality of reportage offered by the news media continues to be tested against the basics of ethical standards including the much-storied seven canons of journalism: 1) Responsibility 2) Freedom of the Press 3) Independence 4) Sincerity, Truthfulness, and Accuracy 5) Impartiality 6) Fair Play 7) Decency

In truth, capacity gaps on the part of Gambian journalists, sensationalism and ethical blunders are still rife despite the existence of the Media Academy for Journalism and Communications (MAJaC) and UTG’s School of Journalism and Digital Media. Matter of fact, issues pertaining to ethical at the end of the day go beyond professional training. It takes the individual journalist or the media house to play by the rule book by detaching themselves from the political, economic, and other socio-cultural trappings that come with their job.

Media practitioners now have their work cut out. And as December 2021 looms large on the horizon, reporters and anchors of current affairs programmes seem to be under the sort of scrutiny akin to persons overseeing the statecraft. The local media and its handling of the plethora of issues that continue to unfold on the political front will be central to how our society’s social fabric is further knitted together or disintegrates. For a country that is deeply divided along partisan politics and tribal lines(the elephant in the room), it behoves media practitioners to stay aboveboard in the discharge of their job. Whilst the media also helps stimulate citizen engagement in politics, its AGENDA SETTING role is such that people are bound to attach importance to that which journalists pay considerable attention.

As regards party politics, there lies the biggest conundrum for journalists and the news media industry itself. This is a period when headlines alone tend to cause a stir in town. Whereas headlines can be a matter of house style, not everyone, particularly those out of the contours of the trade would realise that they do not necessarily stick to the rules of grammar, explaining why even past events take the present tense; auxiliary verbs are avoided; the omission of articles (a, an, the) as well as the usage of infinitives for future events. I got tempted to bring the stuff about HEADLINES because they can be misunderstood by many. I have seen people made a storm of out the tea cup in instances where no wrongdoing had been committed. In fact, in The Gambia, a single headline is enough to brand a journalist as a member of one political party or the other as long as it doesn’t chime with the reader. Asking a simple question too can incur the wrath of an unforgiving populace. For some Gambians, the only time one is hailed as a good journalist is when the person produces a story or a programme that do not ruffle their feathers. Do a story that becomes politically unpalatable and you will become a JOIN-THE-LIST. I am sure even the nation’s leading investigative reporter Mustapha K. Darboe is not everyone’s cup of tea, particularly those at the receiving end of his eye-popping, saliva-inducing watchdog reporting.

Most recently however, the appearances of certain individuals on media platforms seemed to have rankled with people sitting on the different sides of the political aisle. While supporters across the political spectrum may loath seeing or hearing stuff that do not sit well with them, I bet no media house or programme host would entertain the idea of denying another Gambian a seat in the studio on account of what they may end up saying or what their profile is. That wouldn’t only border on prejudice by way of predetermining the guest’s utterances but more dangerously tantamount borderline CENSORHIP. Anything beyond the media’s GATEKEEPING role will be a step too far for journalists. That role is easier for print media by virtue of their editorial set-up rather than electronic outlets that are more often than not operating live nowadays. As far as journalists are concerned, my opinion is that NEWS VALUES more than any other factors will continue to influence their choosing of guests or interviewees for their respective shows. These will be: prominence, conflict, oddity, relevance, prominence, timeliness, and proximity. Where a member of a political party is deemed to have been the subject of mudslinging by another, the best form of recourse would be activating the RIGHT OF REPLY or right of correction on the same platform where such things were said.

Since it is my contention that everyone deserves to be given a fair crack of the whip by the media, it is also my legit concern that persons that appear on shows have an obligation and a duty of care not just to self – but importantly to country. Utterances that fan the flames of hatred, bigotry and personality attacks do not have a place in a decent society. Incendiary remarks should give way to issue-centred discourse and the media can foster the latter by asking the right questions. As to who qualifies to be the right panelist or guest for whatever show there is, the answer is as murky as our current polity itself.

It’s an election year. The stakes are high! Our political leaders need to tone down their remarks in the same way the media ought to uphold the tenets of RESPONSIBLE journalism. Shalom!

Famara Fofana is a freelance journalist and author of When My Village Was My Village. He is also a postgraduate student reading Media and Communications Studies at the Graduate School of Social Sciences, Ankara University in Turkey.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs Mamadou Tangara must inform Gambians in full about the contents of the agreement that was signed on 12 January 2021 between the Gambia and Switzerland. To merely issue a press release with high sounding promises and benefits that cannot be verified is not enough. In fact, that agreement cannot stand until it is approved by the National Assembly as required by the Constitution under Section 70(1)(c). Has this agreement been presented to the National Assembly yet?

Gambians must know that the Swiss Government has also issued a press release on the same agreement on the same day. But their press release did not say all that the Gambia press release mentioned. The Swiss press release noted that they have signed similar agreements with eight other African countries. So, it is not just about the Gambia.

In their press release, the Swiss said that the “State Secretariat for Migration (SEM) intends to continue to support Gambian authorities in handling migration, not least by helping to implement projects locally.” They went further to say that SEM is already supporting local projects to build national capacity as well as national response to COVID through IOM. Finally, part of the agreement deals with the issue of returnees, which the Swiss authorities said relates to “the practical organization of returnees, such as identification and the issuing of replacement documents.”

Apparently, the press release from our Foreign Minister Tangara is not fully in line with the press release from the Swiss. For example, our Foreign Ministry said the agreement deals with “unemployment and creation of more opportunities for women and youth in the Gambia”. What are these opportunities and how did the agreement handle that?

The Gambian press release also said they negotiated for “all undocumented Gambian migrants in Switzerland to be trained on livelihood skills and be integrated in Swiss community? The press release further said that both countries have agreed that “all legal remedies will be exhausted before any voluntary returnees will be repatriated.” Tangara’s press release also states that the agreement will “pave the way for the establishment of a multi-purpose skills training centre and create other opportunities for young people to achieve their goals in the Gambia.” Finally, the Gambian press release said both countries agreed on “spelt-out modalities… to ensure equitable and balanced life for Gambians in Switzerland…”.

These are lofty ideals in the Gambian press release but they are not mentioned in the Swiss press release. Therefore, are both press releases true or false, or is one or both of them overstating or understating the terms of this agreement? Citizens have a right to know.

Therefore, I hereby call on the National Assembly to scrutinise this agreement fully. We know that the issue of irregular migration and the presence of undocumented migrants, especially Africans is a major issue for Europe. They are very eager to stop irregular migration and are doing everything possible to stop it.

While European nations, and indeed any other country, have a right and duty to manage their immigration issues, in the same vein the Gambia Government also has a right and a duty not to accept agreements that undermine the rights and welfare of our citizens at home or abroad. After all migration is a fundamental human right guaranteed by international law, which also protects the rights of migrants, documented or undocumented, anywhere in the world. Hence no nation should put up unreasonable migration laws and agreements just to deny others from visiting their country.

If the Gambia Government is to allow Gambians to be deported from Europe and America then the Government must ensure that it has the necessary support to offer to these returnees in order to enable them have a meaningful and productive life at home. We must not forget that our people spend their life’s fortune and in addition to risking life just to get to Europe. Hence the Government must not accept to have these people deported anyhow simply because they are undocumented. The Government should protect the best interest of our people.

Therefore, the Government must take responsibility to ensure that returnees’ rights and needs are addressed. Otherwise, the Government would be undermining national security if it allows scores of Gambians to be deported anyhow only to come back to the same poverty from which they were running away. After all, the Government must bear in mind that it is these Gambians in Europe and other places who are sending those billions of dalasi in remittances every year thereby sustaining both our economy and families.

Therefore, I hereby call on the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Gambians Abroad Mamadou Tangara to release the full agreement publicly so that Gambian citizens will see and know what has been agreed in their name and on their behalf and for their welfare. It is our right to know.

For The Gambia Our Homeland

Four years ago, an American demagogue, who openly embraced division and racial discord, assumed the power of the presidency of the United States.

He came railing against the “swamp” and “deep state” and until his last day in office he continued to rail against his own government whenever they refuse to commit crimes for him.

In power, he praised autocrats like Putin and Kim,  and attacked America’s democratic allies like Merkel. He politicized the administration of justice, used government powers to serve his own ends, and monetized the Presidency for himself and his children.

A liar by trade – and at a scale and magnitude never before seen in all history of politics. Today, Washington Post have documented over thirty thousands of his lies that are to be buried with the infamy of his presidency. Epic of Trump’s lies culminated in the big lie that he won the election that he so decisively lost to Biden by over 7 million votes in the 2020 elections.

What is most astonishing about this weaseling sociopath is his ability to turn one of America’s two main political parties into a cult of personality, where blind fealty and the pace of sycophants genuflecting under the feet of ‘dear leader’ is all that counts.

America, in essence, haven’t learned anything new about Donald Trump. The fact that he is a horrible human being has always been evident. He had voluminous and incontrovertible trails of evidence against his character and antics well before politics. His multiple bankruptcies and series of rape and sexual assault cases are common knowledge.

What he also exposed is letting the world know there are millions of Americans who were perfectly willing to overthrow a constitutional democracy in order to keep a belligerent fascist autocrat in power. That 74 million Americans are willing to follow Trump’s dark lies, look beyond his fascist inclinations and care less about his casual racism against their fellow citizens.  Or perhaps many are themselves racists and fascists.

His lies metastasized to a form of cancer, which became inseparable from the wild conspiracy theories Qanon pedals around. Many in his Republican base believed his lies and much worse. Heck some of them actually believe that even on this Inauguration Day, Biden and democratic leaders will in fact be arrested and taken to jail, and Trump will remain president. This is the extent of America’s epistemological crisis today.

But at long last America can take a break from the early-morning tweets  of firing cabinet Secretaries; the bizarre sight of an orange-haired septuagenarian President dancing at super spreader events; a president that lies with every breathe; and finally the shocking spectacle of inciting a mob into storming the US Capitol.

We no longer have to listen to a President telling rioters; “We love you”, or saying white supremacist are “fine people”. We don’t have to listen to a president with a strange conviction that windmills cause cancer; who lies constantly about a pandemic that killed 400 thousands of his fellow citizens; who separate and cage migrant babies at the border; who tells us that somehow we can nuke hurricanes into submission; who suggested ingesting disinfectant  as a cure for Covid or “hit the body with very powerful lights”.

This president once contemplated on buying Greenland in exchange for Puerto Rico, and million other trifles. A President who attempted covering his petty lies with sharpie re-drawing to alter the map of a hurricane trajectory that he wrongly claimed will hit Alabama. He lies about the most trivial and the most serious.

This is the liar-in-chief who have warned for months that caravans of illegal immigrants were coming to “invade” America from the southern border and actually send real U.S. troops to guard against it.

This presidency, this American tragedy, this American carnage, is an unprecedented journey of dysfunction, a tragicomedy, and the worst national shame in American politics.

Woodrow Wilson was a bigot and botched the handling of a pandemic in 1918; Lindon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bush all lied to the American public about Wars and other major issues. Reagan lied about Iran contra, supported apartheid in South Africa and promulgated racist domestic policies. Bill Clinton and Andrew Johnson were impeached for other reasons.

There were plethora of American Presidents that were outright bigots, liars and philanderers. But only Trump was all of these things at once, plus much worse. And only him, has ever been impeached twice. That will be his lasting embarrassment if he is capable of being embarrassed, but a narcissist knows no shame.

His is a dark legacy of emboldened white supremacists, a raging pandemic and siege of the US Capital.

By Jamal Drammeh.

Facebook: jamal.drammeh
Twitter: @jamaldrammeh

By Basidia M Drammeh

Today marks President Barrow’s four years in power after being sworn in Dakar amid an unprecedented political impasse due to former President Yahya Jammeh’s dramatic U-Turn on an initial decision concede defeat. Since then, a lot has happened; hence I have been struggling with capturing all that had occurred in 1,460 days in one single article.

Nonetheless, it will be fair to say that the Barrow Administration and its Coalition members have mainly failed to live up to the Gambian people’s high expectations who voted for change in 2016. President Barrow had deviated from the mandate on which they (coalition) campaigned and won the election. The Gambians wanted a break away from the dark past and yed sweeping reforms that would usher in a new system. Under Jammeh, The Gambia had been badly wounded and scarred by gross human rights violations, mismanagement of public funds, extra-judicial killings, repression of freedom of expression and the dismantlement of almost all democratic tenets.

Four years down the line, some of the hallmarks of the former regime remain alive and vivid. Corruption is rampant, patronage is the order of the day, hiring and firing without advancing reasons remains, pomp and praise-singing accompany presidential convoys. A fleet of luxurious vehicles accompanies the president. Governors and local chiefs are deeply engaged in partisan politics. Top Government officials and technocrats are dragged to partisan politics. Diplomatic and service passports are issued to connections rather than on merit. Hiring is mostly done based on who you know rather than what you know. And the list goes on and on.

Yes, we have freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and free press. Yes, we no longer have political prisoners languishing in jail just because they chose a party other than the President. Yes, we don’t have NIA operative snatch opponents of the regime, real or perceive, and drag to torture chambers. Yes, we no more see family members, relatives, loved ones disappear into the unknown or get murdered by the so-called junglers. Yes, the President has demonstrated his respect for the respect and the independence of the judiciary.

As positive as they may be, these developments are no privileges or handouts because the Gambians have four voted and fought for them. Gambians have voted for both regime and system change involving civil service reform, security sector reform, and public funds’ proper management. They wanted to see an end to self-perpetuation. They wanted to have a new Constitution that would reflect the hopes and aspirations of the Gambian people. Ordinary Gambians wished to see a reduction of commodity prices. Gambians wanted to see an end to patronage and impunity.

Down the line, many of these hopes have dashed. Key among the broken promises is the President’s pledge to serve for only three years after heading a transitional and transformation-oriented Government. Not only did the president decide to serve out his constitutionally mandated term, but he also formed his own party to contest the next presidential election.

A draft Constitution that cost 116 million dalasis was written to usher on a third republic only to be dumped by the President’s allies in Parliament at his behest. The president’s closest aides were publicly critical of the document describing it as discriminatory to Barrow. The Janneh Commission’s recommendations, set up to probe the former regime’s financial malpractices, were largely overlooked by the President. There are mounting concerns that the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission might meet a similar fate. The GRTS, which was once called JRTS for being the mouthpiece of the former Gambian president Yahya Jammeh regularly airs the president’s NPP rallies. The Meet the People’s Tour that is designed to avail the president of the opportunity to listen to the people about the impact of the Government’s policies on them, has been transformed to lambast rival political parties and heap praise the president. Electricity and Water remain scarce and beyond the means of the majority of Gambians. Internet service exorbitantly expensive. The President has promised to set up an anti-corruption watchdog to fight endemic corruption, yet the promise remains elusive.

The President’s supporters would refer to the bridges and the roads the President has either initiated or inherited from the President as clear signs of his development crusade. However, the question remains: Was Barrow elected to build roads or build institutions?

By Lamin J Darbo, lawyer

A global pandemic, a national concern, and a concession the Government has a legitimate responsibility to manage international travel with a view to protecting larger Gambia.

Notwithstanding, the Government must execute its responsibility within a framework sensitive to the plight of those caught up in the Covid-19 nightmare.

But the experience of Gambians and non-Gambians who flew into the country on Brussels Airlines SN 0217 from Brussels to Banjul encountered a nightmare situation on arrival at the airport. As Brussels is a world class air transportation hub, Brussels Airlines operates therefrom the magnificently engineered and opulent Airbus A330-200 to Banjul but the beautiful flying experience on 15 January was to encounter an utter farce in the hands of the Gambia Government for disembarking passengers.

After clearing Immigration, and Customs, we were effectively arrested, detained, and escorted in a bus to the Four Star Metzy Residential Hotel to quarantine.

Others were transported to and detained at Badala Hotel.

Detained because of a lack of choice in the matter, and because no one travels from London, Brussels and airports across the world direct, or on transit, without taking and obtaining a NEGATIVE Covid-19 test result and fit to fly certificate from officially certified private outfits in originating countries within a 72-hour departing window.

It is commendable that the Gambia Government insists it must retest travelers from hotspot countries on arrival at Banjul. Since its press release on 05 January, the hotspot designation has altered tremendously and the flying environment itself exerts great influence on infection.

In the circumstances Government must reassess its press statement of 05 January.

It must also institute a humane environment affecting air passengers arriving in Banjul.

Some passengers from the same Brussels Airlines SN 0217 were let go at the Airport, practically endangering the larger public for their Covid-19 condition could not be ascertained on arrival. There were suggestions that Service, and Diplomatic, passport holders are exempt from the testing regime. Covid-19 affects people not passports and clearly therefore a passport holder’s mere official status is not a prophylactic against infection and public endangerment.

The larger public must not be endangered in this typically unreasoned manner.

Although the arrested SN 0217 passengers were accorded rapid access through the congested coastal road to their detention at Metzy, and Badala, many spent the night outdoors as they could not afford the D2,300 per night price tag. No food or water was provided to those detained and there were no officers around to explain the detention regime and the next steps before freedom.

More egregiously, as of right now, i.e., 13:00, there was no sight of the sample takers in spite of the fact that those detained must decide whether to rebook their hotel rooms at noon. The unprofessionalism and lack of care for fellow citizens is staggering considering some Government staffers in the Covid-19 crusade are also resident within the detention hotels, for the purpose, I guess, of ameliorating the anxieties and sufferings of detainees.

Rumour abound that Covid detainees will be released upon testing but if that is accurate, it exemplifies breathtaking callousness that documented testing was not undertaken at the airport so arriving passengers could avoid such harrowing cruelty like sleeping in the forecourts and reception and pool areas of expensive hotels instead of with family and friends.

I struggle to comprehend that my fellow travelers pre-2017 such as the Government Spokesman, and a myriad of advisers in Presidential circles, are living large this weekend of January 15 as LJD is detained with Gambian and non-Gambia fellow travelers in a Covid-19 hotel.

I am happy to go all the way but in line with the constitutional dicta of non-discrimination, anyone in SN 0217, no matter how mighty in status, must be quarantined, or is that detained?

The national interest demands it!

In the spirit of the rule of law, I hope my adviser-friends help engineer a humane Covid-19 detention mechanism with their principals.

The current regime is mindless, callous and not fit for purpose.

Lamin J. Darbo
Four Star Metzy Residence Hotel, Gambia

When Gambians came out in large numbers and against all the odds on 1st December 2016 to vote out the dictatorial regime of President Yahya Jammeh, the foremost thing in their minds, among other things, was to reform the bad system in place in the country. Among those reforms they wanted to see was a new constitution and a much fairer electoral system.

However, four years down the line, none of that has so far been achieved, and everyone is wondering what might have gone wrong. Why has the coalition government not only so far failed to carry out any such necessary reforms, but the old system seems to be thriving instead?

As the whole country seems to gear up for the presidential elections scheduled for December, instead of concentrating on the reforms they promised Gambians, virtually every action by President Adama Barrow and his government is being done with his re-election in mind. We have all seen how the recently concluded ‘Meet the People Tour’, for instance, had been transformed into a political jamboree, with virtually everyone talking about supporting President Barrow’s political agenda and voting for his National People’s Party (NPP), completely deviating from the main objectives of the Tour’s official objectives.

It is quite obvious that even the ongoing efforts to resuscitate the Draft Constitution 2020, with the coming of former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan to help in the process, is no doubt part of President Barrow’s political agenda to get re-elected in 2021. The whole process has been politicized from the very beginning, particularly by his supporters and sympathizers who campaigned against the Draft as well as voted against it in the National Assembly. It shows that they were willing to disregard the more than D116 million spent on the draft just because a few clauses did not seem to favour his political ambitions. It is therefore quite obvious that at the end of the day, whether the process to resuscitate the Draft succeeds or not, the entire process would cost the Gambian tax payers nothing less than D200 million, considering the fact that the involvement of President Jonathan and his team would also no doubt have some costs. Is it really worth spending all that money on a Draft that could have been quite easily passed at the very first time it was introduced in the National Assembly?

Despite all that however, there is still no guarantee that whatever the consensus may be at the end of the Jonathan process, the Draft would pass in the National Assembly. There is a possibility that if any of the clauses of the original Draft are removed or amended, the majority of members that voted for it in the National Assembly may this time round vote against it. It is also very likely that members of the APRC would vote against any draft that seeks to replace the 1997 Constitution, which they see as Babili Mansa’s legacy that should not be tampered with. Therefore, the Barrow administration has quite an uphill task to resuscitate the 2020 Draft Constitution.

Was it really necessary to invite President Jonathan all the way from Nigeria to come and mediate in the process when all that President Barrow could have done was to invite the various stakeholders to discuss the matter and come to a consensus? Therefore, many people feel that there was no need to invite any outsider to help us do that, as the Draft is a Gambian document, drafted by Gambians and there was absolutely no need to involve anyone else in the process.

In addition, if the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly had not turned down the motion recently moved by Halifa Sallah, Member for Serekunda, to rescind the decision of the National Assembly to vote against the Draft at the second reading, there would not have been any need for the process led by President Jonathan. It however appears that as a result of the pressure being applied on the government by donor partners, President Barrow and most of his supporters who voted to abort the process in the National Assembly are now willing to reconsider their position on the process and would therefore likely vote for it if it is re-introduced, albeit the fact that they are still insisting on changes to some clauses. Therefore, the proposal by Halifa Sallah would have been the easiest way forward as it would have given opportunity to everyone to partake in the process until a consensus is reached, of course with far less cost than bringing in “experts” from Nigeria.

However, even assuming that the Jonathan process eventually succeeds and the Draft is re-introduced in the National Assembly and it passes through the different stages, there is still no guarantee that there is enough time left to complete the electoral reform process in order to hold the presidential elections in December as scheduled. There are several processes and reforms that still need to be put in place before the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) can re-assure Gambians that it is ready to hold credible elections. Already, we have seen the Commission postpone indefinitely its plans to carry out the general voter registration, apparently due to its failure to get approval to order electoral materials. There are also several other logistical problems that the Commission needs to deal with in order to demonstrate that it has the capacity to conduct credible elections by December.

It is a well-known fact that electoral reforms was one of the fundamental pledges made by Coalition 2016 when they were campaigning in 2016, especially considering the fact that it was one of the demands of a majority of Gambians during the former regime, leading to the arrest and harassment of many people and the death in custody of people like Solo Sandeng. One would therefore wonder why for more than four years in office, the Barrow government has hardly done anything in that regard. Instead, President Barrow seems to be more pre-occupied with self-perpetuation rather than carrying out the reforms that he was elected to perform.

It is indeed quite hard to see what the IEC had been doing since 2017 when everyone had expected that by now, it would have put in place most of those reforms, such as the enactment of an Elections Act and re-demarcation of constituency boundaries, among other necessary reforms, culminating in general voter registration. It is therefore hard to see how the Commission can accomplish all those tasks before the commencement of the 2021 electoral cycle. There is a danger that if the Commission pushes ahead with the reforms without adequate preparations, we may end up with a half-baked system that would be a prescription for chaos. Therefore, in view of the slow pace of the electoral reforms, it is quite necessary for the IEC to have a Plan B in place because all indications are that there is not enough time to accomplish the process before December.