As Dec.1st looms closer to the staggering shock and awe of extremely difficult times Yaya Jammeh already accentuates will grip the country, a dismayed, disconsolate Gambia waits and wonders. And the most pressing question: With all the turbulence of terror, unprecedented kidnappings, opposition leaders in jail and the divisive socially intolerant policies to intentionally balkanized us into identity group politics, should we allow our personal ambitions and grievances against the opposition leaders —confuse us into extending the political schism that has divided Gambia for some 22 years? How has our country fallen so inescapably into political pandering and coalition talk dead line gridlock? The honest answer is —we are caught in a vise of Yaya Jammeh’s own design of stonewalling and dissembling things that does not perfectly suit his likings. Haven’t we Sort through all the desires of one man for 22 years and know all the details of his failures?
Nevertheless, we all know the current Gambian leader has a history of egregiously erasing the truth but one telling episode among the countless he leveled with the Gambian people is: Yaya Jammeh has gone out of his way to splendidly reinforced his own guilty verdict by putting a magnifying glass on his crimes— with respect to the death of opposition leader’s colleague —Solo Sandeng. He goes further to affirm the tremendous difficulties of the country— is caused by their failed Ponzi schemes policies and the burrowing owls pecking on our national coffers to nourish their greed. We cannot allow Gambia to falter a bit more on the same wrong direction. This is the moment to see this election as about the collective Gambian people’s predicament and the wrong direction our country is heading to. And this is the moment for the opposition parties to come together for— Gambians to rebuke Yaya Jammeh and give him the shellacking he deserves. Equally predictable, the guy has proved—he has neither the character nor the prudent disposition to continue as the president of the Gambia.
Today, we are at a key juncture. Given the tentative nature of the December 1st election being the most consequential elections in Gambian history, we must allow the disgraced outlaw regime a fighting chance of ridding to the State House gate on the backs of poor Gambians. The opposition leaders gracing the coalition talks should also remember that they’ve been robbed of opportunity and respect by the regime. We all know Yaya Jammeh and his regime are now on their heels — cunning political maneuver to impact the coalition talks and election behind the scenes. Nothing to quibble with here about that fact. Clearly this election is an urgent concern, and one that opposition leaders has sought urgently to deal with. They are all familiar imprudent mistake of the past. We understand that this election has consumes the nation’s bandwidth, but we cannot to fiddle ourselves with heart burns with conspiracy theories about coalition. If one more day is needed to get things right, lets shallow that hard pill for a chance to squared our shoulders again soon.
Yaya Jammeh has clearly communicated his quest of staying in power and enforcing his conflict-of-interest if it means— killing 10,000 Gambians to reserve his peace. Those words cannot be not met with warm considerations, prayers only, corner cutting the coalition efforts or better still — it shouldn’t only anger few swaths of the Gambian public. All Gambians should be fed-up and clamor for alternatives to tame the beast of Yaya Jammeh. Yaya Jammeh and some of his surrogates will defend that conversation as “locker-room talk or attaya session talk” rather than repudiating him. Interestingly, a kernel of truth exists in the statement—a broken clock being right twice a day. We cannot afford his quest to come true by allowing the alarms of broken clock to ruin another Gambian’s life. We will rather sweat in the coalition talks than bleed blood on December 2nd .
By Habib ( A Concerned Gambian)
