By Kitabu Jammeh
Preamble:
This article attempts to capture the Gambia’s political leaderships since independence. It unveils
a brief summary of the failures of each of republics from Sir Dawda’s time. Above all, it defines
the major leadership failures and identifies a number of recommendations with significant moral
lessons to learn from, for the incoming Leadership after the 2021 election. The document clearly
postulates that going forward, no leadership will survive political power if it fails to deliver for the
masses. I encourage everyone especially stakeholders to fine time to go through it with an open
mind. I am very much convinced that you will find it interesting and useful.
Only a few people will doubt the reality that the people of the Gambia have been truly
patient for over half a century since its independence in 1965. Gambians have witnessed
the Sir Dawada Kairaba Jawara, Yahya Jammeh and the last five years of Adama Barrow
era of political leadership without much to be desired, really. Without being ungrateful to
anyone of them, each one has undoubtedly done some little things that helped to push
the Gambia’s economic development agenda forward, but at an inconsistent pace with
both Global and continental trends. It was narrated that Sir Dawda’s era was branded
with stability and democracy, but with inadequate development outcomes that would have
changed the lives of ordinary Gambians. We have witnessed Yahya Jammeh’s epoch,
profoundly characterized by brutality, repression and inconceivable violation of human
rights. A friend of mine once told me in a conversation, that anything evil that Yahya Jammeh did
not do, he must have forgotten to do it. To the extent that I despised his leadership style, I
willfully refused to attend my MBA graduation ceremony hosted by the UTG in 2013,
primarily to circumvent shaking hands with him. He has unfaithfully and selfishly been
meddling with the foreign exchange market at all levels, aided by a clique of egoistic
business tycoons, throughout his tenure as president. This often resulted to
unprecedented exchange rate volatility with severe consequences on both the banking
system and the domestic currency visa vie the major traded currencies, such as EURO,
USD and the GBP. I believe I can tell this story better, because I was a Head Treasurer
of my bank and having direct relationship with the regulator at the time. All of these human
and financial crimes committed by Yahya Jammeh, did not only dent his political
leadership but also dwarfed his development efforts.
Current President Adama Barrow, was voted into power with great hopes, after 22 long
years of painful dictatorship. So far, it has been most disappointing in the minds of most
Gambians both at home and abroad. The reason is that, when Gambian broke away from
Yahya Jammeh’s repressive political era, everyone thought the ideal time has arrived for
the country to move forward with the Coalition 2016 now in power. Little did Gambians
know, the danger of putting a man in political power with limited knowledge, and
understanding of global issues. For me, it’s like everyone underestimated this reality, or
were perhaps unconscious of the implications at the time of making the political choice.
Make no mistake about it, knowledge is truly the superpower of time and space. It is the
power that cannot be stolen or disposed-off; and notably, no one can disregard it without
consequences. For society to progress, it must be led by people who know, and I am not
the one saying this but because it’s a known fact. That is why today, we are all paying the
price of that poor decision taken in 2016. I say this with no disrespect to the honorable
men and women, who were architects of the coalition five years ago. For avoidance of
doubt, I somberly celebrate all of them and thank them for their action which helped to
throw the dictator out of power at the very least. Though it helped to remove a dictator
and restore democracy, Adama Barrow’s regime can better be characterized by a
proliferating corruption and insensitivity to the agenda of the change, to the displeasure
of every Gambian, sure to speak. Over the last five years, he visibly became more
preoccupied with self-glorification and means of keeping himself in power beyond the
three or five years, than the priorities needs set in the agenda of the change. Thus, his focus began to shift which greatly constrained his leadership’s efforts for effective life
changing economic growth for the country. Under his leadership from 2016, the unity that
Gambians yearn for diminished. In fact, our society became even more polarized than
ever before, condensed on tribal and regional lines, regrettably.
