“Politically motivated”

Dear Editor,
One of the most familiar evasive tactics employed by Gambia Government functionaries whenever their backs are against the wall is to brand every criticism as “politically motivated.” The phrase is wielded as though it were enough, by itself, to invalidate any criticism. But if your politics is truly for the people and not for your pocket, why do you speak of “politically motivated” criticism as though it were something filthy? Don’t you also engage in politically motivated actions because you want to impress Adama Barrow, so he continues to let you mooch off the backs of the poor in the guise of serving them?

If the simple-minded lackeys among them are not accusing critics of jealousy or of complaining without offering solutions, then it is the desperados dismissing every opinion as “politically motivated.” Why would any worthy person envy greedy and spineless people mooching off the backs of the poor in the guise of serving them? To hear these lackeys say it, you would think it is the critic, and not the officeholder enjoying the privileges of public power, who bears the burden of providing solutions to their runaway incompetence.

For a bunch of sycophants and hustlers forever pounding their chests about being the best, and forever assigning every imaginable credit to Adama Barrow and his APRC/NPP government, why should critics not be equally entitled to name incompetence, greed, spinelessness, and corruption on display?

You are eager to politicise what you parade as achievement, yet you recoil when others politicise your failures. In nearly every press release issued by government bootlickers, the same weary refrain appears: “Let’s not politicize bla bla bla,” they say, even though they know perfectly well that everything the Adama Barrow government does, or deliberately refuses to do, is entangled in political calculation and machinations! And so, to blunt any public criticism, they instinctively retreat to the tired refrain: “This should not be politicised.” For len koh wayrr?

Some of you may remember Ebrima Sillah gleefully suggesting that I should join a political party. In his limited thinking, I should not express my opinions unless I am politically affiliated. Such mindlessness. But I saw through shenanigans. Had I belonged to a political party, he would simply have dismissed my views as “politics,” thereby absolving himself of any accountability. Mbang wulleng, nta kellar!

To the government officials, here is your reality: You cannot be mooching off the backs of the poor and still demand hymns of praise. We will continue to call out for your incompetence, and we will continue to complain. If you don’t like it, resign! And if our criticisms no longer trouble you, it is only because you have long since abandoned whatever bruised and battered conscience you once possessed. And in that case, may you become humane again. May Daarmanso help you rebuild your conscience someday so that you will never again become so swollen with self-importance that you can stand before those you claim to serve and tell them their criticism and complaints do not bother you. Ameen!

Alagie Saidy Barrow
USA