Rethinking the fight against corruption in The Gambia

Dear Editor,
The recent resignation of Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Lieutenant General Mamat OA Cham, once again exposes the deeper governance crisis confronting The Gambia. While public resignations and investigations are often celebrated as victories for accountability, they remain insufficient to address the entrenched culture of corruption embedded in both state institutions and society. Therefore, corruption in The Gambia must be understood beyond the narrow binary of resignation and investigation. It must be examined through broader structural and institutional lenses.

Political science literature commonly differentiates between petty corruption and grand corruption. Petty corruption encompasses everyday bribery, abuse of office, and small-scale exploitation by lower-level officials, whereas grand corruption involves large-scale embezzlement, elite capture, and the systematic looting of state resources by political and economic elites (Rose-Ackerman & Palifka, 2016). The current Gambian case increasingly suggests both dynamics simultaneously. Corruption has become normalized in many sectors of public life, where public office is often viewed not as a service to the nation, but as an avenue for rapid personal enrichment.

Equally important is the distinction between legal and moral corruption. Some practices may technically operate within legal boundaries while remaining ethically corrupt, such as favoritism, patronage networks, and political cronyism. Others involve outright criminality, including bribery, theft of public funds, and abuse of public trust. More troubling, however, is the persistence of systemic corruption rather than merely individual corruption. Systemic corruption emerges when institutions themselves become weak, compromised, or incapable of enforcing accountability (Mungiu-Pippidi, 2015). In such environments, corruption ceases to be an exception and instead becomes embedded within governance structures and social expectations.

As repeatedly demonstrated across African states, corruption thrives not only because of weak institutions but also because of societal attitudes that tolerate or even celebrate illicit enrichment. In The Gambia, many citizens expose corruption only when their personal interests are affected, rather than out of a commitment to collective national accountability. This selective outrage weakens democratic culture and undermines the possibility of meaningful reform. Unless Gambians collectively reject the mindset that government employment is synonymous with overnight wealth accumulation, corruption scandals will continue to reproduce themselves regardless of which political party remains in power.

Political theorists and African scholars have long warned about the dangers of unchecked corruption and institutional decay. Samuel Huntington (1968) claimed that weak political institutions combined with rapid political competition often generate instability and disorder. Similarly, Robert Rotberg (2004) noted that state failure begins when governments lose legitimacy and become unable to provide accountability, justice, and effective governance. The past experiences of Sierra Leone and Liberia demonstrate how corruption, elite predation, exclusion, and weak institutions fuel grievances that ultimately contribute to state collapse and civil conflict (Reno, 1998). The warning signs from The Gambia should therefore not be ignored.

To this end, fighting corruption requires more than symbolic resignations or endless investigations without consequences. It demands institutional reforms, independent oversight mechanisms, judicial accountability, civic responsibility, and a national political culture that prioritizes collective interests over personal gain. Ignoring these changes will allow corruption to continue deepening social divisions, fueling public distrust, and gradually eroding the state’s capacity to govern.

Dr Lamin Keita
Indian, USA.