By Musa Bassadi Jawara
For 113 days, for 15 strategic sessions, every weekend in the hotels of Kololi and Senegambia, the so-called opposition gathered. Hotels booked, cameras flashing. And after 16 weeks, what did they produce? Not unity. Not a programme. Not hope. But acrimony, withdrawal, accusation of inducements, and a contested flagbearer.
I have been writing about this opposition failure for months, that the opposition is worse than the incumbent. Today I am vindicated. My past writings are public records.
The Coalition Mediation Committee itself is now challenging its own process. Its Chairman Professor Yerro Mballow and Senior Mediator Ajaratou Fatoumatta Jallow Tambajang called for a suspension for investigation into alleged inducements. Its spokesperson, Lawyer Assan Martin, continued and announced Talib Ahmed Bensouda. One contender, Essa Mbye Faal, walked out citing concerns about the conduct of the committee. Another, Essa Bocar Sey, has to publicly deny he has withdrawn because reading culture itself has died.
This is not a coalition. This is a fratricidal fight for political supremacy, gains and Dunyah, not for the poor and needy.
The nuisance of skullduggery
And now the circus enters its second act. The flagbearer is rushing from one media briefing to another to explain what happened. His handlers and surrogates are flipping through the airwaves, cyberspace and digital media with countless offensive and defensive postures, accusations and counter accusations flying like stray bullets. This is nuisance. This is skullduggery. It bespeaks a nation that has veered off its moral and purposeful compass.
When I appeared on Penchum Senegambia Television on April 16th, about four months ago, I said it then. The tapes are there, vivid evidence, unedited and unvarnished. I warned that this Kololi hotel coalition was built on quicksand. Today, the outcome is Res ipsa loquitur, the thing speaks for itself. And to make matters worse, the incumbent party’s political strategists are now gleefully joining the media scramble, adding kerosene to the fire, and all to the disastrous detriment of poor Gambians and the Gambian people.
In any serious democracy, from Ghana to Botswana, from Senegal to South Africa, coalition building is an exercise in statecraft, discipline, and ideological coherence. In Banjul, it has been reduced to press conferences and Facebook insults. Machiavelli warned of politics without virtue, Fanon warned of the pitfalls of national consciousness, and we are living both. When process is replaced by public relations, and principle by personality cults, collapse is not an accident, it is an inevitability.
The gerontocrats refuse to go
The central sickness of Gambian politics is gerontocracy.
Men who have contested five times, six times, who have no business in public life, who should be writing memoirs and advising from the sidelines, are creating havoc and refusing to give way to youthful, energetic, sober and sharper minds to lead the charge for a better Gambia.
We cannot build a future with leadership stuck in the past.
Meanwhile, the country drowns in darkness
This circus is happening in a country beset with existential crises:
• Failing public schools where our children learn on bare floors
• Terrible electricity supply, power outage, load shedding, the reality of our times, that kills businesses daily
• Medical facilities atrocious, with no drugs in hospital pharmacies
• Roads that flood all over the country at the first rain, Banjul, Ebo Town, Kerr Sering, Brufut Heights, Brikama, Sukuta, Basse and dozens of cities and villages submerged, while Bintou’s Point stands flood free by foresight and planning
• Crushing youth unemployment
• Our youth taking the perilous back way, resulting in hundreds of deaths in the desert and sea
• Poverty, destitution, hopelessness everywhere
Are these not enough to call for better organisation from all corners of society to rescue the country from barbarism and annihilation?
If poverty cannot unite you, if dead children on the Mediterranean cannot humble you, if flooded homes from Banjul to Basse cannot sober you, then you are not fighting for Gambia. You are fighting for yourself.
A failure before the first ballot
Let the truth be told: The opposition has failed before the first ballot is dropped on December 5, to unseat incumbent President Barrow. It is a failure and disappointment of Himalayan proportions.
How can you rescue a nation when you cannot even manage a meeting?
A prayer for Gambia
The people are tired. The people are watching.
I will conclude with Quran recitation. Allah help guide and save The Gambia from utter ruins. I, Musa Bassadi Jawara, submit to your will and have no role in this bitter rivalry and fratricidal fight for political supremacy, gains and Dunyah and not for the poor and needy.