LOOK HOW EXPERIENCED, MEASURED, INTELLIGENT, AND KNOWLEDGEABLE DR. MANNEH IS? DARBOE NEEDS TO CALL AN URGENT MEETING SINCE THINGS ARE OUT IN THE MEDIA NOW!
This will really show the UDP’s strength! The destruction the Barrow administration is doing to Gambia and her people is too severe for these mayors or chairpersons to allow a shred of disunity in their ranks.
So, whoever takes over from Barrow must be Singaporean Lee Kuan Yew type—brilliant, pragmatic, impatiently ambitious for lightning-speed socio-economic transformation of The Gambia. Our country is in the emergency room right now, under Barrow. His ghastly damages, in their full measure won’t be fully grasped until he leaves office.
From handing our sovereignty to Macky Sall (repercussions of which will reverberate for a considerable amount of time) to tearing apart our mothers’ market stalls or innocent citizens’ houses in Salaji, the dizzying height of corruption alone is a clarion call for strategic unity in the opposition.
The type of leader Gambia needs after Barrow is the one with the maturity, experience, patriotism, pragmatism and statesmanship to sit with Russia’s Lavrov, United States’ Marco Rubio, China’s Wang Yi, India’s Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Singapore’s Dr. Balakrishnan, Japan’s Takeshi Iwaya…etc., and cut a win-win deal for The Gambia!
You think Tangara is good enough or close to the patriotism and charisma it takes to face the fore-mentioned diplomats of foreign powers? Look, reader, Barrow and his entire gov’t couldn’t face Macky Sall and tell him, “Gambia is a sovereign country and needs her own foreign policy, economic path, and national interests;” what makes you think Tangara could cut a good deal when faced with Lavrov, the most brilliant diplomat in the world right now?
- When Barrow exchanged our sovereignty for a lease of longevity or Senegalese protection in office, did he really know what he was doing? You think Adama Barrow could even spell the word “sovereignty” at the time of doing so?
- Can’t you see the loss we incur in the oil deals? Who are we to disbelieve scientists and drilling experts regarding Sangomar, Gambia’s blocks, FAR Ltd., and its surreptitious actions?
- Jawara left us with a debt of a little over $400 million in his 30-year rule; Jammeh added a little over $100 million to that figure in his 22 years; BARROW ADDED ABOUT $1.6 BILLION TO BOTH IN JUST A SPAN OF FEW YEARS!
- Why are they giving our black sand mining to Abubacar Jawara? The Dalasi has been depreciating in a free fall. Responsibly selling that mineral by gov’t itself would have earned us foreign exchange to rescue the Dalasi. Remember, Sir Dawda Jawara’s time of groundnut being a foreign exchange earner? When Jawara was leaving in 1994, $1.00 was only D9.00 (nine Dalasis for one dollar); £1.00 was only D15.00.
- The gut-wrenching inflation is also fuelling the unbearably high prices of consumer goods and basic staples poor people depend on. What has been Barrow government’s response to this viscerally piercing hardship? CORRUPTION, CORRUPTION, MORE AND MORE CORRUPTION AND PLUNDERING OF NATIONAL WEALTH!
- Our river Gambia and its envied resources are handed over to foreign special interests as to leave us not only economically scavenged, but hungry and malnourished.
- See how Barrow destroyed Gambia with the pathetic deal for the bridge? A strategic national asset worth $500 million was handed over to a foreign company for only $100 million. Worse, the low-IQ gov’t agreed that no other bridge would be built over River Gambia in the next twenty-five years! So, if some donor country wants to build a nice bridge between Banjul and Barra, it can’t due to this thoughtless concession! Reader, do you see this new height of ignorance, lack of vision and patriotism?
- If a bridge is built over Banjul-Barra, imagine how many taxis “Gele-geles,” and vans will ply on it, how many traders, petty-traders, artisans, or even local women vendors we call “Njende-Njai” will be making money in faster commerce and route augmentation? How many new jobs will be created with this? How much will it contribute to our GDP? Alas! Someone who couldn’t spell sovereignty when coming to power would know the correlation between service creation and GDP? And you think he would be able to calculate that the so-called “Senegambia” bridge was more a Senegalese hot ambition and money-saver than any itemized Gambian scale of preference ?
This list could go on to infinity! Thus, we beseech Ousainou Darboe to talk to his juniors. This isn’t the time for internal differences! If anything, Dr. Lamin Manneh has a far better qualification. Lawyer Lamin J. Darboe and Jeggan Grey-Johnson ditto! The juniors (Yankuba Darboe, Talib, et. al.,) are young with time. They can take over from Dr. Manneh or any other knowledgeable, world-exposed, patriotic, selfless, and Lee Kuan ‘Yewed’ Gambian! Fixing Gambia after Barrow is a malignant series of surgical procedures!
We don’t know Dr. Manneh or bear any personal connections with him. But we are human enough to feel it when a qualified leader speaks or carries himself. So, please, Ousainou Darboe needs to call Yankuba, Talib, and Rohey for a photo-up. This will be a bright PR in this moment of ego theatricals. The country, right now needs a level-headed pragmatist to unify the opposition. Gambians have been dying under Barrow—Gambia together with them!
It needs a leader with a fast processor and quick calculation skills after Barrow. Shopping for such breed of citizen can’t start shortly before elections. It has to start long before each election cycle. Look at the rotten crop of leadership we have currently that is only interested in enriching personal and family pockets! You think Barrow can sit with Lavrov of Russia and cut a deal for Gambia’s strategic interests? Not Putin himself, just his brilliant foreign secretary! Barrow can’t even sit with Maria Zacharova, Lavrov’s press secretary! Gambians, do you all see the mess we are in? We most seriously need a true leader, not a greedy status-climber!
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