I did write before that Gambians are dying and Gambia is dying together with them. The first to die was our sovereignty since Barrow came to power. Next we saw that of Haruna Jatta of Kanilai, more innocent ones like Gibril Ceesay of Sanyang, Marie Mendy and Zilson Gomez of Farato, Alimatou Sarr of Tanji, etc., and etc. And don’t forget the disappearance of children amid dare-devil acts of criminals invading people’s homes with chutzpah and deadly weapons! Wait, our sisters routinely perishing in maternal deaths in our destitute hospitals need a special coverage.

My name is Ebrima Papa Colley, a son of a farmer that can deliver philippics on Gambia’s gut-wrenching poverty. But reader, you know what is more viscerally disturbing? When a thinker has to share space, oxygen, fauna, flora, and territory with an unthinking lot—those wastes of atoms festive of Barrow’s so-called victory.

I’ve never seen frogs celebrating their own funerals. But I’ve seen those with a fraction of a frog’s IQ exulting at their own generational destruction. Reader, tell me what is nice in seeing our fish snatched away from our abjectly poor, ferried to Senegal and God-knows-where else as to usher in an unprecedented economic hardship? What is nice about foreign troops ubiquitous in our streets, markets, other public spots as if Gambia is a war zone?

What is nice about belittling our own soldiers and police, usurping their rightful income and giving it to Macky Sall’s forces to continue to occupy us? The money spent on these foreign troops can help better equip our own with better salary and gadgets. What is nice about the extreme hardship in our markets, hospitals, homes, etc? What is nice about killing our re-export trade or handing it in a silver basket to Senegal, a prize they’ve been fetishizing?

I’ve also wailed the rotten corruption our country is bearing under Barrow and his co-religionists. The D148m Covid misappropriation is just a token of what can be declared, yet not declared. We lost our sovereignty, our maternal souls, our money, our economy, our fish, our timber, our territorial integrity, etc. Gambians are dying. Gambia is dying with them!