Years ago, we, out of simple observations, not any special gift, cautioned Yahya Jammeh that he’d fall from directions he least espied! And so did it happen! He never thought of elections to be his ouster. It wasn’t because we had special powers or metaphysical touches. We love and cherish Gambia, a land gifted, yet most of its people nonchalant about it!
But here is another dose of common sense. And like the great seers put it, “common sense is not common to everyone.” We strive to make ours more common to all. Recently, we published that Barrow wasn’t coming to the U.N due to fear of protest by angry Gambians.
Well, Mr. Barrow, you disappointed Gambians! You estranged them many times and many ways. You value others, including those around you in a foisting Senegalese security. Gambians are dying at hospitals without the basics while you jet back and forth for trips as inefficacious to Gambia’s prosperity as is a rain drop to an ocean.
You plainly show Gambians that they aren’t apt to be your body guards. You sold your country’s fish and natural resources to special interests when poor market women lose both trade and subsistence! And the money accrued from such venal ventures aren’t seen in any whit of the impoverished country’s poverty reduction!
You let Senegalese forces seize timber inside Gambia, only to export it to Dakar! You opened our waters to exploitative international vessels who don’t care about that poor fisherman- family in Tanji, Brikama, Gunjur, or Sanyang, who depend on the country’s marine life with poor equipment because you can’t improve their local industry!
And you killed our young who raised a finger in Faraba about a very similar broad day-light blood-sucking! And you, O adamant Adama, expect those poor and exploited souls to throw rose petals at your feet? You let your “development partners” shackle and deport our ‘Backway Boys’ while you evacuate your own son out of the same poverty to live in the United States! O adamant Adama, still adamant for longevity in that office!
And now the common sense: You thought by evading the U.N meeting, you’ll have some peace of mind, thousands of miles away from indignant protesters! Alas! Your poor calculations, as usual left you in the lurch when the National Assembly demands your presence right now! And it’s lawfully doing so!
Your miscalculations even sequestered you from ‘Plan-B’ simply because you packed and sent away the Vice President who might have taken the heat from the House in the wake of your apathy to Gambia’s key issues. O adamant Adama!
Can you then tell us what exactly is your understanding of leadership? Why do we have to squeeze you out of State House just to talk? Why do we have to labor in extracting the good in you in times when all the country needs is few words of assurance or explanation? How do we expect someone like this to lead Gambia?
You see, Mr. President, a good leader doesn’t avoid his people! But Barrow, you couldn’t even address the nation when multitudes protest to vent anger! What kind of leader inveterately avoids a simple dialogue with the very people he claims to lead? Can you even prove that you can lead a boys scout team?
And you’re telling the world, for the Dickens, that you’re staying in power? Seriously? For what, Mr. Barrow? To keep avoiding both your people and their rightful concerns? You think leadership is a one-night-stand with a whore?
Alas, you avoided the U.N. And now you have a much bigger problem now fuming at your backyard! The U.N can’t summon or impeach you! But Gambians can! Their legislature can! Their votes can! If you possess a whit of interest in conversing with your people, these would have been very easy! But here’s an adamant Adama Barrow who wants to lead a people he can’t even have a conversation with!
Oh! One more thing! Thomas Cook is out! Now tell us, if it’s Three Years Jotna or the angry semesters that are behind that too! Is everything working against you? We have said it multiple times that you betray Gambians and see your end! Please think! We never stop doing so!
