The opposition’s task is to efficaciously come with communication and reach-out strategies to all these kinds of voters. Please some UDP members have a very rotten communication propensity. Stop telling fringe or undecided voters, “You have to join the UDP because it’s the only party that can develop this country!” Really?

In order to vote for UDP, one has to join UDP first? Seriously? Jawara was also UDP? And did he build our first university, major hospitals, roads, TV station, airport, or even Brusubi? No, all these were built by Jammeh. So, you have to figure out a clever way of talking to his loyalists. Why? Because they also have votes!

A fringe voter doesn’t identify with any political party. How do you talk to such kind of voters? Please don’t run them off with rotten talking points. Be a people-person for two seconds and tell them, “Listen, Gambia, not just UDP needs your vote to rescue itself from fiscal goons and status-climbers that are busy filling their pockets. We need all of us to join forces so that our national debt which this mendacious gov’t has doubled in few years won’t continue to rise and destroy your children and my children’s future.

Tell them we need your vote so that RVTH can have at least basic supplies and Gambians would stop dying from rationing a dearth of oxygen. Tell them we need to come together and vote out NPP and its chihuahuas who deny our hospitals only to send useless entourages of jackals to New York City to walk its streets with glee if not for angry citizens who cuss the hell out of their mothers!

Tell them we have a mockery of a gov’t that mortgaged our country to Macky Sall, handed him our growth sectors including Gambia Ports, maritime opportunities, re-export trade, or any Gambian comparative advantage thinking he would rule to posterity. Now that Macky, who thought Gambia was his colonial birthright or some political boon is gone, the new government is saying Gambia owes Senegal $15 million in electricity arears. Tell them we all have to figure out how to pay that!

Please tell them our people are dying in the streets. Others are being shot in broad daylight under very dubious circumstances. But our gov’t is busy sending Manneh and his armed, war-geared and combat squads to the streets to arrest poor, defenseless women sitting in stalls for daily breads while murders continue to claim lives with ease!

Tell them the cost of living is a psychological torture in the Gambia while those poor women are being arrested, thrown at the back of trucks and shipped to police stations for trying to make a simple living in the commercial alleys. Tell them Barrow has created three new useless ministries—his State House budget alone bigger than our entire agriculture budget.

Tell them about Bakary Badjie who paid his wife per diems while she, a no gov’t employee. And Bakary still has his job. Tell them Barrow’s own wife had 35 million deposited into her account while you and I are toiling to make ends meet—our wives and children without the basics of health access or quality education.

Tell them about IEC having secret disbursements in millions and never want any investigations. Tell them under Barrow, hundreds of millions disappear at our Central Bank and no one is held accountable. But if an indigent woman tries to sell some okra or “kuchaa” along some market area in Brikama or Serrekunda, she’s arrested—her wares thrown into trucks! Tell them isn’t it time the working class come together and defeat tyranny, dizzying heights of corruption, tribalism and ethnocentrism?

APRC-NO-TO-ALLIANCE

Please if Jammeh himself is wise enough, he would have reached out to Darboe and advised his followers to merge with the opposition. We’ve been saying this before Senegal’s Ousmane Sonko became a household name, let alone assume his current status. Gambia is smaller than Senegal, but more difficult to unite thanks to ignorance, greed, selfish and tribal dichotomies!

Foni and its people have suffered the worst killings in the hands of Macky Sall and Barrow than any region in the Gambia. When will Jammeh realize that to put an end to this requires smart calculations and unity with big opposition parties to oust Barrow? Is understanding this any rocket science or atom-splitting?

How many innocent youths of Foni have been shot at close range by Macky Sall and Barrow’s forces in Foni since Haruna Jatta? How many livestock have been stolen and butchered by the same forces in Foni? How many accidents occurred due to Macky Sall’s checkpoints in Foni? How many of our sisters impregnated?

Please Yahya, pick up a phone and call the old man. Come off your high horse for few seconds and see how terrible Gambia is today! Calling Darboe on the phone from Equatorial Guinea will be a headache for Barrow, Macky Sall, and Emmanuel Macron. But it will conquer Barrow and his co-religionists!

If you do this, you’ll see tears in the eyes of Gambians in the streets. Your enemy’s enemy shouldn’t be your enemy—if you’re smart! Please listen to what I say, Jammeh! What did I ever need from you when you were president? Will I need anything from you while you’re not? But both you and I need Gambia to prosper!

GDC MAMAH KANDEH

Please pay a courtesy call on Darboe at his Pipeline home. Tell him how Gambia is being destroyed today. Remind him of our national debt at $1.67 billion, which is 66.52% of our gross domestic product (GDP) today. Tell him it was only $189 million when Barrow took over! Mr. Kandeh, how do we all sleep at night bearing these facts in mind? You think Barrow knew how to spell GDP or what it stood for when he came to power? And now Senegal says we owe them $15 million?

You see, history makes many people! But very few people make history! History brought you, Jammeh, Darboe, Halifa, Sidia, etc to be Gambians! But how many of you want to sacrifice to make history? A hundred years from today, none of us will be here. But the pages of history will still talk about a Mamah Kandeh who walked bare foot or drove to Ousainou Darboe’s house in tears to say, “My uncle or brother, let’s rescue our dear motherland called Gambia! It’s being destroyed by corrupt behemoths!”

A hundred years from today, people will read this in books! I’m still reading how Jawara and his team went to the British and the Queen’s parliament had to convene a special session on whether to grant Gambia independence or not because they were worried it is sandwiched by Senegal and some self-sufficiency questions had to arise. This gave birth to Jawar’s famous line, “Even if we would eat sand.” Today, Jawara is no more! But this line echoes to eternity!

Some British legislators told the British gov’t if Jamaica could do it, so could Gambia. And boy, Jawara did it! Proof? Senegal used to buy goods from us. So did Guinea, Mali, Mauritania, etc. It’s called re-export trade. But you think Barrow fathoms that? That’s why he murdered our GPA only for his trades minister to spew from his rectum that Gambia clearing its goods from the Senegalese port is a blessing for Gambia!

Who can remember when I used to trumpet on Freedom Radio that it was such a terrible scheme to outsource Nawec’s potentials to Senelec and no Gambian came to my rescue except Ebrima Kitim Jarjue? Macky’s shenanigans were able to convince Gambians that I was some evil creature driving a wedge between the two countries! One of such days was so heated that the late Pa Nderry Mbaye thought I was crying on air and he solemnly retorted, “Don’t cry!” I wasn’t crying! Where are the bright Gambians?

PDOIS HALIFA SALLAH

I’ve written many articles, praising you, Halifa! I’m really tired now. But please I’d walk barefoot to Darboe’s house in Pipeline if I were you. I’m not asking you to do exactly that. This is just a figurative to show the gravity of its exhortation! Won’t you want to be part of any great history Gambians could make to rescue this tiny, impoverished country and the smallest piece of real estate on mainland Africa? I’m tired of writing, Halifa. Please I’m tired!