We will discuss Alhajie Bora last. But Gambia’s president, Adama Barrow, perhaps couldn’t differentiate between what could be celebrated and what is a simmering public anger when he announced that the Senegalese mission in The Gambia does not need any protocol to see him. This means the embassy has a preferential treatment in accessing him. Why did the president make such a remark? What benefit does Gambia gain from such a tremendously open access to our president when Gambian buses and commercial vehicles can’t even cross the Senegalese border for business? Gambia’s transport union has been lamenting this for ages. We never hear any statements from Barrow, especially in the wake of mantras trumpeting that our relationship with Senegal is not only congenital, but socio-economically symbiotic.

Gambian families are facing extreme hardship in putting food on the table when our sea and waterways are hijacked by Senegalese and other foreign vessels in such an unprecedented way. A Brikama market woman once remonstrated it best. Even “carrots are now coming from Senegal” to The Gambia. A meat vendor at the same market complained piercing inflation and the role the enslaving CFA Franc plays in further damaging Gambia’s economic suzerainty.

From the Jawara days to the last time we checked, Senegalese authorities would confiscate even a cup of sugar entering Senegal from Gambia because their citizens felt more comfortable purchasing from The Gambia and crossing the border with the morsels they could hide. This has always punctuated the height of the Senegalese assault on Gambia’s re-export trade. Gambia’s first president, Sir Dawda Jawara knew this and came up with solutions. Second president Yahya Jammeh, ditto!

You see, whenever we refuse to produce and buy locally, given the status quo, it gnaws at our economy, kills our Dalasi, ushers in massive inflation, and helps the economy of whoever we import “even” carrots from. Gambia has much fertile land than most parts of northern Senegal the same way our beaches used to be much cleaner and nicer. But the Senegalese competitors would beguile tourists to book into the Senegalese market to the extent of lying that Juffureh was not in The Gambia, but inside Senegal. To import a stick of carrot from Senegal is not only lazy, but gut-wrenching as is the defense minister’s failed attempts at retracting his cogent statement that Senegal needs to respect Gambia’s sovereignty.

Who forced our defense minister to retract such a harmless assertion? Was it the same Senegalese diplomatic mission our president said needed no protocol to access him? What is wrong with the sentence that Senegal needs to respect Gambia’s sovereignty? Reader, we’ve been saying this since on Freedom Radio years ago—that many a Senegalese mindset see Gambia as a Senegalese birthright! It is only in such parochial vista that such an innocuous statement from our defense minister could be offensive.

Earlier, we reported how our trades minister declared that Gambia using the Senegalese port instead of our own is a blessing. Look at Gambia’s port now and think of the re-export trade we’ve been singing a requiem to. But wait! Our Nawec is also witnessing a slow death thanks to the Senegalese Senelec and Barrow’s apathy. Oh! Don’t forget Banjul Breweries that was shut down and packaged to Senegal. And remember the Dubai Port deal kicked away for the Senegalese special interest? A vibrant Gambian port is a hypersonic missile to who ever is behind the death of our re-export trade and its related appendages.

Alhaji Bora

We received reports that Alhaji Bora’s arrest was instigated by the same Senegalese embassy our president thought it glorious to brag about. We can’t independently confirm these reports. Here is the  detail: “….Alhaji Bora’s arrest was sanctioned by the personnel of Senegalese embassy in The Gambia and the State House. The ambassador has the personal cell phone of Barrow and we were surprised when he placed a direct call to the president without the normal protocol to complain about Bora’s comments on Badiya Kacha on Kerr fatou.”

Gambia has been losing to Senegal in all areas of the economy, trade, business, foreign affairs and many policy endeavors. If any troubled country needs a peace keeping force, it is the people of Senegal who are being systematically terrorized, maimed and killed by Macky Sall and his regime. But the same Macky is dragging Gambia’s Barrow to an unjust war in Niger when Senegal has been burning for years now, sometimes with Molotov cocktails!

Do we need to write anymore? We think not. But we will rather apologize to our readership for the hiatus in publication. Gambia is dying a slow death since Barrow came. It is never our intent to let this site fallow the way it did since December 2022. Futher apologies to all those that sent articles for publication months and months ago without publication. We are back and the show must go on! We are not doing this for anyone, but ourselves and our children and their children’s children, especially when we have “promises to keep, and miles to go before [we] sleep. And miles to go before [we] sleep.”