By Abdoulie Mam Njie
This reflection draws on Sait Matty Jaw’s recent analysis, After President Barrow’s Mamuda Speech: What must now be done on the ‘Backway’, published in The Standard Newspaper. Jaw’s article usefully shifts the national conversation away from reaction and controversy toward the more demanding question of what must follow once the problem itself is no longer in dispute.
Jaw’s intervention is timely precisely because it avoids personalisation and partisanship. Rather than framing the backway as a political fault line, he situates it within a broader moral and social context, reminding us that irregular migration is rarely an isolated individual choice. It is sustained by families, communities, expectations, and long standing perceptions that have quietly taken root over time.
The discomfort triggered by President Adama Barrow’s Mamuda remarks should therefore not surprise us. As Jaw suggests, it reflects how deeply normalised the backway has become in our collective thinking. Over time, what should have alarmed us has instead grown familiar, even quietly tolerated. Naming this reality is not an act of blame. It is a necessary step toward honesty.
To understand the endurance of the backway, we must also look beyond the present moment and into history. Gambian migration did not begin with today’s perilous desert crossings or Mediterranean routes. From the late 1950s through the late 1960s, particularly around the period of independence, many Gambians pursued opportunity abroad through what was then commonly referred to as stowaway journeys. Young men hid aboard cargo ships bound for Europe, driven by ambition, curiosity, and the hope of self advancement.
These early movements occurred within a very different global context. They were not defined by today’s organised trafficking networks, nor by the scale of death and exploitation we now witness. Yet, over time, selective memory transformed those experiences into stories of courage and eventual success. That legacy, quietly romanticised, continues to shape contemporary expectations, even as the realities of migration have grown far more brutal and unforgiving.
Those inherited narratives are not abstract. They surface repeatedly in everyday conversations within families and communities. A couple of Saturdays ago, I had a long and reflective discussion with my elder siblings, Ebou and Juka, around this same issue. What struck us most was not only the desperation of the unemployed, but the increasing number of cases where gainfully employed individuals abandon stable work to attempt the backway. This challenges the common assumption that irregular migration is driven solely by joblessness.
The explanation lies deeper than income alone. Employment that provides survival without progression, effort without reward, and patience without promise can gradually lose its meaning. In such circumstances, the backway begins to appear falsely as movement, escape, and opportunity. It is this perception, rather than poverty alone, that now drives many decisions.
Even more sensitive are cases where parents embark on such journeys with their children. This is an area that requires careful understanding rather than harsh judgement. Many parents are influenced by misperceptions of what life in Europe entails, social pressure, and the belief that opportunity exists only elsewhere. Recklessness may be present, but so too is fear. Fear of stagnation, fear of being left behind, and fear of failing one’s children. Any serious response must acknowledge this complexity.
If diagnosis is now broadly shared, the question that follows is whether it is being translated into action. Recent developments along the North Bank coast suggest an emerging, though still fragile, shift in that direction. On the morning of January 6, 2026, security forces carried out a dawn raid in the Jinack Islands as part of a broader crackdown on irregular migration. In a report published the same day by Alkamba Times, titled Police Launch Dawn Raid in Jinack Islands, Arrest Over 200 in Crackdown on Irregular Migration, the operation resulted in the arrest of over 200 individuals suspected of involvement in or preparation for the backway. Enforcement alone cannot resolve the deeper social and economic drivers of irregular migration, but such actions signal a growing recognition that dangerous normalisation must be actively disrupted.
Jaw’s article is particularly valuable because it insists that recognising these realities is only the beginning. Agreement on the diagnosis is not enough. The more difficult task lies in translating moral clarity into sustained action across policy, community leadership, family guidance, and public conversation.
The backway is not sustained by smugglers alone. It is sustained by myths, selective success stories, and silence about failure. Until these distortions are confronted honestly, discouragement campaigns will remain shallow and ineffective.
Viewed in this light, President Barrow’s Mamuda speech was not a dismissal of parental concern nor an abdication of state responsibility. It was an attempt, however uncomfortable, to disrupt a deadly normalisation. Leadership sometimes requires speaking plainly, especially when silence risks costing lives.
The backway is more than a migration route. It is a mirror reflecting our anxieties, inherited narratives, and an unfinished social contract. If Jaw’s analysis provokes reflection and the President’s words provoke debate, then both have served a necessary purpose.
What must follow now is action not only by government, but by society itself. Ending the backway will require courage at every level in policy, in leadership, and in the quiet conversations held within families, like the one I shared with my siblings.
Our challenge as a society is to ensure that every child’s future is safeguarded, that families are guided wisely, and that hope is nurtured where it matters most, at home.
