By Sait Matty Jaw
I listened carefully to President Adama Barrow’s remarks at Mamuda. Like many Gambians, I recognised the frustration, urgency, and moral weight behind his words. I also found myself largely in agreement with him, particularly on two points that are often avoided in public debate, that the Backway is not a private decision taken in isolation, and that it must be removed from partisan politics and confronted as a national problem through policy initiatives, dialogue and advocacy that includes the opposition and the wider society.
That framing matters, and it deserves to be acknowledged.
For me, the Mamuda speech did not arrive as a surprise. On the morning of the same day, I was on Kerr Fatou’s Brunch programme, making the argument that the Backway has long ceased to be about aspiration or freedom. I said then, as I have said many times before, that we are no longer dealing with isolated acts of desperation, but with a normalised system of harm, one that involves families, communities, smugglers, regional mobility, and state capacity gaps. When the President later echoed similar sentiments, it suggested that the country may finally be converging, slowly and painfully, around a shared diagnosis.
That convergence is important. But it also raises a more difficult question, what happens after we agree on the problem.
I have been part of this conversation for years, as a researcher, as a citizen, and as someone who has watched the Backway evolve from a marginal phenomenon into a defining feature of our national anxiety. Over time, what has struck me most is not the absence of awareness, but the persistence of hesitation to take meaningful and definitive actions. We know the risks. We know the routes. We know the networks. We know the human cost. And yet, departures continue with a regularity that suggests not ignorance, but tolerance, reflected in the absence of decisive action.
The President was right to speak directly to parents and families who sell land, houses, and valuables to finance journeys that may end in death. That collective enabling has been one of the most uncomfortable truths in this debate, and it is rarely confronted with honest and candour. In many places, the Backway has quietly become a family strategy rather than a last resort. Naming that reality is necessary, even if it is painful.
He was also right to challenge the argument that today’s departures are driven purely by absolute hardship. Historical memory matters. The Gambia has endured scarcity before, hunger before, periods like the Structural Adjustment Program where buying rice required queues and luck. What is different today is not only material conditions, but impatience, expectations, and a weakening belief that effort at home leads anywhere meaningful. That shift cannot be explained away by economics alone.
Where my reflection becomes more cautious is in recognising the limits of speeches, however heartfelt they may be.
Over the years, I have seen how easily strong words can substitute for structural action. Threats against smugglers, promises of sensitisation, and calls for moral renewal resonate briefly, then fade, while the system that enabled the process adapts and continues. The Backway is not sustained by rhetoric. It is sustained by organisation, profit, weak enforcement, community and regional dynamics that outpace national capacity.
This is why, at this moment, the most urgent response must be institutional, legal, and operational.
First, the legal framework must be strengthened decisively. The provisions to criminalise migrant smuggling already exist within the revised Immigration Bill, which was validated in 2023, a process I participated in. That bill reflects a clear recognition that smuggling is no longer a peripheral issue, but a central driver of the Backway. Yet validation without enactment changes little on the ground. As long as the bill remains stalled, law enforcement continues to operate with limited tools, prosecutions remain weak, and organised networks exploit the gap with confidence. Smuggling today is not a minor offense. It is organised, transnational, and lethal. The Immigration Bill, including its anti-smuggling provisions, should therefore be brought before the National Assembly with a certificate of urgency and debated openly, so that the law matches the gravity of the harm we are trying to prevent, not only in principle, but in enforceable consequence.
Second, Gambia Immigration Department and other law enforcement agencies must be empowered beyond their current limits. In recent years, The Gambia has become a departure point not only for its own citizens, but for people from across the sub-region. Ecowas free movement, while essential, has been exploited by criminal networks operating through interior routes.Expecting overstretched immigration officers to manage this without serious investment in personnel, technology, intelligence, and coordination is unrealistic and futile.
Third, law enforcement and the navy must be equipped and mandated to act consistently and decisively. Maritime patrols cannot be symbolic. Inter-agency coordination cannot depend on personalities and emergency calls. If boats continue to leave with such frequency, it is not because the state does not care, but because the state does not yet have sufficient capacity to disrupt the system effectively. That gap must be closed through intentional investments.
I also welcome the President’s call for national dialogue. But dialogue must be purposeful. Bringing the opposition, civil society, and communities into the conversation should not be about shared statements alone. It should be about shared responsibility for difficult decisions, including legal reform, enforcement priorities, and long-term economic restructuring. Dialogue without follow-through actions, risks becoming another way of managing outrage rather than preventing harm.
Finally, we must resist the temptation to frame the Backway primarily as a moral failure of youth. It is not. It is a structural failure that places young people in a position where risk appears rational. Until effort at home reliably produces security, dignity, and progression, appeals to patience will ring hollow.
I agree with the President that the Backway is not about politics. But removing it from politics does not mean removing it from accountability. It means acting with urgency, seriousness, and honesty.
Mamuda should mark a turning point, not because of what was said, but because of what must now be done. Those of us who have been warning, researching, and speaking about this for years are not looking for validation. We are looking for structure, enforcement, and resolve.
If this moment passes without decisive action, the country will have spoken loudly once again, and done very little. That would be the real tragedy.
The author is a Gambian researcher and public commentator. He writes in his personal capacity.
