Dear Dr Janneh,
History will continue to retain your words of wisdom and those who offend the dictates of common sense and honour your wise counsel with utter disregard would be chastised by the rod of indignity and infamy for eternity. I am only saddened by the fact that you have seen the need to address the letter to me. I must therefore convey to you, with all the emphasis at my command, that you have addressed the right letter to the wrong man. My track record shows, I have announced before being counselled, that I have achieved the goal of a life time in 2016 when we guided and guarded the process of effecting change through the ballot box, to its logical conclusion, for the first time in Gambian history. No one doubts that the Gambian people now possess the unbridled power to express their free will without any restriction, other than that driven by their own self-motivated passion, pride, ambition, prejudice and parochial interests, in determining their manner of government.
I was among those who subscribed to a three-year transition so that we would collectively invest all our might, heart, will and mind, empowered by collective intelligence, to guide the destiny of our country and people to the safe shores of liberty, dignity and prosperity, irrespective of party affiliation and scaffolded by the banner of one Gambia, one nation, one people. The fundamental objective was to nurture a sovereign citizenry who would be fully united, without any ethnolinguistic, regional, religious, political, sectionalist or sectarian cleavages, to give Gambia a new start. I recommended the establishment of an expert bank that would have enabled us to build clusters of experts to serve as oversight for each Ministry. They would have been charged with the responsibility of assessing and evaluating the instruments, policies, strategic plans, programmes, projects and budgets inherited from an outgoing government in order to prepare the short-, medium- and long-term plans of a three-year Coalition administration. This would have put the Gambia on a sound footing so that any future Government led by any party or group of parties, after the coalition administration, would have had to perform better than its predecessor. My expressed recommendations were honoured with utter disregard as coalition partners shared the cake of executive governance and became divided in legislative deliberations to cost us the attainment of constitutional, institutional and normative reforms that would have guided us in the pursuit of the transformative agenda that would have put us on the right path of ensuring a definite end to poverty, ignorance of the rights and duties of sovereign citizenship and injustice.
The failure of the coalition to deliver on its mandate led me to accept a nomination to be a presidential candidate who would help to build a freer, fairer and better Gambia and ensure the eradication of poverty, injustice and ignorance in my life time. Eventually, the people gave a mandate to who they deemed fit based on love, choice with reservation or patronage. I accepted their sovereign decision and proceeded to prepare my handing over notes for those who may be summoned by duty to become duty bearers, who may inherit my role in the party and others who may be called upon to guide the destiny of our country, as duty bearers of the highest offices of the state.
I have since then been looking for a team whose members are called to duty by love of country and people to receive my handing over notes. Those are the ones you should address your letter to, not me. I have done what I should do, when I should do it, according to the demands of my times and circumstances. Now, I want that legacy to be continued. There are those who are saying that I should come back due to confidence and trust in my sincerity, abilities, consistency, humility, honesty and readiness to live and if necessary, die for the common good of country and people. The only legitimate and convincing answer I could give them, that would not amount to betrayal of trust, is either to stand and be counted or give them the alternative they deserve. Your duty therefore is not to counsel me not to do what I have already resolved not to do but to be the alternative I should present to those who would feel betrayed if they fail to get a person, they trust to guide their destiny. Your duty is to be the alternative or guide me to the alternative so as to free me from the prison of my conscience and be an elderly statesman of high repute. Let me therefore turn the question back to you: Do you wish to point out to me a team I should give my handing over notes to along with a Manifesto and its accessories to address the challenges of party, coalition and nation building and consolidate any achievements that could inform future practice in nation building? Are you prepared to serve country and people and be part of the team that deserves to receive the handing over notes? If you are ready then your duty is to address letters to those like you to come and join the team that would be willing to share experiences and expertise on the type of system we ought to build and how it is to be done so that all duty bearers would be on the same page, thus relegating my role to be that of an inspirer who merits being deemed as the conscience of a nation.
I must draw lesson by emphasising without any ambiguity or reservation that I have achieved what destiny permits me to do in ensuring that, with ironclad heart, mind, will and might, a political dispensation emerges in the Gambia which allows each Gambian to freely determine the destiny of this country through one’s vote. Now, the ball is on the court of your generation. I am still taking centre stage and not the back seat because of my irreversible determination to ensure that the next change gives skeleton, flesh and skin to the phrase we have crafted and put into use, without any aim to abuse the English language, that is “System Change.” In passing, I have observed that you have established a correlation between youth and capacity to lead and build a nation. Such correlation is emotive and is not backed by any evidence. There can be no development in modern times to end injustice and poverty without knowledge of how to use financial, human and material resources to build systems that could provide the institutions and normative practices required to eradicate poverty and injustice. Knowledge and experience are not acquired through youthful exuberance but through seriously meant search for answers to the troubling questions of human existence that fetter the enjoyment, peace, prosperity, freedom and happiness of human beings. The African youth must not be misled to mistake the capacity to give inspirational speeches for knowledge of how to address the challenges of human society. The myth of the Obama years is now being evidently shattered in the US. It is now clear that strong institutions must go along with their type of leaders to be built, consolidated and sustained. It is some leaders who built the institutions of the US and it is other leaders who are dismantling it. Obama therefore raised the wrong question and gave the wrong answer by stating that “We don’t need strong men. We need strong institutions”. Institutions do not drop from the sky. They must be built. The right question to ask is: What type of men and women do we need to build the right institutions to ensure liberty, dignity and prosperity. Human beings must be thinkers and inventors or innovators before they could be builders of institutions. Hence, Africa does not only need youthful leadership from your generation but knowledgeable and honest leadership that is determined to establish governments that exist for the people. I would wish to push you a step further in order to deter you from romanticising youthful exuberance by challenging you to point out to me a youth who has answers to the problem of The Gambia, the continent and the world and I would respectfully invite him or her to share his or her vision with all of us, in contrast to mine, at a venue I will pay for and publicise. If you cannot point out a single person then you should know that any youth who is symbolically put in front to perform the functions of executive governance has to rely on the advisory and consultative services of knowledgeable elderly statespersons of proven integrity to move the country forward. The youth must come to executive office with knowledge and clean hands, which is inconceivable without taking lessons from elders with knowledge and clean hands. That is the incontrovertible truth that all young people who wish to occupy the highest office should keep in mind.
