Dear editor,
President, Adama Barrow, is really robbing it on the faces of the diaspora. After everything the diaspora did to help remove Yahya Jammeh from office, the accidental president has made the determination that its better for the government to work with elements of the Yahya Jammeh regime, many of who are tangentially culpable in the human rights atrocities; assassinations, executions, neck-breaking, burying fellow citizens alive, and more directly participating in the plunder of the nation’s coffers.
Everything Yahya Jammeh did, apart from executing of citizens, is coming back into style, under this so-called Coalition. The Gambian people, after experiencing the wrecking of the concept of the rule of law, destruction of the system of government, and the complete obliteration of the very concept of organized society, are slowly creeping towards a totally corrupt, patronizing government.
Yahya Jammeh’s forced departure may have brought immense joy to the Gambians, but the movement towards creating an accountable government is gradually slipping away. Not unlike Yahya Jammeh, both the National Assembly and the Justice Department in Gambia are recklessly ceding their powers and authority to President Adama Barrow.
In light of that, may I remind these bodies that even in the concept of three co-equal branches of government, there is an order of hierarchy.
First among the co-equals is the National Assembly, followed by the Justice Department and finally the Executive. Based on what has happened in Gambia over the past year and half, Adama Barrow is investing, or rather, wasting an inordinate amount of time working on matters and issues irrelevant to governing, but rather, solely geared towards consolidating and strengthening his position.
The arc of African politics is always geared towards power grab and corruption, and right now, Gambia is getting a heavy dose of both.
Mathew K Jallow
USA
