PDOIS, our last hope!
Dear editor,
A private jet, a cash-guzzling one ($17, 000 per hour?) ferried the Gambian president Adama Barrow to the UN General Assembly meeting here in New York City. All this while nothing is getting done at home, almost the entire country is “exposed to food insecurity,” according to his vice president Ousainu Darboe.
This is a beautiful, expensive plane. Ah, basking in the lap of luxury! Who else, among us vying to be president of our beautiful country one day would countenance such luxury and fly in such a plane to the UN? Ousainu Darboe will. Mama Kandeh, too. I have noticed a certain flamboyance to Kandeh that will make him a purveyor of pilfering and misallocation. Belt-tightening doesn’t look like a forte of his.
Who won’t fly in such a plane? I can guarantee you without the benefit of futurity that Halifa Sallah, Sam Sarr and Sidia Jatta won’t go there. Nothing in their current political outlook and their time-travelled principles tell me they would take a detour once they came into power. So it’s about time we took a look at these modest-wearing, live-within-your-means philosopher-kings of PDOIS. They are our last hope!
Cherno Baba Jallow
NY, USA
Re: Gambia joins Francophonie as observer
Dear editor,
All you need is basic education to know what an observer status is? It is a privilege for The Gambia. West African is divided into Anglophone and Francophone countries. Being part of both is having the best of both worlds and with an observer status it can give us nothing but benefit as it opens doors and gives easy access to enjoy the privileges without full membership obligations.
Let us emancipate ourselves from mental slavery. Stop thinking as backwardly as former president Yahya Jammeh. No wonder he drove our country to disaster. No government can rescue it in less than ten years because of the untold damage wrought by the criminal coup of 1994 and ensuing misrule of 22 years.
Gambian commentators need to know that the Gambian people have given Adama Barrow’s government the mandate to make the decisions they deem right for The Gambia and we have chosen a house of representatives to scrutinise their decisions. No government will go to the people to ask them what they want each time they want to take a decision.
Important decisions are taken to parliament and if one is concerned, he can go talk to his MP. It doesn’t mean that now people have been rescued from the wrath of Jammeh they can go to the online media and dish disrespect to our elders, our heroes and our government officials. That’s not what democracy means and for your information the Gambian people choose a democratic government over the so-called Jammehism, which is nothing but a dictatorial style of governing.
Gambians voted for this government and if anyone has a problem with that, let him go and form his own party and sell his ideas to Gambians and see if we will buy it. Majority of Gambians are happy now for a variety of reasons, from Journalist doing their work without fear of Jammeh’s NIA to ordinary citizens expressing their opinions and voting in free and fair elections.
If someone has a Western complex, let him keep it to himself because we Gambians have gone past that stage. During the brutal rule of Jammeh, we lived in the West, got educated and worked side by side with Westerners and even benefited in their countries. Do you know that Western aid to The Gambia now is more than any other aid received during Jammeh’s time.
The mentality we have developed now is they cannot fool us, they cannot colonies us and we even show them that we are more intelligent than them if we are given a level playing field.
So stop this nonsensical mindset of yours and stop saying of the West will colonise us or the Senegalese are taking over. Do you think you love our country and our people more than us or the government? If you really care then where were you when heartless Jammeh, and his APRC thugs and evil officers enslaved the Gambians and murdered our brothers, journalists and politicians and jailed our imams and raped our sisters? Enjoying? Or having a laugh?? Where you? And don’t tell me you were helping in secret as we hear these days because we all know the people that were in the struggle to free The Gambia. Nobody in the struggle will disrespect Darboe. You might differ in opinion in what he says or does but you will never disrespect him because he was on the right side of Gambian history and fought with us tooth and nail to free The Gambia from tyranny.
You need to take a break and travel the world if you haven’t and learn and get experience, then when you come back to The Gambia you will see how your mentality will change. Hating people and disrespecting your leaders and the elders are signs of ignorance, arrogance and lack of education and experience. There are rules to follow in every society and in countries where people are mature, no one will insult or disrespect their leaders, elders or the government. If you disagree with them then use the tools available to all citizens and fight your corner. Do your research first to know what that decision meant to the people not only yourself and speak out in a decent, humane manner. Visit your NAM, find like-minded people and launch a campaign.
Join or form a political party to make the change yourself etc. You should not go online disrespecting a honourable person who sacrificed his wealth, his social life and risked his own life by going to jail. If you are really concerned you should do the same, not just be a big mouth in the online media.
Gambians are free for good insh’Allah. NO more coups. Whether you like it or not the new laws of The Gambia will be followed and no one will enforce himself or herself on us anymore.
AB Ceesay
Banjul
