Dear editor,
People of The Gambia, a few days ago, you saw a press release from Adama Barrow claiming that he is traveling to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) on “a two-day working visit”.
This two day working visit is supposed to somehow “accord the President the opportunity to strengthen diplomatic and bilateral ties between The Gambia and the DRC”!
How many of you actually know what is the real purpose of this “two-day working visit”? What is a two-day working visit? What work will Adama be doing in DRC that he could possibly not have done in Gambia? What’s there to be accomplished? I asked these questions back when he visited Denis Nguesso of the other Congo and I remember some of you who defended the trip hammer and tongs!
You can imagine my smile when I saw some of those same people questioning this trip to the DRC today! Our hypocrisy simply makes me smile these days. But back to Adama.
You see Adama is not going on this trip alone; he’s going with a bunch of hangers-on who, along with Adama himself, would all be paid per diem. And guess who is paying all of them! You the ordinary Gambian people; that is, the ladies selling vegetables at the market, the taxi drivers, the jobless men and women, and anyone that calls Gambia home.
Interestingly, 95% of those who are paying Adama and his crew to go to the DRC have no idea what they are going there for! But we claim these people are working for us! Imagine your employee traveling and using your money but refuses to tell you what business he’s going to conduct on your behalf! That’s what you call a government!
Your government thinks so little of you that they don’t even feel obliged to tell you what they are doing. But they claim to be working for you and you, being mindlessly indoctrinated, keep regurgitating that you have a “representative democracy.” But those who supposedly represent you look so “down” on you that they don’t feel accountable to you beyond telling you they are traveling for a “two-day working visit.”
That’s all they feel obliged to tell you! Sadly, you have no issues accepting anything they put on you. So we move!
Alagie Saidy-Barrow
