The notion of devolution of powers as it relates to local government has been turned a deaf year.
The status quo is an inheritance of the past administration. It is bad practice for the central government to have the ultimate say about how we live in our neighbourhoods. The folly machinations against Talib Bensouda and his fellow local government administrators is against participatory democracy.
I find it sad and irresponsible that after 6 years into this administration, we still talk about the public order act and the stifling of local government authority. Then again, we need not fault the administration for the blatant disregard of the Gambian. The citizenry needs to assume their rightful role to police and safeguard democracy (bottom up). The likes of Madi Jobarteh and myself have taken a back seat in championing the cause of good governance due to the comportment of the polity. More will come our way so long as we don’t oppose the charlatan behaviour of many who have no interest in our collective aspirations. No serious country will have a speaker and a deputy who are so divisive and treacherous to be leading our legislative agenda. We are a failed state with a majority who are indifferent or selfishly oblivious of our national desire to emerge as a middle-income country.
Gambia is morally bleeding and our yardstick of morality has gotten to the lowest ebb cringing its ugly face in our national life. The sooner we all take nation building as a collective endeavour, the sooner we come to the realisation that nation building needs an accountable urge to succeed. Gambians need a deep soul searching if we want to move ahead. Greedy capitalist, morally derelict polity and unscrupulous politicians make for a destructive nation. A snap shot of Gambia this Monday morning as we find ourselves hostages of our destiny. Nothing good can come of a country where criminality and boot licking are rewarded by unsophisticated polity. I honestly cry for my beloved Gambia in her dark hour. When all nations are pushing forward with empowering their citizens, we are busy scalping and fleecing our people. Wake up Gambia because it is already late. Instead of hitting the restart bottom in 2016, we hit the destroy button. It will become our problem when we all sink.
Kemo Bojang and team, keep fighting for change. I have resigned to the fate of destitution and jungle justice that have engulfed our body politics especially for those with state backing. Why are we mean to ourselves? Retardation must not be a choice but an unintended predicament. Mr President, the scribes of history will violently dip their plume in an ink well of despair as they pen your chapters in this nation’s history. Up until then, work against the greater good’s interest. Our public lands have been partitioned in all sprawling communities and the sad fact is that it has been auctioned off privately in the sense that not the best applicants were awarded allocations but the ones with deep connections and political cover. What are we going to tell the next generation when we bequeath them with a debt stressed country and a morally decadent society where success at all cost is the currency of the day? Back to my rocking chair pondering the type of animal we have created in 6 short years. Talk to you next year as I see no end in sight with our shortcomings, if we reward economic gangsters and political opportunists in all spheres of society. Adieu Gambia as your new lease on life has been squandered with lacerations that will forever mar our progress. I am ashamed of myself for being part of a nation that is a comatose state of affairs.
