Madi Jobarteh is a prominent Gambian human rights activist, known for his work in promoting democracy, justice, and human rights.
Jobarteh is recognised for his advocacy and is often approached by Gambians whose rights have been violated.
Despite facing accusations from political figures, he remains a significant voice for change and was involved with organisations like the Westminster Foundation to support democratic initiatives in The Gambia.
As a means to effectively participate in human rights issues, Madi recently established the Edward Francis Small Centre for Rights and Justice in The Gambia.
The initiative is named in honour of the late Edward Francis Small, a significant figure in Gambian history.
The centre aims to, among other things, promote justice, freedom, equality, transparency, and accountability in the country.
It has been formally registered and is part of a broader campaign to advance human rights in The Gambia.
In this exclusive with The Standard, Mr Jobarteh explains the motive behind forming the rights organisation.
The Standard: Why did you create the Edward Francis Small Centre for Rights and Justice?
Madi Jobarteh: This organisation is created in response to the prevailing human rights situation in the Gambia over the years. When we talk about human rights, it is all encompassing, such that human rights are everything about our lives and livelihoods and the present as well as the future. The purpose of every state in any country is to secure the human rights of its citizens. This means ensuring that citizens attain a quality of life that guarantees their dignity. That means citizens do not only exercise civil and political freedoms without fear but also enjoy social goods and services, opportunities to earn a decent living, to have hope and a sense of peace and safety in their society, and to acquire economic benefits with which to earn prosperity away from poverty. Acquiring these rights and freedoms is the reason we have laws and institutions to protect and fulfil them.
When we look at the Gambia from independence to date, what is glaringly evident is widespread poverty, limited opportunities, injustices, inequalities, and discrimination across the board. These violations can be seen in our homes and communities because of patriarchy and deep-seated sociocultural beliefs and practices. They can be found across society because of either bad or inadequate laws, or because of weak institutions or corrupt officials, or because of public lethargy and indifference or the combination of all the above. These conditions have therefore forced most of our people into various ills such as poverty, violence, discrimination, deprivation, hopelessness, and injustices.
We have therefore formed the Edward Francis Small Centre for Rights and Justice to confront these ills in our country. Through civic awareness, capacity building, partnerships, advocacy and activism, and other strategies, we hope to engage with various state and non-state entities, individuals, and communities across the country to change the situation.
Why did you name it after Edward Francis Small?
We have named the organisation after EF Small because we are inspired by his life and work. Small was a journalist, a trade unionist, an activist, and a pro-democracy champion whose efforts set the stage for the Gambia’s eventual independence long after he was gone. Not only am I inspired by his stance for human rights and democracy, but the fact that Small chose to uphold his conscience and principles even at the risk of losing his job and privileges is indeed inspiring to me. Small was from a privileged background and could have kept quiet and worked like everyone else to enjoy his status undisturbed. But being a man with convictions, he chose to challenge the status quo because he believed in human rights and dignity. I wish we could have many EF Smalls today across our society—people who are committed to truth, justice, and freedom even if it means losing their privileges and comfort.
We hope by naming this organisation after Small, we will not only help to inspire many more fellow citizens to become like him, but also to awaken our people to our very history and experience as a nation to recognise and appreciate those who fought for and contributed to the freedom we enjoy today. It is sad that Gambians are not fully taught about this man. Since I announced this organisation, so many educated adult Gambians have approached me asking about the man. So, the other good thing about this name is that we are opening the space for discussion about our history as a nation.
What specific human rights issues does your organisation intend to prioritise?
We deal with all human rights—civil, political, economic, social, and cultural—including environmental and developmental rights. We consider ourselves catalysts, where we serve to empower individuals, communities, groups, institutions, and organisations to defend, demand, protect, and fulfil rights.
What are your short-term and long-term goals?
In the short term, we want to impact public institutions to make them realise that they must abide by the rule of law, which means to perform and deliver public goods and services efficiently. It is in the delivery of these goods and services that human rights are protected and fulfilled. For that matter, we want to create a situation where public officials realise that there are consequences for their acts of commission or omission. The tragedy in the Gambia is that public officials in general do not only disregard the rule of law but also mismanage public resources while failing to perform effectively as required by their job descriptions and the law. This is why the country is underdeveloped and the people are poor.
Our long-term goal is to have an empowered citizenry that realises that they have a duty to be vigilant in demanding services, defending their rights, and holding public institutions seriously accountable. This is the only way to end violations, underperformance, poverty, and impunity and build a society based on freedom, equality, and justice in peace and prosperity. Ultimately, everything boils down to what citizens consider important and ready to defend or not. The attainment of democracy and good governance, hence sustainable development, is in the hands of citizens, enlightened and active citizens.
Do you have a strategic plan in place to achieve these goals?
We are developing a strategic plan that is hinged on five pillars aligned to fundamental human rights principles and objectives. These pillars are freedom, equality, empowerment, transparency, and accountability. Under each of these pillars, we have a set of strategies and activities that are targeted at various issues and stakeholders. In other words, we will promote freedoms such as expression, media, assembly, or worship. We would also promote inclusion and non-discrimination as part of our equality pillar. Under empowerment, we will provide civic education, among other things. The Transparency pillar will seek to promote access to information as well as activities such as election observation, among others. For accountability, we will promote the rule of law, engage in advocacy to hold public institutions accountable, protect rights, and ensure justice.
We have a whole theory of change that underpins our strategic plan and program. In addition to these five pillars, we also have six cross-cutting pillars or tools to back up and strengthen our five pillars. These cross-cutting tools are partnership building, strategic litigation, capacity building, research, legal reforms, and protests or civil disobedience. We will use these tools or strategies as necessary to achieve our goals.
How is your organisation funded, and what are your primary funding sources?
We cherish our independence. Therefore, we do not wish to get funding from any source that would control or limit us in seeking our objectives. Fundamentally, we would wish to have Gambian citizens fund this organisation as their own. We will open a bank account and share details for citizens who wish to donate—whether it is D5 or D1000 or whatever they have or in kind. We have committed ourselves to transparency and accountability for the resources that will come to us. We will also seek funding from organisations and institutions around the world, but based on the fact that we will not be tied to any agenda that is inimical to human rights and dignity.
What are your most pressing needs right now?
We are engaged in setting up now. This requires creating a logo, developing a website and social media accounts, distributing introductory letters to partners and stakeholders, as well as doing some other program work that bears no cost, such as submitting petitions and requests for information using the Access to Information Act. We need to do these to mark our presence and ensure visibility. So we need resources, including human resources, to do this work effectively.
How do you intend to involve the community in your initiatives?
Under our various pillars, we have avenues or activities to engage communities. Our strategy really is to create empowered communities and individuals. We do not see ourselves as saviours or liberators of the people. Rather, our job is to provide enlightenment to the people so that they organise themselves better to demand goods and services, defend their rights, and hold those they put in public office accountable. So, we will engage in civic education as well as voter education, among other capacity-building activities. This means we will be involved in building their skills and providing them with tools with which to understand how to defend their rights and ensure accountability.
What opportunities exist for others to get involved?
As we move on, we wish to build human rights leaders, activists, monitors, and defenders in our communities, schools, workplaces, homes, and wherever our people are. Ultimately, the best way to defend rights, build, and strengthen democracy and good governance is to empower people. To make people realise that everything is about them and that the quality of life they enjoy in their society is thanks to their level of engagement and participation in the affairs, issues, processes, and institutions of their society. The building of democracy and respect for rights will not come from the president, speaker, or IGP. If that were the case, the Gambia would have been a highly democratic and developed society since independence. What history teaches us is that it is the people who can and should build and defend democracy and ensure there is good governance so that they can enjoy development in peace and security. This is the verdict of history everywhere. Our job in this endeavour is to provide the means, information, education, skills, and tools so that the people acquire and implement on their own.
