By Buba Mbaye Bojang
Destiny is not for the comfort seekers, they say; destiny is for the daring and determined ones, those that are willing to endure some discomfort, delay gratifications and go where destiny leads.
Others may argue that destiny is of divinity that is ordained, but every scriptures affirms that the choices we made in life determines our destiny.
Gambians went to the polls in December 2016, to make a date with destiny and our choices were distinct and made clearer in no uncertainty terms; that it is CHANGE we want and for change we embraced.
With that being said, let me make this clear; I did not regret anything about the choices i made at the polls in that fateful December.
That if we are confronted with the same situations and conditions as people and as a country at pre – December 2016, I will certainly go back and do the same thing all over again, for we were confronted with a choice of getting rid of one of the world’s most vicious, murderous, treacherous tyrants in Yahya Jammeh.
December 1st, 2016, was a date marked with a sigh of relief, renewed hopes and beliefs as a people.
A date which sought for an end to our collective sufferings, the human tragedies, the imbalanced social guidance, societal malfeasance and the authority’s premeditated ill social engineering of our people.
Our date with destiny was one that has sought for an end to executive overreach, abuse of power, corruption, nepotism, disregard of standards of best practices and good governance, poverty and enduring suffrage of our people.
We BARGAINED for a destiny where we will bequeath to our children and generation yet unborn, a Gambia that they will be proud of.
A Gambia that will guarantee all her citizens the opportunity to live a prosperous life in dignity.
This was my unannounced contract with destiny when I walked into that polling booth to cast my pebble, little did I know that I was “replacing wolves with hyenas”.
If anything common and real between the two, don’t look beyond the fact that they are both “WILD DOGS”.
Cynicism has always been a relied operandi for politicians and their political entities. They will parabolically state it as ” playing your cards close to your chest”.
As legit as it may sound, yet to be cynically dishonest is utter deceitful and travesty.
Politicians and their political entities, sell their programs, policies and agendas in the forms of MANIFESTOS to the people and based on those backdrops, we make our informed choices. Any one who makes such such cynicism, certainly has engaged in deceptive politics and that is dishonesty and untrustworthy of a duty bearer.
Coalition 2016, wasn’t an exception to the above. They came to us with programs, they spelled out their intents, set agendas, plans of how to achieve them, campaigned extensively, convinced us that they are the better choice than the rest. By this, we’ve made a choice out of the alternates.
Campaign promises by any politician or political entity in the form of manifestos are by default the terms of agreements in your social contract with the people.
Anyone who negates those promises, lay bare the ultimate betrayal of trust, which undermines and diminishes legitimacy.
The constitution may offer the guide lines as to how to exercise my franchise and to what extent therein the conditions, but my contract with who ever wins elections was the document you’ve presented to me as your campaign promises. That is what I bought with my vote and anything less is a sheer failure on my barometer.
It saddens me, that everything we’ve fought for, condemned and stood against with every fibre of our collective strengths, and for a huge price of which, some pay with the ultimate price; which is death, is seen now to have thrived under this new dispensation.
Corruption, nepotism, fundamental rights of citizens are stifled. Our country became a cult club where sycophancy and mediocrity is rewarded whilst competence is shunned.
This isn’t my social contract with destiny.
Dissatisfactions, disappointments about our government under the leadership of President Adama Barrow are extensively growing and everyday is as if the drama of the preceding one is not enough, another one will pop up.
The preoccupation of progressive people and their society is never to stay in their present, but rather what are they preparing for the future, our future, the future of the generations yet unborn.
These are the challenges of our times, it’s not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives but rather what we do consistently.
In conclusion; it’s not too late to wheel back to make amends. Mr President, correcting some of our missteps as a country the buck stops with you.
Mr. President, face your people and dialogue with them.
Stop hidding behind constitutional legitimacy.
It’s the people who give and take mandates, always remember that.
Truth, they say is the statement of facts.
In this life, Truth and falsehood have always been engaged in an eternal struggle with each other.
Each is worried of the other, yet they both take solace in the seed they planted in man for an autonomous influence and impact.
While Truth is a pathless land, its struggle with falsehood are; both seeds are embedded in our consciousness, which in many a time causes confussion, more misery and a great deal of sufferings to our existence as human beings.
Mr President, it’s never cowardice to embrace your faults, man up to your responsibility and choose the path of truth but certainly it will be valiant of you to choose to ignore the realities and the existence of an imminent threat to our new found democracy and national security.
This is a REALITY, one doesn’t require an intelligence briefings to come to terms with that.
I was thinking about the question of what is the truth and what is reality and whether there is any relationship between the two, or whether they are separated? Are they eternally divorced or are they just projections of thoughts?
Mr President, anything that thoughts operate on, or fabricates, or reflects about, is reality.
Thought, thinking in a distorted conditioned manner is illusion, is self deception and distortion.
I hereby end with this quote from NAMURTI “You cannot go through reality to come to truth; you must understand the limitations of reality, which is the whole process of thought”.
Step up to the plate Mr President and offer our nation the leadership she deserves, or step aside for some certain competent chief to emerge, to set us to a direction of which we’ll all be proud of our little Gambia.
In the meantime, I am still hopeful of the rendez vous I BARGAINED WITH DESTINY.
Peace.
