By Foday Chorr
According to a newspaper article carried in The Standard Newspaper on 10th August 2019, my learned friend, Mr Seedy Njie claimed that President Barrow has the support of the majority of the population, stating “70% of Gambians are now behind President Barrow”.
This may of course be his opinion, but he has not stated by which yardstick or measure he has arrived at this figure.
With no means to quantify this statement it is therefore left to the readership to agree or disagree with Mr Njie.
Politics of deception is of no benefit to the Gambian population, as it is a means used only by individuals who are self centred or concerned solely in their own individual advancements at the expense of the ordinary working class citizens.
Mr Njie would do well to remember that you can only fool some of the people some of the time, but you will not fool all of the people all of the time.
Going by the 2016 presidential results, Adama Barrow with seven parties and an independent received 43% of the total votes cast.
Yahya Jammeh had 40% and Mamma Kandeh 17%. Only 525,963 voters out of an electorate of 886,578 cast their vote, meaning that 40% of eligible voters did not vote.
It therefore needs to be questioned how Seedy Njie managed to assess the current support as being 70%.
In the article Seedy is quoted as stating that the best thing that Barrow has done is to purchase water tanks or canons to use on demonstrators or protestors.
Seedy Njie was unable however to report any achievements within the health sector, education agriculture or on the rate of crime.
He also omitted to comment about the deteriorating state of our security, lack of youth involvement or the state of socio-economic development of the country.
Mr Njie did not tell Gambians how much was spent on the security sector reforms.
There have been armed robberies and murder cases that have not even been investigated.
Seedy opined in his statement that he felt all Gambians should be pleased with the acquisition of water tanks, by saying that it was a wrong decision by Jammeh’s regime to open fire at the students.
What he failed to mention however was that Since the beginning of Barrows presidency, Senegalese soldiers used live rounds on the Kanilai people, killing one and injuring nine others.
In the Faraba Banta incident three were killed and many more injured.
and ordered for the court case to be stopped and amnesty to be granted to the culprits.
The killing of Sheriff Kujabi, whose body was found dumped in a well in Tanji, was also never investigated.
People have been detained and court martialed for opening a WhatsApp group and journalists physically and verbally assaulted in the presence of state ministers.
The political situation in The Gambia is very confusing and chaotic.
It seems as though the politicians haven’t got answers or solutions to the most pressing issues.
The coalition has dissolved and is completely divided.
They are not speaking in the same language or voice.
They can not even agree on the issue of 3 or 5 years.
There is a lack of allegiance and privacy and secrecy no longer exists within our civil service, leaving us exposed as a nation.
Rule of law has disintegrated in the chaos.
This is the shambolic reality of Barrow’s governance.
Foday Chorr is a member of the UK branch of the opposition APRC where he was a former Secretary general.
