Dear Editor,
Until members of a group or nation are bold and honest enough to look into each other’s eyes to speak the truth to each other and accept their errors and failures and willing to change, clearly such a society will continue to wallow in all sorts of ills until there is sober reawakening. I think this is where the Gambia is right now, and one need not fool oneself about it.
This Afrobarometer survey here sends a very clear and unambiguous message. One does not even need to see this survey to know that even ordinary Gambians trust in each other is low. Therefore, it is not surprising yet indeed extremely worrying that Gambian citizens do not have faith in the very people they elect and put in public office!
The President, NAMs, and local councillors are the main elected officials mandated to serve our people. Yet, after all these years, our citizens continue to have such abysmal trust in them as shown in this survey. They have all individually lost public trust by at least 20% for local councillors, and worst for both the President and NAMs. That is a tragedy.
Then you have those appointed to public office such as the police, courts, and the IEC, which also face dwindling public trust. It is even concerning that public trust in NHRC and GRA remain below 50%.
Then we have our religious and traditional leaders who should serve as moral guarantors and the pillars of collective conscience of society. Sadly, they are also facing serious erosion of public trust. If we lose trust in religious and traditional leaders, then who will give us that moral advice and guidance?
Even more worrying is the poor public trust in the very party that governs this country, NPP – from 53% in 2018 to 34% in 2024. Yet this is the party in charge of government to which citizens pay taxes and surrender their rights for them to protect and build lives and futures.
If there is any hope anyway, it is only in the army and the opposition parties. While trust in the army has increased from 65% in 2018 to 70% in 2024, opposition parties have also gained trust, even though it is minimal from 38% to 42%. Kudos to them.
We need a national conversation – a national soul searching. Public trust in public institutions and officials is not only a matter of national security, but also it is indispensably necessary for citizens to have hope and a sense of patriotism, unity, and harmony. When people lose trust in the government, it is because such a government is no more responsive to the needs of the people. That is a result of corruption, abuse of office, inefficiency, and violations of human rights. That is a recipe for instability.
Since Independence, this country has never had a real national conversation to determine what kind of Gambian we want.
During the days of Jammeh and now Barrow, we see theatrical gatherings in the name of so-called national dialogue, or the creation of policies to that effect. But no one is at a loss that these events and documents are mere smokescreen. They do not speak to the issues and where the issues were raised, they are not followed to the letter.
The evidence of that is the last national dialogue on Feb 16 when Prof Gibril Faal spoke to the issue of diaspora voting quite succinctly. But in less than a month after, we see how NAMs aligned with the President voted down Clause 14 of the Elections Bill which was to operationalise the right to vote for Gambians in foreign countries. Why?
Our officials, politicians, religious and traditional leaders are good at pontificating about good moral values. They trumpet our religious and cultural norms and values at every opportunity available. They speak about our laws and urge citizens to abide by the law. But do they themselves practice what they preach? This survey is evidence that they do not practice what they preach otherwise public trust would have been higher in them.
For the Gambia Our Homeland
Madi Jobarteh
Kembujeh
