No Gambian Must Die For Anybody To Be President

As December 5, 2026 approaches, we must say it plainly, loudly and without apology that no Gambian must die for anybody to be president.

Not for Adama Barrow, Ousainu Darboe, Talib Bensouda, Lamin J Darbo or for any flag-bearer.

The presidency is a job, not a throne. It is five years of service, not a lifetime entitlement worth blood. Any politician who thinks Gambian life is cheap price for State House does not deserve State House.

We have been here before. We remember 2016-2017 when families slept in fear. We remember April 10-11, 2000 when students were shot for demanding justice. We remember the disappearances, the torture chambers, the graves we are still uncovering. We buried too many to forget that when politics turns into war, it is not the politicians who die. It is the market woman, the taxi driver, the student, and the children.

Today we see early signs and we must not be silent.

We see politicians weaponising tribe — Mandinka vs Fula vs Wollof vs Jola  as if blood type determines citizenship. We see youth being recruited as political thugs, to insult, to intimidate, to attack. We see incumbents using state power to deny permits, and opposition using frustration to justify violence. Stop.

The vote is 37 seconds in a polling booth. It is not worth 37 years of mourning.

To the IEC: Be impartial. One voter, one vote. Publish results polling station by polling station. Transparency prevents violence.

To the security forces: You swore to protect the Constitution, not a candidate. You are Gambians first. No order to shoot unarmed citizens is lawful.

To the parties: Call your supporters to order. Contest ideas, not lives. If you cannot win without violence, you are unfit to govern. Disarm your youth wings.

To the youth: No politician loves you enough to die for you. They will fly their children abroad while they send you to fight. Refuse to be used. Your life is bigger than their ambition.

To our chiefs, imams, priests, mothers and elders: Speak now. Silence is complicity.

To every Gambian: Remember Jinack Kajata. Those young men who died at sea did not die for politics. They died because they lost hope. Give them hope with peaceful election, not more bodies.

On December 5, we will choose but after that we must still live together in the same markets, same mosques, same bantabas, and same Gambia.

Let history record that in 2026, we were angry, we disagreed, we debated fiercely, but we refused to kill each other for power.

Because no Gambian … not one must die for anybody to be president.