That Garden Boy is a victim. A victim of the socio-political system and the leaders of that system. That system and leaders who caused hundreds and thousands of our youth lack basic opportunities to reach their full potential. The lack of opportunities which pushes our youths to flee their motherland through the back way only to perish in the Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean or enslaved in Libya.
Those who succeeded to reach the shores of Europe end up languishing in detention centres or playing hide and seek with authorities in the streets of the cities of Europe. Those who cannot flee, end up as garden boys. Who would want his 16 year old boy to be a garden boy?
That Garden Boy has been coming to Nyang Njie’s compound in different kinds of T-shirts, yet Nyang never retorted. He does not have to. But a T-shirt bearing the picture of a president in The Gambia is no ordinary T-shirt. It is a T-shirt that carries a heavy weight – the weight of power. Power that is derived from the people entrusted to elected leader leaders to serve our people.
Yet we have seen how this power is being abused and misused to the detriment of this Garden Boy. To cloud, cover up and rationalise that abuse of power and the plunder of the wealth of the nation, these political leaders create propaganda – in words and materials such as T-shirts or festivals which are then televised for the purpose of imprinting on the minds of the people that such leaders are popular, good, patriotic.
This Garden Boy like many of our young people of his age do not have the necessary political education to understand the meaning of this T-shirt, simply because the Government and its political leaders do not provide such education. Hence this Garden Boy, like thousands of his kind, after being denied opportunities have no other choice but to grab these political T-shirts without realising that this T-shirt represents their disempowerment, poverty, powerlessness and wretchedness. How many Yahya Jammeh T-shirts and ashobee were flooded into our communities just to sell tyranny and a tinpot tyrant!
Hence, each and every conscious adult such as Nyang Njie has a duty to confront these young people to provide them the proper orientation. We cannot entertain ourselves with weak notions of democracy, human rights and dignity and therefore claim that Nyang Njie abused this child. If that child was Nyang Njie’s son, I have no doubts that he will not spare him a nasty spank. But Nyang Njie did not spank this Garden Boy. Rather he responded in a matter that tells the boy the seriousness of his uninformed action of putting on that T-shirt of humiliation.
President Barrow did not emerge out of the blue. Adama Barrow came out of a life and death situation in The Gambia in which there were clear-cut agreements and objectives that he was supposed to uphold and meet. But not only has he reneged on those agreements and objectives, but he also went further to carve out a path that is leading this country into destruction. Hence only a citizen who is yet to fully comprehend the situation will rationalise the scenario of Nyang Njie and the Garden Boy with a mere narrative about a powerful adult employer taking advantage of a weak young employee.
Look, Gambians, our nation is said to be 56 years old in almost three weeks’ time. Today The Gambia is ranked among the most corrupt societies in the world. This is a nation disgraced as highly indebted and poor. What has this 16-year-old Garden Boy, like many of his type, got from this nation where elected leaders swear to defend the Constitution and the Republic. Who is benefiting or losing from the wealth of this land? Who are the corrupt? Who are the underprivileged? Who is responsible to ensure that corruption is combatted? Who receives our taxes, loans and grants, and who benefits the most from them?
When we understand and answer these questions, our hearts must be bursting right now to realise that this 16-year-old boy is among the thousands of the underprivileged, denied, marginalized and abused by none other than the elected political leaders on that T-shirt. Therefore, when I see that boy brandishing a T-shirt of the President who bears primary responsibility for the undignified conditions of this boy, I will confront this boy in such a way as to expose the outrageousness of his uninformed action.
For far too long, we have taken things for granted in this country. Some of us have the luxury of not being underprivileged? We have allowed few among us, just because they are elected into public office to abuse us, yet we rationalise such abuse with fatalism, political ignorance and other forms of misconception. Thomas Sankara had said that a citizen without political education is a virtual criminal or a virtual victim. This Garden Boy is a real victim and he must be rescued from his victim conditions by making him remove that propaganda shirt.
In the days of Yahya Jammeh, I had gone to my kids’ school to tell them never to place my child on the roadside to welcome any goddamn head of state. I had denied my children to attend July 22 or Independence Day parades. I had denied them to go to Kanilai for any school visit. I had refused to buy Kanilai Bakery bread or rams or vegetables from the tyrant. Indeed, I had denied my family any form of association in any activity or material connected with Yahya Jammeh. Why? Because Yahya Jammeh had abrogated that contract he had with the people of this Republic. I took those decisions because I do not wish my child to be a pawn to further the selfish objectives of a vain, dishonest and corrupt President.
Today I see a similar trend with Adama Barrow. Not only has he abandoned his promise of three years, but he went further to also renege on the promise never to contest again. Beyond three and five years, Adama is seeking to perpetuate himself in power while presiding over the most corrupt and inept government ever established in the Gambia. Therefore, no sovereign and conscious citizen should look at what happens in our society lightly. This is a fundamental human rights and democracy issue in the context of a republic. If one is not as passionate as Nyang Njie about the Gambia so be it! Like Nyang, I am and I shall always be passionate about The Gambia and what our political leaders do.
Someone may hold that a T-shirt is insignificant. Yes, some had said a loaf of bread was insignificant during Yahya Jammeh’s time. But these are the very tools of coercion, control, disempowerment, misinformation, and self-perpetuation in power. Therefore, Nyang Njie had taken the responsible decision to act in the most outrageous manner as that befits the outrage of this T-shirt for what it represents. Extreme conditions deserve extreme measures.
Gambians, let us not toy with our own lives once again. Four years down the line, we saw how this Government wasted D136 million only because one man does not wish to submit himself to a maximum of ten years as president of this land. This is why he and his stooges in the National Assembly and cabinet and in society killed the draft constitution. Until today this Government has refused to account for the billions of dalasi for Covid. Until now the necessary security sector and civil service reforms necessary to effect system change have not been done. Why?
These and many more are what this hapless, filthy T-shirt represents. That Garden Boy does not know and understand the meaning of that T-shirt. Therefore it was good and timely that Nyang Njie showed him in unequivocal terms what that T-shirt means. That T-shirt is a threat to the life and future of that boy. That T-shirt is a threat to our Republic. That T-shirt is the beginning of the journey of self-perpetuation in power. That T-shirt represents the epitome of betrayal of the people when we decided on 1st December 2016. That T-shirt represents everything that is at stake for The Gambia.
