Dear Editor,
In the wake of every backway tragedy, a familiar narrative resurfaces. Public officials and sections of society portray those who embark on these dangerous journeys as lazy, irrational, or unwilling to work. They point to a few success stories at home as proof that anyone, with sufficient determination, can “make it” in The Gambia. Others dismiss the aspiration to migrate by arguing, albeit correctly, that Europe and America are not lands of effortless wealth.
None of these claims are entirely false. The Backway is indeed dangerous and should never be encouraged. Europe and America do not have highways paved with gold. And yes, some Gambians have succeeded at home through hard work and perseverance.
Yet these truths fail to address the real driver of irregular migration. As long as the underlying conditions remain unchanged, such narratives will neither deter nor end the Backway phenomenon.
A recent Afrobarometer survey shows that nearly 70 percent of Gambians say they wish to leave the country, driven primarily by economic hardship, poverty, and the search for better jobs, with young, educated, and unemployed individuals most inclined to emigrate. This figure alone should force a national reckoning.
Importantly, migration in the Gambia is not limited to the backway. Alongside irregular migrants are thousands of citizens who leave through regular, legal channels. i.e., the “front way.” These are people with the means, qualifications, and connections to secure visas and opportunities abroad. Together, those who leave by the back way and the front way make up the same 70 percent seeking exit, driven by a common reality: opportunity is scarce at home.
The Central Bank reported that in 2025 alone, over US$870 million, more than 30 percent of GDP entered the country as remittances from the diaspora. This extraordinary figure is sustained by Gambians who left, whether through dangerous routes or formal channels. Their earnings now feed families, finance education, build homes, and keep businesses afloat. Migration, however tragic in its irregular form, has become a survival strategy embedded in the national economy. At the heart of this reality lies one defining factor: opportunity or the lack of it.
Opportunity consists of resources, conditions, access, time, and means that enable individuals to act or do something. It is rarely neutral. For some opportunity is just about having a mentor, a supporter, or the ability to access capital. For another person, opportunity is about the presence of well-equipped and affordable health facilities and services to receive accurate diagnosis and treatment. Yet for others, opportunity is about security at home, or a clean environment while it is access to justice for some.
A child born to educated parents already enjoys an advantage that has nothing to do with personal effort. Education itself is often described as a great equaliser, yet access to it is deeply unequal. Origin, identity, geography, and social networks all shape life chances, fairly or unfairly.
History offers stark illustrations. A white child born in Cape Town in 1950 had infinitely greater prospects than a Black child born in Soweto at the same time. In the Gambia, a child born in a rural or peri-urban community to parents with no formal education or stable income faces a very different future from a child born to parents in business, government, or senior professional roles.
There are countless hardworking Gambian youths in trades from masonry, tailoring, welding, carpentry, to farming whose outcomes depend not on effort alone but on whether opportunity exists.
I took this picture in Farafenni in 2012, thinking about the background of these youths, who, instead of being in school, were rather in the street doing such menial jobs. This is about opportunity. Given their conditions, will these youth embark on the Backway or not, if the opportunity presented itself?
Consider a familiar story from Kembujeh. I know of two boys who lost their father early in life. They lived in a patched two-room ‘banku bung’ in an open compound. Their mother, with no formal education or employment beyond subsistence farming, could only support them up to primary school and dropped off. As they grew, one became a mason and the other a tailor. Fifteen years later, through sheer perseverance, they built a modest house, erected a concrete fence, and improved their living conditions.
But what opportunities were truly available to them? And what opportunities now await their children compared to the children of a government minister, an NGO director, or a corporate executive? If they cannot afford to educate their children beyond a certain level, the cycle of deprivation is likely to continue. This story is not exceptional; it is the norm.
Those who ridicule or moralise about the backway would do well to reflect honestly on their own lives. Success, at home or abroad, is never achieved in a vacuum. Opportunity, often inherited, accidental, or state-enabled plays a decisive role. Children of educated, wealthy, and well-connected parents inevitably enjoy better chances than children born into poverty and exclusion.
Even celebrated success stories in sports, music, or technology only materialised because opportunity existed to nurture talent. Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, or Elon Musk already found in place an enabling legal, institutional, political and economic environment upon which their ideas and efforts optimised.
This is where government responsibility becomes unavoidable. States exist to create opportunities through law, policy, public goods, and services. Yet while some countries translate governance into prosperity, others reproduce poverty despite citizens working harder and struggling longer.
The contrast between Singapore and the Gambia is not about character or culture rather it is about policy, institutions, and opportunity. When UTG was established, it expanded opportunities to many Gambians who may not have ever gotten a degree, hence the good life as a result of a degree!
A tailor, welder, poultry farmer, or small trader needs reliable electricity. When power supply is erratic and expensive, enterprise is undermined. When taxes are high, arbitrary, or discriminatory, small businesses are suffocated before they can grow. These are not individual failures; they are structural constraints.
The success of public officials is inseparable from the opportunities provided by the State such as salaries, allowances, vehicles, networks, influence, and security. These advantages extend to their families and children. These officials are not inherently more hardworking or visionary than the rest of the population. They succeeded because opportunity existed. Opportunity decides everything. Until this reality is confronted honestly, Backway will remain not a mystery, but an inevitable outcome.
For The Gambia, Our Homeland.
Madi Jorbateh
