History has taught us that nations are not healed through vengeance, but through the courage to forgive. When Nelson Mandela walked out of prison after 27 years of brutal apartheid, he did not choose retribution. He chose reconciliation.
He shared government with his former oppressor, F. W. de Klerk, the man who once justified his imprisonment, because Mandela understood that the soul of a nation cannot be rebuilt on bitterness.
Today, The Gambia faces a similar moral test. Yahya Jammeh, whatever his faults, remains a former President of this Republic. The Constitution recognises him as such, and no court has declared otherwise. There exists a “Former Presidents Bill” precisely because the dignity of that office must transcend personal feelings and political grudges.
Jammeh himself set a precedent of magnanimity when he received Sir Dawda Jawara with honour and accorded him the privileges of a former head of state after years in exile. That was leadership, the kind that understood that national reconciliation is bigger than individual sentiment.
President Adama Barrow must now rise to that same moral height. Not all wrongs committed under Jammeh’s rule came from his direct orders just as not all wrongs under Barrow’s watch carry his personal signature. Leadership is not about denial, but about perspective. It is about taking the longer, higher view of history.
Allowing Jammeh to return home under lawful and dignified conditions is not an endorsement of impunity, it is an affirmation of maturity. It is saying that The Gambia chooses nationhood over vendetta, healing over humiliation, and reconciliation over revenge..
In doing so, President Barrow would also be safeguarding his own future, for the way we treat our former leaders defines the protection of those who will one day become former leaders themselves.
Let Jammeh return, not to rule, but to reconcile. Let The Gambia prove, as Mandela did, that true strength lies not in vengeance, but in forgiveness.
“We were expected to destroy one another and ourselves collectively in the worst racial conflagration. Instead, we as a people chose the path of negotiation, compromise and peaceful settlement. Instead of hatred and revenge we chose reconciliation and nation-building.”
(From Mandela’s ‘Conversations With Myself’ book, 2010)
M R R
