Dear editor,
There is at least one person high up the “ECOWAS food chain” who is very busy doing APRC/NPP’s political bidding. It is either that or one or two people high up in ECOWAS are doing all that they can to stay relevant in the eyes of their APRC/NPP benefactors! Either proposition is beneath the office of an institution that is meant to foster peace, security, and development for Africans. Why else do you think an institution of ECOWAS stature found it necessary to congratulate the APRC/NPP government for the perfunctory task of gazetting a doctored draft constitution? Congratulating the APRC/NPP government for gazetting their doctored draft constitution is akin to congratulating a thief who returned fifty percent of the items they stole!
ECOWAS, with their tongue-in-cheek press release, goes on to make the grand revelation that no constitution is perfect! I can’t help but wonder what they think is imperfect about this APRC/NPP doctored draft constitution. Is it the manipulation of the document in such a way that it allows Adama Barrow to lord over Gambians for two decades? Or is it the portions that practically encourage corruption by disavowing accountability? Or maybe it is the various sections that allow Adama Barrow to be a fashionable authoritarian who can claim democracy because authoritarianism is the people’s “will.” I wonder what ECOWAS thinks is imperfect about this draft constitution!
I’m yet to find a statement that ECOWAS issued when Adama Barrow and his APRC/NPP, plus his unconscionable cabinet ministers rejected the draft constitution that reflected the voice of the Gambian people. Their main contention was that the draft constitution discriminated against Adama Barrow. As if laws do not always discriminate against others by ensuring certain people do not have their way. For an institution that claims to be for the people, that should have been the time to stand by the people and reveal to Adama Barrow that no constitution is perfect. But no, whoever is doing the APRC/NPP bidding at ECOWAS has interests to protect and it certainly isn’t the people’s interest!
Then with naked disingenuity, ECOWAS congratulated all the stakeholders as if they did not know that the only stakeholders in this secretly drafted constitution are the APRC/NPP political parties, those they benefit in government, and whoever is doing their bidding within ECOWAS. The spinelessness and duplicity of ECOWAS are only matched by their delusions of grandeur. From comical and empty threats against former member states to congratulating a government going against the wishes of its people, ECOWAS has turned itself into an opportunistic puppet more interested in themselves and their benefactors than the people whose interests they are supposed to champion! And that is a shame! The people deserve better.
Alagie Saidy-Barrow
The prostituted Gambian mind
Dear editor,
Prostitution is not only manifested through sexually perverted and deviant practices. It is also manifested in the unconscionable behavior of humans through our deliberate actions that negate the moral compass innate in our subconscious state. Being a slave of our conscience can be a beast of burden that consumes our daily thoughts and activities. Most humans find it irreconcilable to be at ease with what they know to be outright and flagrant abuse or transgression on fellow humans.
In the case of the Gambia, I am of the view that most in our midst have lost the ability to communicate with their inner self thus the demise of their conscience. A spineless human being cares about nothing but the preservation of self at all cost and hence the deliberate indifference manifested by some of us against our fellow compatriots. This attitude is morally repulsive but it is a consequential effect of poverty, social complex borne out of age-old prejudices and moral decadence borne out of our insatiable appetite to acquire material and worldly possessions at the least cost to our efforts and energy. Prostitution of the mind is a severe state of decadence that is irreversible once entrenched in our daily routines. The distinction between wrong and right is often swayed by expected returns and or favors to be accrued. God bless the Gambian for we have become our own beast of burden due to our deep immersion to worldly possessions. So let’s start looking inward for a solution to our festering Gambian nightmare of insincerity and lack of loyalty and conscience. We have to take ownership of our thought processes and also question authority as power is vested on us and by proxy, we delegate our inalienable powers to chosen leaders to deliberate on our behalf. We must fear no one but God because he is our provider and protector not any mere mortal like us. Our mortal existence MUST be dignified and meaningful to all that we encounter be it humans or the environment. The Gambian has opted for a non-dignified existence by playing second fiddle to the whims and caprices of the highest bidder. What a painful existence! Finally, let’s not expect MUCH from the preachers of morality for they talk like angels and act like men. Our theologians/clergy are supposed to be the shepherd of the flock we collective called Gambia. They must give us spiritual guidance to sanitize our existence and interactions with our fellow brothers and sisters. The Gambian cause must not be a political revolution but a moral crusade. This moral crusade will be the arbiter of our conscience and once attained, we can then have viable political decisions to benefit the Gambian family at large. Let the real Gambian please stand up not the self-centred opportunistic animal innate in our existence. We just want to receive and hardly give back. Time for a serious and critical rethink of our national values and priorities. Gambia is here to stay for posterity therefore we all must endeavor to do the right thing for her so that our off springs will be proud of us and the plume of the historian will serve us right. After carefully shopping for great Gambian virtues and ideals, I walked to the checkout counter called the Gambian reality and I felt short changed by myself and by extension, all of us as Gambians.
Nyang Njie
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