“The trouble with Nigeria is simply and squarely a failure of leadership. There is nothing basically wrong with the Nigerian character. There is nothing wrong with the Nigerian land or climate or water or air or anything else. The Nigerian problem is the unwillingness or inability of its leaders to rise to the responsibility, to the challenge of personal example which are the hallmarks of true leadership.”
The late Chinua Achebe of blessed memory made this observation in his little but powerful, timeless and relevant book published in 1983. What Achebe said in this book about Nigeria is exactly true about the Gambia and each and every country in Africa.
The evidence is glaring: After having said this in 1983, fast forward to 2024 – forty-one years later today Nigerians are protesting bad governance in Nigeria due to the same leadership.
Look across Africa and you will find citizens are frustrated with their governments and don’t trust their leaders! Just yesterday Centre for Policy Research and Development (CRPD) released the Afrobarometer report in which majority of Gambians have a hopelessly low level of trust in the President, NAMs and local councillors! Quite scary indeed but totally unsurprising because of their abysmally poor leadership and performance.
I encourage all Gambians to read this little book especially our university students and young professionals in the public sector and activists in the civil society.
In this book, you will obtain a better understanding of the malaise that confronts the Gambia. You will come to better appreciate the gravity of our situation thanks to the poor leadership we’ve been suffering from since Independence more so since 1994 which has aggravated since 2017.
Therefore, this little book of few tens of pages will enable you to understand your society and government better hence empower you to discover your mission and determined to fulfill it.
Unfortunately, such books are not within our university reading lists hence we produce graduates who become public officials only to exploit and oppress their own people for selfish interest because our knowledge is based on irrelevant sources, and not based on our African experts and scholars and lived experiences.
This book should be a compulsory reading for every university class in Africa.
Madi Jobarteh
Boraba
