When you hear a privileged Gambian or political leader start defending or justifying their actions with claims about doing it for the national interest, you better start sleeping with both eyes open. If you sleep with your eyes closed, you may find that they’ve already sold you to the highest bidder.
When I heard Mai Fatty justify his alliance with the APRC/NPP by claiming he was doing this for the national interest, I kept my eyes open. One, for a political party that calls itself Gambia Moral Congress, and for a party leader who loves to cite moral codes and projects himself as a bulwark against anything unIslamic, I wonder how the GMC and Mai Fatty will sell their moral politics and religious projections when they are affiliated with rape, murder and theft apologists in the APRC/NPP!
Two, I saw a video of the same Mai Fatty literally crying and accusing Adama Barrow and his parliamentarians of rejecting the 2020 Draft Constitution because of their love for power. He accused them of holding the nation to ransom. Well, now he has joined the very people he accused of holding the nation to ransom. Like Ismaila Ceesay before him and others with two or even three tongues for some of them, they all defend their shifting positions by claiming it is for the national interest!
But let’s examine this phrase “national interest” that these wishy-washy politicians love to parrot. What is the national interest? What does it mean? What is The Gambia’s national interest? When you think about it, the colonial space is said to have a population of almost three million individuals. These individuals are what make up The Gambia. But all these individuals have different interests. So, who decides what is our national interest? Is it those in power? I ask because those in government who should be busy making the lives of the people better are busier making their own lives better before they ever think of the ordinary people.
Haven’t we seen how your Prado Parliamentarians worked to get themselves all kinds of benefits? Haven’t we seen how the judiciary also tried to do the same? Haven’t we seen how the executive enriches itself while poverty is all around them? There is a reason they can seek medical help in foreign countries, but you remain stuck with the poor healthcare system in The Gambia. Ask any of those around power and they’ll tell you that even when they benefit themselves, it is all about the national interest. But when you ask these people what is The Gambia’s national interest, they’ll give you some unattainable abstract ideal that they cannot even properly define.
It is a myth! National interest is simply a euphemism for their self-interest! What I am saying is that in this colonial space, national interest is meaningless! It means nothing to most of the people parroting it. It is a vacuous bromide that these wishy-washy politicians and their surrogates only use to justify their inconsistency, greed, spinelessness, and lack of principle. If you listen to them, go on about national interest, you’d think they are sacrificing for the country! If you are doing something in the interest of the people then you don’t gain more than you give. If you claim to be engaged in anything for the interest of the nation but you somehow gain more than you give, you are doing it more for yourself than anyone else. What is Mai Fatty sacrificing by subsuming his moribund party into the APRC/NPP? Nothing! Rather, if there’s anything to gain, he, along with those in his executive, will stand to benefit! So, where’s the sacrifice? Whose interest is Mai Fatty supposedly sacrificing for? His own or the people? The fact that he starts by trying to mislead the people should give us all a clue. Unfortunately, some Gambians think that they are so smart that they can fool the whole country. But the joke is certainly not on those who sleep with both eyes open! When a Gambian tells you they are doing it for the national interest, sleep with both eyes open!
