Dear Editor,
President Adama Barrow constituted the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparation Commission at a total cost of about D182 million, the Janneh Commission at about D50 million and the Constitution Review Commission at D116 million. In total, D348 million was spent in a long and exhaustive process that produced reports and recommendations reflecting the truth and prescribed a way forward for the country.
Tragically, all three commissions sanctioned by law and at great expense to our poor nation have been deliberately and, with the worst of maligned intentions, been sabotaged by the president in the pursuit of selfish personal gain. In the case of the TRRC, murderous named perpetrators are prancing around The Gambia, free as birds, while their victims endure pain, hardship and death.
On the CRC, the president, with malice and incredible selfishness, recruited his attorney general to go to the floor of parliament and conspire with traitors to vote down the draft constitution because he didn’t want to serve the two-term limit stipulated in the document. In one fell swoop, he threw D116 million into the dustbin for no reason other than his personal desire to cling to power against the expressed wish of the Gambian people to end self-perpetuation.
When it came to the Janneh Commission, the president simply substituted the named thieves of the Jammeh era with his own crew and simply reallocated the stolen assets from Yahya Jammeh and his cronies to his own. He then ignored and proceeded to nullify legal sanctions against the named culprits.
A president who has manifested such egregious contempt for the rule of law by deliberately subverting the findings of legally sanctioned commissions he set up clearly shows what he is all about. His commitment is not to The Gambia or its people. To him, the presidency itself is a transactional office where his intention and conduct is to pursue and retain power for the sole purpose of personal, political and financial gain. In that pursuit, he seeks out and jumps into bed with the worst of our citizens who, like him, are primarily looking out for themselves, their families and friends.
This is what accounts for the profound failure of leadership our country is experiencing at the moment. Murderers, drug dealers, human rights violators, corrupt and unreconstructed thieves, and political prostitutes are all encouraged by a governance environment that has gone haywire.
The problem is not the bitter disagreement between Barrow and his political rivals. The problem is the nature of the president, which is reflected in his appointments, his low-brow gutter politics, his incompetence, his personal corruption and propensity for waste and most importantly, his lack of fidelity to the rule of law.
Can the president change for the better and pivot from his bad ways? I don’t think so. A leopard is incapable of changing its spots. It would require an impossible suspension of disbelief to entertain the notion that Adama Barrow can be anything other than what he has demonstrated since he came to office.
Karamba Touray
USA
Re: Madi quits Westminster Foundation over Palestine issue
Dear Editor,
This case is not about religion, it is about humanity because injustice and killing of innocent people cannot be accepted in any society. Therefore that being the case, Madi cannot support that because he is advocating against human rights abuse and what Israel is doing to Palestinians is totally unacceptable.
As a matter of fact, I believe Madi is a pious Muslim because the decision he made [to resign from the Westminster Foundation in protest at the Israeli treatment of Palestinians] is a true reflection of a true believer. In fact, a good Christian will not like the way Israel is treating the Palestinian people.
Baba Poli Boy Kanyi
Serekunda
Dear Editor,
Kudos to Madi. This shows he’s solid about his activism. But I am not losing my job defending Arabs; they never lose sleep over what happens in Africa. Besides, if the Arabs cared about what was happening in Palestine, this conflict would have ended years ago. Furthermore, their big brother, Saudi Arabia, is still bombing and starving the Yemenis, but no one cares about them, certainly not the Arabs. To them, whatever done to Yemen, they deserve it, but they want the whole world to stop living because Israel is at war with Palestine. It makes no sense to me. If they want people to take them seriously, they have to take every life seriously, simple!
Del Alexandro Dabo
Serekunda
