By D. A. Jawo
When Gambians braced the dust and hot sun in December 2016 to vote massively against the Yahya Jammeh dictatorship, they all had quite high hopes for a much fairer governance system in which everyone would enjoy equal treatment and justice.
However, the situation seems to have detriorated to such an extenrevailing wanton corruption and mismanagement.
Another area that seems to have seriously detriorated is the handling of the public media. For instance, we have all been witnesses to the hijacking of the Gambia Radio and Television Services (GRTS) for the whole day for the past few days that it is today quite comparable to what had prevailed under the Jammeh dictatorship. While the human rights situation has certainly improved when compared to the Jammeh-era, every other aspect seems to have deteriorated, including the ps by the ruling National People’s Party (NPP) while launching their manifesto as well as other activities including a rally in Brikama and presentation of vehicles and motor cycles to their members.
This is certainly not only morally unfair, but the practice is also in contravention of the 1997 Constitution, including Section 208 which states that “All state owned newspapers, journals, radio and television shall afford fair opportunities and facilities for the presentation of divergent views and dissenting opinion”. As GRTS is a fully-funded public broadcaster, it has both the legal and moral obligation to treat all Gambians equally rather than giving preference to just one shade of opinion and completely shutting down the rest as if they do not matter. This is certainly not what Gambians bargained for when they got rid of the Jammeh dictatorship and usher in a new dispensation, which, unfortunately seems to have begun displaying even more dictatorial tendencies.
We can all recall that during the early days of the Barrow administration, GRTS used to have interesting programmes that carried divergent political views as opposed to the political monologue we seem to witness nowadays. For instance, we had such interesting programmes like Giss-Giss by Ansu Jack and Fatou Touray’s weekly show, both of which had panel discussions bringing together people with divergent political views to discuss national issues. However, we have seen how those two programmes and many others that had carried divergent views were eventually squeezed out and replaced by bland programmes that seem to concentrate on singing praises of President Adama Barrow and his administration.
This kind of situation is certainly unacceptable and one would sometimes wonder why the leadership of the opposition have chosen not to challenge such discriminatory actions by GRTS in the courts as it is being funded by public money and not by the NPP. It is a public institution funded entirely by the Gambian tax payers. Therefore, as it belongs to all Gambians and certainly not the property of President Barrow or his NPP, it is hard to understand why everyone is watching and saying nothing about such wanton misuse of a public property.
When Gambians voted to get rid of former President Jammeh and usher in a new dispensation, no one imagined that the people of this country would again be going through the same unfair system we had gone through during the more than two decades of the Jammeh dictatorship.
In fact, the situation seems to be even more blatant today than it had ever been during the Jammeh regime. At least then, people with divergent views were occasionally allowed access to the public media, while such a privilege is today an exception. Every little activity done by the NPP and President Barrow’s ‘wailers’ is given prominence on GRTS while no activity by the opposition is ever mentioned and those perceived as opponents of the government are never allowed access to the facilities, as if they are not bona fide Gambians whose taxes maintain and sustain the GRTS.
It is indeed a shame that the Gambia is sliding backwards in democracy and governance, and instead of fulfilling their moral and legal obligations to Gambians, those in control of our institutions and resources seem to have allowed themselves to be transformed into zombies and ready to do anything just to please their masters.
