By Abdoulie Bojang
The rate of tribal manipulation, blind following and politics of “cultism” is killing and reducing our political space to (nothingness of) dirt and deceit; where our political nonentities and buyables showcase derilection of duty and political cultism to individuals, tribe and party over truth and nation. This is an absolute cause for concern; if and when saving and developing this country is and must be our absolute and resolute target; come what may!
There is a lot of chaff than grains in our political class at the behest and validation of our electorates. This must change, if we are serious about nation building-sustainable democracy and development-human and infrastructural.
Gambian politics has a serious existential threat-tribal manipulation and blind-following! There are two factors, fundamentally: the leader and the led.
From a Pareto analysis stand point -80/20; the main root cause of our problem is the electorates and the elected. Solve it, we get our problems largely solved.
Let’s take chaff and grain sample. To separate the two, a mechanism is employed and deployed. This deployed mechanism must be fit for purpose and applies the much needed standards to easily separate the chaff from the grains. Locally, the requirements to meet the needs of separating the chaff from the grains are: wind and hands, container and/or a mat, natural right!
In the case of our elected positions- (national assembly, presidential, local government), the requirements to fulfill our much needed leadership needs for sustainable and inclusive development are at point ZERO! the bar is set so low that it only serves the purpose and benefit of mediocrity and nonentity. Meaning, there hardly exists a constitutional mechanism to separate the political chaff from the political grains. The constitutional requirements to become a member of the national assembly is so low that even nine graders, bigots, nonentities and the hopeless could fit and serve. No wonder, the dramas, performance and mediocrity emanating from our national” bantaba”. Our constitution has left the electorates with poorly and lowly guided rights to deferentiate grains form chaff. Most often than not, for our voters; representation is looked at what their standards and expectations are, which are usually low and unfit for national, regional, continental and international consumption. Most times, such standards are but fit only for the village consumption.
To break this shameful circle of mediocrity and bad performance:
Our constitution should create a mechanism to sieve and qualify only the wise, educated, experienced, genuine, patriotic and integrity sound candidates for the electorates to choose from. This will limit chaff infiltration in to our political space. Our situation is that; even the stones find their way into the grains. These stones that find their way into the parliament cannot germinate even if we manure, tend and water them with all our River Gambia times ten.
This holds water! A look at the training and professional coaching accorded the parliamentarians and their performance reveals the not correlational coefficient effect. You cannot train the unteachable! Some if not many are pure chaff and stones. They neither can perform nor germinate into national assets. All they could is to filibuster and have wild rants at the expense of taxpayers. It is a variation- a waste in our parliamentary and governance systems to expend millions and keep training and coaching occupants of elected offices because they largely wouldn’t be able to do their jobs if not retrained or trained as they have not got the intellectual pedigree and/or experience to serve for country-not tribes, party and/or individuals.
In fact, the cost of these trainings and coachings could have made giant development breakthroughs in our health care, education, energy, agriculture, security delivery systems to impact positively on the lives and livelihoods of our populace. Funnily, even those opportuned to get trained during their parliamentary tenures end of being voted out and cannot even secure any other jobs to at least render beneficial, skills and knowledge gianed from the taxpayer money expended trainings. This trend has made our parliament an ineffectual training school and theatre. This is wasteful and must changed to get the much needed leadership and potentials to turnaround events and our country.
A bad system affects none but all; irrespective of tribe, gender, party and/or any belonging of any sort. The time rendered by our lawmakers in infight and derilection of duty could saves us if such ferocity and patriotism is invested in nation building and holding our president, institutions and other officials accountable and adherent to national interest and development. I really want to see our parliamentarians” fight physical” over murder and rise in crime, corruption, inflation, death of our women and children and not reports and opinions that really wouldn’t matter at the end of the day.
Finally, if we want our dream Gambia, let’s as well get our internal party politics straight and right. Competence and love for nation must never be compromised whatsoever!
Our priority must be how to save this country from incompetence and corruption. Get us united to achieve a Gambia fit for purose, save and sound. Fight over that and we can move on. You all owe us that!
The views are mine. And any mistakes are entirely mine as well.
