Following our reports and analysis of the PPP meeting held in Seattle on Saturday April 12th, Former Vice President Hon. BB Darboe has strongly reacted to Demba Baldeh’s reports on his speech calling it “misleading and a personal view”. Mr. Darboe’s attempt to set the records straight in what he perceived as misleading was in an email to editor Baldeh… Below with Mr. Darboe’s permission we reproduce BB’s reaction and also added to the bottom of the report an audio link of Mr. Darboe’s speech for the benefit of the readers.
Dear Mr Baldeh,
What you published under the title ” —PPP Seattle Meeting, the Critical and the Contradictions –” [Gainako News of 23 April] is, in point of fact, a reportage and an expression of your personal views, rolled into one piece. While you are at liberty to choose the approach you take, and I accept that your views are your views, I note with regret that the purported reportage element contains a number of inaccuracies which I need to point out here for the record.
1. Provision of Social Services: In admitting that the country at the time had no tertiary educational institutions, I did not hold the point up as a shortcoming of the PPP, that is a view that you may hold. The essence of my contention on the PPP’s record of performance in the area of the provision of social services was conveyed in two points:
*Ignorance of the relevant strategic context [i.e. a carefully worked out architecture of nation-wide service delivery structures, for health care, and for education, a most effective partnership operated between the state and religious and other bodies with acknowldged experience in running schools] led some people to fall for the lies peddled by Yahya Jammeh and his apologists as they sought to score cheap political points by dishonestly underating the performance of the PPP in office.
*It is demagogy and cheap populism to litter the country-side with under-resourced classroom blocks and ill-equiped hospitals. Throughout, the PPP eschewed that temptation and chose instead to [a] progressively democratise opportunities for our people, from the situation inherited from the colonial period which was characterised by scandalous inequalities, and [b] ensuring that standards of services provided were the highest possible under our circumstances, as opposed to the present situation of clearly failing educational system and ineffective public health services.
2. Gambian Elites and their “Complicity”: While I deplored the indifference shown in the face of the excesses of the Yahya Jammeh system, I never accused the elites of complicity in the wrong doings of the regime; that may be your own view.
3. “Chickens Coming Home to Roost”: A simple saying in English, I merely proffered this suggestion in relation to Yahya Jammeh’s trade mark extravagant claims [turning The Gambia into a Kuwait, an economic super power etc] and to the naivety of those who fell for such demagogy. I did not, in saying so, have the Gambian people in mind nor any sin on their part in the form of “ditching” the PPP. It is you who chose to say such was what I “insinuated”; I do not believe you have the liberty to read any such insinuation in what I said. And to proceed from there, to use such wrong basis for the detailed unflattering commentary you ran, cannot be said to be fair. What is contained in the commentary may be views and obsessions you are keen to voice out, which is your right. But in bringing them out at this particular juncture, and in the way you did it, carries the danger of misrepresenting, if not distorting what I said and meant. I can only hope that the audience did not come out with any such impression as I provided no cause for that. And that the supposed mispeaking and raising of eye brows were more imaginary than real.
4. Appointment of Chief Justice: All I said, in reaction to a suggestion made from the floor, was that there was no policy precluding the appointment of Gambians as Chief Justice; indeed PPP Govt would have felt happy and honoured to have that exalted position manned by a fellow citizen. However, competition from the lucrative private bar did not make it easy for us at the time to hire and retain Gambians with the requisite seniority and experience to be appointed Chief Justice, hence we turned to outsiders. Simple common sense. The suggestion that the point “highlights how the PPP govt took for granted their political establishment without much regard to making significant policy changes for the long term viability of the country’s young democracy. In effect, the same lack of long term vision handling on national matters led to Sir Dawda’s deadly mistake of pointing Nigerian military officers to control the security command of the nation which led to the end of his political reign” is merely your view.
Another view of yours which you appear to want to air is to suggest that “the PPP could have won elections for as long as they were in power”. I personally have no objection to the idea of term limits, a political value now in vogue much more than it was when the PPP was in office, but the facts on the ground do not support your contention that “common sense and historical evidence has it that almost every incumbent govt in Africa that controls power and the electioneering machinery would almost always be re-elected into office”. The outcome of presidential elections in Seneagal in 2000 and 2012, in the Cabo Verde Republic [repeatedly], in Cote d’Ivoire, in Ghana, in Zambia in the recent past, as well as those of the 1992 general elections in The Gambia, do not appear to uphold your contention.
When I spoke at the meeting, I did so from prepared notes which I still have. I leave it to your discretion to revisit the tapes of the proceedings, of which you are custodian I believe, to verify the above and to decide whether your readership deserves to see this rebuttal.
For the benefit of the readers; below is an extracted audio link to Mr. Darboe’s Speech… Readers can independently form their own opinion from the speech… Your feedback is greatly appreciated…
https://soundcloud.com/demba-baldeh/bb-darboes-speech-at-the-ppp-meeting-in-seattle