Sitting in the park teeming with people enjoying a sunny day of the volatile British weather, I gazed afar curbing in nature’s beauty punctuated by oases of people doing one thing or another whilst my mind wandered nomadically. As my train of thoughts gathered momentum, I could not help but flirt with the feeling that you will soon emerge from your compartment of self-denial and gather that you have already inflicted enough havoc on Gambians and the Gambia. Equipped with a sense of guilt and remorse, you will trek the path of national reconciliation by taking full responsibility of all the crimes committed under your administration.
Despite this gesture is not good enough to heal the wounds made by you and your accomplices; it will go a long way in soothing them. Suddenly, I was catapulted to reality as a part of me scolded me like a pupil not concentrating on his maths lesson to be attentive. It went further to remind me with flashcards of your repugnant arrogance, unwitting stubbornness and chilling disregard for good advice. Gruesome images of those you dragged to their untimely dead were conjured in my mind’s eye like a high definition horror movie. Unconsciously, I caressed the green grass with my hands as rivers of tears gush down my burning cheeks. The graphic thought of those whose hopes and dreams you mutilated in the blink of an eye thrust a cold shiver through my bristle like a raging volcano. It then dawned on me that something is definitely not right with you Mr President. Where is the human being in you? Is your conscience still alive Your Excellency?
I felt sick to my stomach with fury but I was consoled with the irrefutable fact that the Gambia will soon be free. One thing which is pretty certain Your Excellency is your fall from grace to amazing disgrace is very eminent and near. While you still have the opportunity to make your exit honorable please utilize it because you will not have a second chance. As usual if you opt to ignore it, when the moment of reckoning strike just remember you were forewarned enough. The marabous that are fornication with your sense of reasoning are only helping you to caress your bloated self-ego. Less you don’t know Mr President no one can halt the course of nature. In sum, they cannot add neither subtract a second in your life nor reign despite all the human and animal rituals you conscientiously execute. Consequently, it is about time that you stop fooling yourself with the notion that Gambians love you. The writings are all over the wall for you to see. Please, Your Excellency open your eyes and look around you. If those you perceive through rose-tinted glasses are truly your die-hard supporters and loyalists why are they passing your most classified information to the Gambian diaspora media houses? At a glance, one would easily label them particularly your ministers and security chiefs as not been security conscious. However, a closer look will unveil that there is more to it than meet the eye Mr President. Have you ever paused and wondered are they doing this as an open manifestation of their dissatisfaction with you and your system of governance or a moronic coincidental mistake? Whatever you decide to believe and not to believe Your Excellency the fact remains their act is very revealing about the susceptibility of your regime. Even a layman in governance and security knows that the windows to infiltrate and capture you are as wide opened as your alligator mouth. The lapses by your ministers from Isatou Njie-Siady to Moses Jallow authenticate what is in all Gambians’ minds: your reprehensible fall.
I must admit that sometimes you surprise me by gaffing on some truths but what I cannot grasp is your failure to take ownership of your shortcomings. One such which quickly springs to mind is when you recently told your cabinet ministers the economic plight of the Gambia is a “man made self-inflicted poverty”. No Gambian will disagree with you on that because you have never been more spot-on Mr President. However, you failed short to tell them who is the architect of the “man made self-inflicted poverty” on the Gambian economy. Mr President since you are shying away from the truth, I will tell you and all Gambians that the one who selfishly inflicted poverty on Gambians is no other person than Yahya AJJ Jammeh the Kanilai monster. One more thing Mr President, do you observe your ministers whenever you are delivering them your incoherent lectures? I am certain you don’t because you are nothing but a lousy oaf. Next time they come for lessons just open your eyes and watch them; they will all be blankly looking down at the table. A few of them will look up now and again jolted by your moronic utterances. True, I am no expert on body language but my novice experience teaches me that what your ministers are telling you in a deafening silence are you are boring, full of empty verbose rhetoric, incoherent and gullible.
Your Excellency do you have any hunch why Gambians particularly the youths snubbed your back to the land call? Perhaps the most palpable is, Your Excellency, Gambians have now come to terms with the fact that you are nothing but what Cherno Baba has coined: you echo “the whimsicality of a forlorn, distant dreamer” whose tenure in office oozes a “detestable life of a wastrel.” Look at the writings on the walls Mr President. Can’t you see the obvious? Take a closer look at your farms and honestly tell me is there any Gambian who can be a full time farmer to compete you? The issue is Your Excellency; Gambians are not refusing to go back to the land. Their huddles are lack of good and enough seeds/seedlings; capital, labour, machinery, equal opportunity in a free and competitive market, storage facilities, good road networks, uninterrupted electric and water supply, fertilizer, viable insurance policies, security and freedom. Similar handicaps could also be found haunting the fishing industry as well as other artisan trades in the Gambia. So you see Mr President it is not just easy to be a full time farmer, fisherman, carpenter, mechanic or a vendor in the Gambia. Until you begin to address these problems faced by ordinary Gambians head on, you will only be asking to be led by a blind man in the amazon forest. It goes without saying if the afore cited problems are resolved by your government, Mr President, Gambians will willingly venture into all self-employment venues such as fishing, carpentry and farming. In your case, you grabbed all the fertile lands in the country and turn them into personal farmlands, you coerce the populace to labour, till and harvest your farms; you saturated the Gambian market with your produce and products. Any business you perceive as viable; you hijack and any competition; you strangle.
Mr President, your obnoxious hibernation in self-denial, nonchalant attitude to the socio-economic and political realities in the Gambia and persistent lying to the populace are only brewing a catastrophic uprising against your regime. You will do yourself a regrettable disservice if your whiffing arrogance and gullibility stop you halting this ticking time bomb.
While keeping my fingers crossed that you will heed to the voice of reason, please accept my unflinching commitment to the restoration of democracy and rule of law in the Gambia.
Yours in the service of the Gambia,
Sulayman Jeng, UK