What Will The Gambia Look Like After “Change”?

(JollofNews) – First and foremost, I must make a disclaimer here that this thesis, like my previous writings relative to the Gambian predicament, is meant to ask provocative, vital and crucial questions in our quest of national discourse surrounding our current predicament.

And so, let’s continue the discussions, and here is my input for us to ponder over:
What the Gambia would look like after a “change” and the stream of people in these so-called struggle started returning to the Gambia?

Imagine people in this so-called struggle returning to the Gambia after a “change”? Imagine the jockeying around then for power, favours and “special treatment”. Suffice it to say it will be “quite a sight”. As to when and how the “change” will happen that I don’t know, and maybe you don’t know too. But we all know nothing lasts forever, and so change will come someday.

In the meantime, one is tempted to ask this crucial, vital and essential question: What have social media done and continue to do to quite a lot of Gambians, particularly those overseas, relative to the so-called struggle?
Groups and terri kafos are formed in the so-called struggle based on several features and attributes, centered on the likes and dislikes of certain people, or groups of people, liking each other’s comments, posts and cyber bravado displays. And all this is absent of the national interest of the Gambia.

The paradox in this landscape is that there are still nonetheless few, very few Gambians who, for whatever reasons, do not speak up, or are censured to speak up or do not write about the malfeasance pervasive, prevalent and ravaging the so-called struggle.

Now, ask yourself: Are these few Gambians who do not speak up about these malfeasance scared or are their voices drowned by the “domineering former enabler gang” in their midst in the so-called struggle? I mean, former enablers in their midst run online radios, former enablers run blogs, and Facebook is the buffet, the free-for-all kind of buffet, that is, for opponents and proponents alike of both sides of the pond.

I submit the so-called struggle is at a crossroad, and the few among them need to use any and all opportunities available to them, including Facebook, Twitter, online radios, blogs, online papers and social media to speak up against the malfeasance present in their midst. And please do not tell me or deny that there are no malfeasance present, alive and kicking in your so-called struggle. There are plenty.  And the Gambian people on the ground will be there, waiting, despite all the pre-posturing former enablers and others are now doing in the so-called struggle.

Isn’t the so-called struggle dominated by voices of former enablers? And when did this become the case? Two, three or so years ago? Why former enablers play such a “role” in the so-called struggle? What is their agenda? Are they bitter and angry that they were recycled and or fired or kicked out?

What kind of precedence is the so-called struggle setting by allowing former enablers to “just co-mingle” with them? I mean their former Oga is still in power, and by all estimates and calculations, he might be in power for another few years, and so, is the so-called struggle not telling people, or transmitting that it is ok and fine if you join the Oga bandwagon, and do all you have to do, but once you are kicked out, escape and come join the so-called struggle, and they will welcome and embrace you? What kind of precedence is that?

So, it is safe to say that there are, what I will call, “future enablers”. Hence, without a doubt, your so-called struggle will see more inflow of former enablers, in other words, more “future enablers” will be coming, and they will be coming to join your so-called struggle.

Haven’t former enablers already hijacked your so-called struggle and turned it into their little pony show or circus?

What if they were not fired? Can the so-called struggle “carry on business as usual” without former enablers? And most importantly, are these former enablers not complicit in the first place to the predicament now being faced? In other words, how could these former enablers have been part of the problem, but now they are professing to be part of the “solution”? Didn’t they help to put us in this “predicament” in the first place? Why can’t they express first remorse, guilt and or shame for the part they played to get us into this “predicament”, no matter how insignificant or significant that part might be?

Now, assuming that there is a change tomorrow, are folks, particularly former enablers in this so-called struggle, by the mere act of “participating” in the so-called struggle, would they be excluded or immune from any future Accountability exercises the Gambian people might want to undertake?

For example, say a future commission of inquiry wants to subpoena Peter, Paul or Jane, would Peter, Paul or Jane not appear before a future commission of inquiry to give testimony because Peter, Paul or Jane was in the so-called struggle?  And who will decide or not decide what commissions of inquiry to set up, who or who will not appear, who or who will not give testimony, and so on?

God bless the Gambian people.

Written by Abdul Savage

The author is a retired American soldier. He is a member of the US Military Order of the Purple Heart and Veterans of Foreign Wars.