Mr O A N Darboe, UDP

Hon Halifa Sallah, Hon Sidia Jatta, PDOIS

Hon Amat Bah, NRP

Mr Omar Jallow, PPP

Mr Lamin Waa Juwara, NDAM





Dear Sirs:


Re: A Coalition for 2006


As 2005 dawns, the urgency of the electoral project to remove The Gambia’s tyrannical man of letters, Dr Alhaji Yahya A J J Jammeh and his brutal APRC dictatorship from power cannot be overemphasised.



Chosen, or de facto, you are the acknowledged leaders of your parties. You are the principals to the ongoing negotiations on the potential coalition to fight the crucial 2006 presidential election. You are the undisputed custodians of a nation’s hopes.



In light of the tragic reality of life in The Gambia - unprecedented economic hardship, extraordinary repression, and heinous state criminality  - we are not requesting that you restrain your egos and personal ambitions, and put together a viable and winning coalition. We are demanding that you do so, and urgently. As a collective national  enterprise, this is the lowest legitimate expectation of every Gambian committed to the liberation of our country from the clutches of butchery.



We have every confidence you will rise up to that formidable if crucial challenge and offer a hopeless people something to be hopeful about. If personal ambition overwhelms your better judgment, and compels you to deny The Gambia your support in the critical project to peaceably remove incompetence, mediocrity, unprecedented corruption and tyranny from our public life, you should seriously reconsider your position, individually and collectively, as standard bearers of national parties.



You must recognise that considerations more compelling in their urgency than ego or ambition are vying for your attention. Even to the casual observer of political developments, the gathering storm over our national space must be obvious. The brutality of Dr Jammeh’s regime, as manifested in killings, arson attacks, and wrongful convictions and imprisonment of Gambians foretells an inevitable showdown with the forces for change, democratic or otherwise. The atmosphere of repression is simply not sustainable, and something has clearly got to give. As it is our contention that no Gambian deserves to be maimed or killed in a civil conflict to remove Jammeh’s dictatorship, the electoral process must be the principal route and a coalition the main vehicle.



We entertain no naivety that hammering a coalition would not present special problems of intense agony. That notwithstanding, we firmly believe that those who aspire to direct the destiny of a nation must be mature and pragmatic enough to appreciate and navigate the bottlenecks inherent to a project of such gigantic and critical import. Trapped as we are under a totalitarian dictatorship in a nation without viable institutions, your challenge is akin to that of America’s founding fathers, those architects of statehood who carved the world’s most distinguished jurisdiction out of extremely acute conditions. Their enduring legacy is not the phenomenal and extraordinary material prosperity of the United States, but the creation of a nation of laws, and a land of liberty.



There is no defensible rationale to suggest that Gambians are incapable of instituting a governmental system based on the rule of law. The notion that God installed Dr Jammeh and that we are therefore divinely required to accord him unquestioned obeisance must be rejected as manifestly stupid. Every people have control over their destiny, and as God does not install despots, He leaves them in place for as long as they remain unchallenged.  By our apathy we allowed despotism to thrive wonderfully. As a people we chose failure in permitting Dr Jammeh and his cabal of mental midgets, and outright brutes, to exercise a stranglehold over our public life. You must offer us redemption through a coalition for 2006.



You deserve commendation for the very idea of a coalition  but the Gambian populace will reserve its accolades for the final ratification of an enterprise whose true significance, in the fullness of time, will rank for us as among the seminal political achievements and events of human history. A wrong turn and our accelerating demise into a failed state will be confirmed beyond question. The relentless brutality of Dr Jammeh’s regime threatens a national break up and you must never share in that responsibility by scuppering the only peaceable strategy to rid The Gambia of irredeemable despotism.



We challenge you to think through your election agenda and market your manifesto to a people ripe for persuasion. The suffering majority of Gambians are solidly in the opposition camp, and that gain must be maintained and nurtured over the next 24 months. To assume that conditions of general hardship and insecurity means  your mission is universally appreciated will constitute a monumental misjudgement. As part of a manifesto preparation, it may be advisable to consult sector-based knowledgeable Gambians on their vision regarding some key aspects of our national life: education; agriculture; health; trade; public works; local government; tourism; and the judiciary.



The area of greatest concern must of necessity be the Judiciary as ultimate interpreter of Gambian law and final arbiter of all justiciable disputes. The great sadness of our condition is that the Judiciary is co-opted in the repressive atmosphere created by Dr Jammeh’s regime. With no money, and no individual within the Judiciary of the requisite courage and intellectual calibre to articulate its needs, this financially bankrupt third of the government is in effect the orphaned child in our warped constitutional system. On the great constitutional questions of the day, the Judiciary is effectively redundant in so far as Judges and Justices  defer to Jammeh’s interpretation of the law by their reluctance to decide matters before them, and pronounce their decisions thereon. Of particular concern is the higher judiciary, especially the main originating jurisdiction in that system – the High Court.



To truly appreciate the inevitability of the perverse and scandalous outcomes in some recent high profile cases in that Court, we need look no further than the contracts underlying judgeship appointments. It is widely accepted by observers within and outside the country that the Judge who presided over the cases alluded to is essentially a mercenary with no conscience. However, even jurists with no conviction either way about the direction of Gambian public life would have been seriously tempted to render less severe but equally perverse decisions in cases which should never have been docketed in a court of law.



You may be wondering – and legitimately so – about how the diaspora Gambian fit in the grand vision of a coalition for 2006. We have consulted widely and there is a developing consensus that our political liberation is the responsibility of The Gambia’s sons and daughters irrespective of their geographic location. The struggle to remove the criminal government of Dr Jammeh will be a project to test the Gambian character as never before.



On our part, we will do everything humanly possible to assist in the all-important task of raising sufficient funds for the coalition to launch a credible election campaign. Our public relations team is working on strategies to market the coalition’s agenda to opinion leaders in countries including the UK and the USA. The magnitude of the task dictates that we not confine our fund raising efforts to Gambian citizens, and, or other sympathetic individuals wherever they may be. We are working on the most ambitious election funding drive ever launched by Gambian opposition forces. Once a coalition becomes reality, we will consult you on other details relating to financing. Our primary condition for funding the coalition effort is only that you fulfil your side of the equation by giving us an ironclad agreement to fight 2006 as a united front. We will not associate with a tentative effort.



As the political temperature in the country rises over this year and next – and it must definitely will – and as the heat pervades Jammehs several abodes, it is not inconceivable for the tyrant to put out feelers for vacating office in exchange for immunity from prosecution. In that eventuality, it is incumbent upon you as national leaders to take a longer and broader view of state security and act accordingly. You need not fret over the despot’s crimes once he is ready to head for exile.



If, on the other hand, his rantings are anything to go by, the road to 2006 will bring tragedy and sorrow to a people battered by official criminality in public life. As the struggle to liberate The Gambia enters its most critical phase, your role as party and coalition leaders may expose you to ultimate danger. You must therefore educate the people on the strategy of mass demonstrations as a potent method of political dialogue should government embarked on lawlessness and extra judicial killings in the run up to the election.

To state in categorical terms, once a coalition party leader is killed, the people must come out in their hundreds of thousands to neutralise the thuggish security forces and drive Dr Jammeh and his oppressive regime out of power. This must constitute the key strategic alternative to the election itself. Countries such as Romania, Serbia, Georgia, and Haiti are eminent forerunners in this genre for political change. Their people countered executive lawlessness and ejected their brutal and yet cowardly dictators by the sheer force of their numbers. The Gambia is ripe for such a revolution in light of the extra judicial killings, the arson attacks, widespread economic hardship, and general state criminality which are made routine features of our national life by Dr Jammeh and his thugs.



In light of the intricate challenges threatening our nation’s very survival, your generation of politician and leader has a special rendezvous with destiny. Follow the stars that will lead to a new dawn for The Gambia. Follow the path of courage and determination and Gambia shall forever be grateful. A nation’s hopes are solidly in your hands. You are warned to never, never, desecrate that sacred trust.



Bon voyage and God speed on the journey of a lifetime, a journey which must and will lead to our golden era of liberty from the clutches of tyranny. Dr – or is he – Yahya Jammeh must go before our beautiful country goes the way of Sierra Leone, Liberia, or Ivory Coast. And that, Sirs, is a very real possibility should you fail to agree on a coalition for 2006.







Lamin J Darbo



Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of The Gambia


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