Brother Sidibeh,
 
You wrote:
 
"NADD could have evolved into a society-oriented politcal 
movement, i.e  a political instrument that reorganises society as a way of 
changing the  state; as opposed to a state-based politcal group - which have 
invariably  failed everywhere in Africa. NADD could have forever altered the 
nature of  politics in Gambia!"
 
In deed this is true and that is why we Gambians are so heartbroken over  the 
disintegration of the coalition with all the possibilities it held for our  
people at this critical hour and I cannot imagine for one moment that those  
who tossed it into the gutter in exchange for self and personal interest can  
have the interest of our people at heart and I believe that no amount of  
negotiation will bring them back to the table. They are marching to the  tune of a 
different drummer. If a decision can be made to abandon the idea of  a 
coalition at this critical juncture, we cannot waste time on  worrying about the 
fragile egos of those who cannot withstand the heat  of scrutiny because of two 
reason, they are aspiring for political office  for the wrong reason which in 
turn does not serve the interest or purpose of the  aspiration or the people, and 
 scrutiny will certainly reveal  them for what they are, self centered and 
self perpetuating and those are not  the qualifications to fill the position. 
 
Any unrealistic notions of a reconciliation are just that, unrealistic  
notions because it has been abundantly clear that reconciliation is not on the  
agenda in view of all that has transpired and in view of all of the weak and  
untruthful and insincere excuses that have been rendered. Therefore, we should  
desist from the fallacy that reconciliation is a possibility now or in the  
future. It is clear that the UDP/NRP etc want reconciliation only according to  
their own terms, that they have the leadership, and without the term limit as  
outlined in the NADD agreement, even if this ensures that the APRC remain in  
power and it is against the interest of the people to  continue to encourage 
such modes of thinking. It is a condition  that is counter to the ideal of the 
NADD agreement and it is therefore  an effort that was devised to abandon the 
original agreement and resort to force  the hands of others after having 
signed on to the original agreement. It is most  insincere and anyone who has the 
interest of our country at heart knows  that what is needed now is not only to 
dislodge the APRC regime, but most  importantly, to put into place an interim 
government that will bring about  the needed reforms. The UDP/NRP does not 
subscribe to this idea, they just want  power at any cost, the same as Yaya 
Jammeh does instead of sacrificing personal  gain for the welfare of Gambians. We 
cannot afford to encourage that at all and  they will never abandon those 
aspirations and all they have said so far is proof  of this. So we will continue to 
inform the people about those who betray their  interest.
 
You also wrote:
 
"Mr. Darboe, of course, deserves much respect, but the party he leads, I  
thought even then, came to be the natural abode of disgruntled politicians and  
businessmen made homeless by 
APRC purges of the PPP and NCP. It posesses  neither the ideological 
conviction nor the organizational tradition to carry the  struggle for power beyond 
mere protest against corruption and the excesses of an  egoistic political elite 
feeding on the spoils of power. It cannot control and  alter the role of 
institutions even if it assumes state power. This conclusion  
brings me to the reason I think the coalition is of major importance"
 
I will add that the UDP is not only "a natural  abode of disgruntled  
politicians and businessmen made homeless by APRC purges of the PPP and NCP" as  you 
rightly stated, it is also a natural abode for the corrupt and  inept former 
PPP officials with their trademark nepotism and tribalism and their  use of 
these sentiments to divide our people and exploit them to satisfy their  own 
quest for personal power, a quest in which the welfare of our people do not  
feature at all.
 
You also wrote:
 
"But where other variables such as unprincipled rivalry, vanity, ethnic  
identity, 
acquisitiveness, fear and even populism sway voter sentiments  greatly, 
violent criticism is often taken personally. The effect is that the  
prospects for a future confluence of opposition parties becomes more remote  
than formerly"
 
My response to this is that it is time  that we stop babysitting  the 
politicians who are driven by nothing but self interest because you  see, the process 
is not about feeding any single individual's ego, but  it is about the search 
for the most qualified to lead in all the  aspects that qualification has to 
be measured by.  It is about educating  the people so that we can free them 
from the bondage of being used as pawns  by unscrupulous politicians in search 
of personal  power alone and who neither posses nor have the capabilities  nor 
the conviction to put the interest of the people first.  In-fact,  we cannot 
afford to feed their vanities and lack of self confidence anymore, and  if any 
politician takes criticism by the people personally, they are  definitely in 
the wrong business and need to respectfully excuse us because  we are not 
looking for a sovereign who is above reproach. We the  People are looking for 
someone to fill a position and they will  be scrutinized to see if they are 
qualified for the Job. I think too often,  some of us tend to  forget this small but 
very significant fact. It is  time to start educating our people to choose 
according to these ideals instead  of continuing to feed the vanities of the 
wrong people "just for the time  being".
 
We have to choose between the welfare of our people and our country  and 
worrying about politicians taking criticism personally and if they do take  
criticism personally, it further reinforces the fact that they belong elsewhere  and 
not in politics because in aspiring for political office, they seek to  
qualify for a job and those poised to "hire" them by casting their votes  will 
scrutinize them to see if they are fit for the job. If they tend to forget  that 
they are applying for a Job to serve the people and have to be qualified  for 
the job, it is our duty to remind them. 
 
And some may argue that most of our people are ignorant about  what qualifies 
a person to run our national affairs and instead are victims of  exploitation 
by devious politicians who have encouraged them to make their  decisions on 
who to support based on some of the variables you have mentioned,  then if 
those of us who say that we know what the decisive criterion that is  best for the 
people to adopt in choosing our leader do not prioritize educating  and 
exposing our people to that fact, then we are not sincere at all.
 
Where the norm has been to have people cast votes based on  factionalism and 
the insincere have created, nurtured and exploited and  continue to exploit 
that most heinous of crimes against the people in The  Gambian as in the rest of 
Africa, some of us believe that it is time for  this to come to an end. It is 
time that all those who profess to care  about the welfare of Gambia and 
Gambians, and indeed the welfare of Africans as  a whole to step up to the plate 
and be on the side of the people for once, and  to be part of the process of 
making sure that we weed out those who fail us time  and again by promoting 
divisiveness and self interest above national  interest even at the most critical 
of times as they are in The Gambia at this  moment.
No time has ever been darker  nor more critical in our history than  the 
nightmarish and evil reign of the APRC regime. No generation of  Gambians could 
have ever imagined that we would ever experience  what the people are 
experiencing under the Jammeh regime. From corruption to  cold blooded murder in broad 
daylight, to the resultant fear that has  gripped our people, and most 
surprising of all, to the complacency that some of  the populace have engaged in also 
to satisfy their own material interest.
 
In this light, any effort that would have made it possible to dislodge  these 
gang of thugs is more precious than life itself. Therefore, anyone whose  
actions and choices to gamble with this effort to see if they will win a coveted  
position and thereby compromises such an effort cannot have the interest of 
our  people at heart and therefore is in-fact an enemy to our people because 
they  have made choices that leave them to the possibility of continuing to live 
under  a regime where murder, disappearances and cold fear is the daily norm. 
No one  who cares, loves and puts our people first would ever do that and I 
would even  go so far as to say that they are an enemy to our people. No one 
can be  allowed to hold the people hostage while they pursue a personal quest 
for  power and to even suggest that we entertain such a thing nullifies any 
other  utterances that are made in support of liberating our people from tyranny.
 
You also wrote:
 
"Since its formation in the mid eighties, PDOIS behaved like a modern  
politcal apparatus. It recorded and archived all its ideas about governance,  
presented its opinion about all issues of national and regional  
significance, debated and defended its positions on these and operated  
consistently as an alternative government. Because it keeps records, and  
because it can date(!) national events it has opened up itself to probing  
and and can easily allow for transparency and more importantly, running an  
effective adminstration. One might not like Foroyaa, but one can remain  
confident that it provides a consistent and progressive source of political  
currency, even if one may not agree with it at all times. With sufficient  
resources, such a politcal apparatus can create and control a very strong  
organisation,"
 
You are quite right and it is quite evident that these are the building  
blocks of good governance and there is no doubt that even those who do not  
support them, the people behind such an organization not only have the  ingredients, 
the conviction, the dedication and the capabilities to lead us into  a bright 
future, they stand out head and shoulders among the political parties  in our 
country.  . Thus, in the interest of moving our people and  our country 
forward, let all sincere Gambians emulate them even if they do not  support them 
and concentrate our energies towards educating our people about  political 
issues and their rights so that they make choices correctly instead of  making 
excuses on behalf of those whose actions have demonstrated without a  doubt that 
they are anathema to that effort. That is the only way we can make  real 
progress towards shedding the yoke of tyranny as opposed to just  paying it lip 
service while supporting inexcusable behaviour that ensures taking  one step 
forward and two backwards.
 
Jabou Joh
 
In a message dated 9/10/2006 9:05:18 A.M. Central Daylight Time,  
[log in to unmask] writes:

Sister Jabou Joh and Brother Joe,

I had no intention to get to  this point in this exchange. It feels 
premature, because there is likely  to be a gruesome period of soul-searching 
amongst Gambians after the  coming elections. But I also fear that, akin to 
previous periods of  post-election trauma, all of that may end up into 
nothing more than having  therapeutic effect. I hope I will be proven wrong, 
in all  counts.

It is true that scrutiny is necessary. In normal  circumstances, I would 
have joined the fray to lay bare every political  attempt at power in Gambia 
even if that alone is hardly sufficient. But my  sensibilites are affected by 
the believe that the project towards  "unifying" the Opposition even after 
September 22 would be crucial for the  evolution of participatory democracy 
in our country. I tend to think that  our proclivites towards the state of 
the opposition coalititon and the  political alignments that the elections 
would produce, dictates present  individual preoccupations.

Ideally, we should demand the best  and should not lower our standards. But 
the very essence of a coalition  gestures precisely towards reaching 
compromises on those qualities we hold  as best and of higher standard; 
endearing us to construct a half-way house  between idealism and realism.
But as I said, if one believes that  the process is dead, the field opens 
up for internecine struggles of all  sorts, exposing what is worst in 
eachother's closet of ideas. This should  be unproblemmatic in developed 
polities where the contest for power rages  within the realm of ideas. But 
where other variables such as unprincipled  rivalry, vanity, ethnic identity, 
acquisitiveness, fear and even populism  sway voter sentiments greatly, 
violent criticism is often taken  personally. The effect is that the 
prospects for a future confluence of  opposition parties becomes more remote 
than formerly. And not only  that!
We all know the UDP, don't we? It has been around for the last  ten years, 
and so to seek certainty about its intentions in an election  manifesto is 
like aspiring to define the APRC from dictated fiction  gleaned from its 
Vision 2020 document. The UDP, like all of Gambia's post  independance 
political parties (except PDOIS) rides on varying doses of  populism, 
nevermind its professed assimilation of neoliberal, social  democratic 
values. When sometime before the 2001 elections, Hamjatta  Kanteh marketted 
Mr. Ousainou Darboe on Gambia-L as a most patriotic  Gambian who sacrificed 
everything to wage a struggle against the  quasi-military tyranny, some of us 
scoffed at that sort of politcal  commerce. Mr. Darboe, of course, deserves 
much respect, but the party he  leads, I thought even then, came to be the 
natural abode of disgruntled  politicians and businessmen made homeless by 
APRC purges of the PPP and  NCP. It posesses neither the ideological 
conviction nor the organizational  tradition to carry the struggle for power 
beyond mere protest against  corruption and the excesses of an egoistic 
political elite feeding on the  spoils of power. It cannot control and alter 
the role of institutions even  if it assumes state power. This conclusion 
brings me to the reason I think  the coalition is of major importance.

Since its formation in the  mid eighties, PDOIS behaved like a modern 
politcal apparatus. It recorded  and archived all its ideas about governance, 
presented its opinion about  all issues of national and regional 
significance, debated and defended its  positions on these and operated 
consistently as an alternative government.  Because it keeps records, and 
because it can date(!) national events it  has opened up itself to probing 
and and can easily allow for transparency  and more importantly, running an 
effective adminstration. One might not  like Foroyaa, but one can remain 
confident that it provides a consistent  and progressive source of political 
currency, even if one may not agree  with it at all times. With sufficient 
resources, such a politcal apparatus  can create and control a very strong 
organisation, even if such an  organisation may not necessarily be 
democratric in character. (I cannot  vouch for how decisions were reached 
inside PDOIS, thus my scepticism). It  is this character of PDOIS as a 
modern, workable institution, that appeals  to educated, young Gambians, 
perhaps because it rekindles a familiarity  with structures. Informed 
Gambians who oppose it are, therefore, easily  identifiable. As important as 
they are, I would refrain from mentioning  the characters of its leaders, as 
these, unlike the nature of the  organisation they represent, are transient. 
There has never been a  political party with such administrative, 
organisational and political  potential in our country, and these are the 
qualities with which it would  have infused the character of a coalition of 
opposition parties. NADD  could have evolved into a society-oriented politcal 
movement, i.e a  political instrument that reorganises society as a way of 
changing the  state; as opposed to a state-based politcal group - which have 
invariably  failed everywhere in Africa. NADD could have forever altered the 
nature of  politics in Gambia!

NADD's failure to mature into what we had  hoped for is of historic 
significance in a state as small as ours, and the  responsibility for this 
failure, spreads more widely than many seem to  think. To resuscitate NADD at 
time a time when the struggle for power is  at its peak is simply more 
difficult than doing so after the elections. I  think that effort should be 
pursued with even more vigour, and I do not  think continued internecine 
squabble will help it.

Cheers,
sidibeh

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