Independent View

The best of Jammeh

President Jammeh has delivered …his best speech to the nation and to the
world yet. At last he is beginning to sound tactful, measured and
presidential. He was applauded by many who said it marks the positive change
in a man who was good in making opponents and detractors because of his hard
line stance on many issues that tact, diplomacy and innocuous cajoling could
have taken care of with ease and without incident.

His inauguration Friday witnessed by an impressive line-up of his
counterparts from the sub-region including Nigerian President Obasanjo was
not an occasion for his usual abrasive remarks and cloying antics. Rather it
was ponderous, contrite, conciliatory and movingly compassionate. Jammeh no
doubt was at his rhetorical best when he asked for the nation’s forgiveness
for whatever kind of suffering Gambians and others were made to suffer
directly from the excesses of his regime. He spoke contritely of
reconciliation, giving unconditional amnesty to Jawara the man he ousted
from power seven years ago.

He harped on the need to look beyond the limited and parochial confines of
politics and rally to the call of building The Gambia. The speech is
remarkable for three reasons. Firstly asking for forgiveness for past wrongs
helps to remind the nation that Jammeh is after all human and therefore
prone to self-borne mistakes and sometimes manipulation from the zealot lot
of his followers who had tried to mystify him and render him indisposed to
Gambians.

Moreover the past seven years have not been a particularly cheerful chapter
of Jammeh with the economy nose-diving, the Dalasi plummeting, human rights
record reaching a rock bottom, political divisions assuming a vicious turn
for the worse and Gambia’s image in international standing diminishing
because of the confrontational and paranoia style of the regime. The absence
of a press-friendly environment, visits, arrests and detention by the NIA
and the climate of intolerance of dissent made Jawara’s days a nostalgic
past. Recent sacking of civil servants, which went unexplained to a
stupefied populace, also gave ammunition to critics and skeptics of the
regime to pummel Jammeh with a blizzard of criticisms for his ways. But
today all that may be consigned to history since his speech compelling as it
were should be given the benefit of the doubt. If he is not to be taken at
face value, Jammeh has propounded a fresh new beginning - a beginning for
compromise, cooperation, patriotism, understanding and resolve to augment
the common cause.

Although skeptics say the leopard can never change its spots, words can
still suffice as evidence of a changed heart, provided they are followed by
actions pregnant with resolve, commitment and understanding. Although Jammeh
is on record for saying one good thing and acting differently later, he may
well be excused for his plea for forgiveness for the wrongs he knows his
regime has committed against innocent people. Unconditional amnesty for Sir
Dawda may also have come late, but it was always far better than not having
it at all. It is a good start to the reconciliation the regime frequently
harps on while it follows policies that can potentially divide the country.
In the intervening months and years Jammeh’s actions would be judged
according to those words that has endeared him to many who were sworn
critics of his rule.

As he settles for a second term and as Gambians try to be convinced that
Jammeh’s call is sincere and patriotic and pertinent to our newfound
breather in democracy let us pray that Jammeh is not like the fable leopard
who found it impossible either to hide or change its spots. For a people
with a peaceful way of life, excusing Jammeh for past wrongs and forgetting
the injustices of the past should not be a tall order. What a refreshing way
to start a new year!





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