CORDEG’s Utterly Blurred
Vision

Its leadership is
almost entirely Diaspora-based, with some absent from The Gambia for two, maybe
three decades. Under Professor Jammeh’s Constitution, none of those leaders are
qualified to contest any public elections slated for 2016/17. Outside the cyber
political world, the organisation and its leadership are unknown, and
crucially, to all but probably a negligible fraction of the home-based
electorate. With no money on the table, it nevertheless pretends to the title
of “... home to Gambian opposition political parties and Civil Society
organisations at home and in Gambia’s various Diasporas”. Without so much as a
passing justification, it seeks to wholly diminish the established and singularly
significant home-based political opposition by proposing to commingle its
influence in an egalitarian commune populated by purported civil society entities
peopled, in the overwhelming number of cases, by a handful of individuals. Even
more egregiously, what should have been a national project was hijacked and
placed in the exclusive control of three very close social and cultural
friends.

Welcome to the
make-believe world of The Committee for the Restoration of Democracy in The Gambia
(CORDEG). As if to compound the illogical and unsupportable claim it is “...
home to Gambian opposition political parties and Civil Society organisations at
home and in Gambia’s various Diasporas” it asserts that “CORDEG recognises the
autonomy of its constituent members as equal
partners in the struggle to democratise The Gambia”. Whoever its “constituent
members” maybe as of March 2014, it is unreasonableness personified to contend
that CORDEG itself has the clout to demand “equal partner” status with political
parties whose followership number in the hundreds of thousands!

As the latest organisational progeny of the Gambian Conference on
Democracy and Good Governance, Raleigh, North Carolina, 17-19 May 2013, CORDEG
was originally projected as a facilitating mechanism for party-based opposition
unity in Gambia’s fight for national democratisation. At least that was a
plausible understanding of its primary objective based on the marketing
literature put out by conference organisers. In the subsequent Raleigh Accord,
some reference to the G6 was maintained but the role of home-based political parties
was progressively diluted to a point all specific reference to their very
central significance to a project that must be fought and won inside Gambia’s
geographic contours was dropped from the just-published CORDEG “vision”
statement.

Without question, there
is a yawning gap in CORDEG’s incomprehensible reasoning. As an “independent,
non-profit transnational democratic umbrella organisation that is committed to
peaceful, non-violent democratic change in The Gambia”, it stands to reason
that CORDEG can effect change in The Gambia only through the electoral process.
With no political base where it matters – in The Gambia – and deficient in
critical aspects of the political process such as funding, it is hard to appreciate
the locus of the leverage CORDEG assigns itself as the “... home to Gambian
opposition political parties and Civil Society organisations at home and in
Gambia’s various Diasporas”. The established political parties have no reason
to subsume themselves in an unknown entity that purports to control them and
their clear influence. Herein CORDEG’s disconnect with reality as far as
Gambia’s political terrain.

Or maybe there is no
disconnect, but what calculations are driving CORDEG’s so far opaque strategy
are too opportunistic to openly communicate without triggering great public
disquiet. It is an open secret that Gambian public life under the Professor is unsettled
enough to collapse either of its overwhelming weight vis-a-vis its utterly weak foundation, or with a little push from
some hostile quarter. Should that happened in a chaotic manner on the stretch
to 2016, it would completely alter the dynamics of play in the country’s
political topography. Like any of the endless array of Diaspora-based organisations,
CORDEG would likely want a seat at the table of inevitable reconciliation
around a transitional national unity government. There are various other scenarios
present in a seismic national event that ruptures the current status quo and
elements within CORDEG may want to hedge bets just in case. On the formation of
the National Resistance of The Gambia, Yero Jallow of Gainako Online Newspaper profoundly reflects: “Isit by coincidence all these groups are
emerging or do the fortune tellers of the land revealed a secret that some of
us are not aware yet? I just find things very interesting nowadays. It is as if
people are clearly seeing Jammeh's demise”.

If CORDEG’s focus is sincerely on a peaceful change of government, the key
question is why it treats the established political parties as though they are in
the same league as some of the Diaspora’s less than ten-people organisations. Can
it be that CORDEG harbours the ambition of morphing into a political party and
under that calculus may consider it unwise to get too cosy with any of the
current crop of home-based political parties. If that is the case, CORDEG ought
to dispense with all pretense and consolidate on that independent and legally
permissible basis. Or is it intending to travel the fictional route of sponsoring
an independent presidential candidate outside the explicit blessing of the
established parties, or some of them at least. Whatever its real intentions,
CORDEG can achieve nothing meaningful without expressly recognising the
stranglehold of the established home-based political parties on the electorate
that must decide the outcome of any election. Even more crucially, it must
embrace Gambia’s true diversity in its critical decision-making organ. 

We can all admire the personal achievements of some CORDEG members but
that unquestioned reverence must never extend to matters touching on critical
issues of Gambian public life. By all means celebrate the friendships and other
relationships but do not require us to endorse pronouncements grounded in mere
assertions, and visions that fell far short of what it takes to bring personal
and national political salvation to The Gambia. What CORDEG placed on the table
is not a national vision. It is a vision for personalities and a quite marginal
group when what is needed is a selfless commitment to the creation of a
national tent large enough to accommodate all colours of opinion but realistic
enough to cede leadership to the more compelling players inhabiting the storm
centre of Gambian public life. 

In light of its comparative strength and appeal, CORDEG is best advised
to pitch its tent in the domain most suited to its objective character,
advocacy that has as its central element the facilitation of opposition party
consolidation where it matters, inside Gambia. If, like others, CORDEG projects
itself as an entity committed to forceful change in Gambian public life, this
rejoinder would not be necessary as it would then be operating under different
justifications and rules, and more crucially, on its exclusive resources to
realise its objective. In the political world, it denotes unreasonableness of
the highest order to seek to either proactively control or diminish the
significance of entities without whose willing cooperation and resources there
is absolutely no chance of achieving ones desired objective. As CORDEG advanced
no reasonable explanation to its boldest assertion of not conceding any
supremacy to political parties with supporters in the hundreds of thousands, its
true intentions may at best be regarded as mired in opaqueness. To recognise no
distinction between established political parties on the ground, and few-person
entities like the myriad of so-called civil society organisations in the
distant Diaspora, is the very epitomisation of fantasy. 

This apparently characteristic opaqueness on critical questions is
threatening to be the albatross around CORDEG’s neck. In the run-up to Raleigh,
the conveners of the conference were marketed as STGDP, based in Atlanta, and
GDAG, based in the host city. After Raleigh, DUGA-DC was retrospectively
included among the conveners. No explanation was ever advanced. Even more
crucially, when CORDEG’s leadership team was unveiled, GDAG, the other
principal to Raleigh, came out utterly empty handed in the executive and
sub-executive line up. Again, no explanation whatsoever even though this turn
of events is potentially the most fatal development going to CORDEG’s very
questionable credibility. In case any is tempted to advance the democratic
process as having spoken on the leadership issue, I strongly suggest that a
fair and visionary group would exercise heightened and appropriate sensitivity
in the overall circumstances it was confronted with as far selecting its top
echelon team. To its regrettable peril, CORDEG blatantly ignored common sense!

For example, CORDEG purportedly ‘elected’ three socially and culturally
connected individuals in the persons of Dr Abdoulaye Saine (Chair), Ms Sigga M
Jagne (Vice-chair), and Abdulai Jobe (Secretary General), and probably imposed them on the group as
the untouchable Executive Committee (EC). Were the participants in its
so-called executive elections on prior notice that “the EC is CORDEG’s top-tier
administrative group, responsible for overall policy, strategy and
implementation of CORDEG’s programs and projects, with the Secretary General
(SG) serving as the hub for CORDEG’s specialiased Committees/Directorates”.
These three very close friends are “also responsible for Foreign
Affairs/International Diplomacy, strategic partnerships and overall management
of CORDEG”. Or were the responsibilities attached to the positions after the
elections? If the latter, the overall process does not pass the smell test!

Stated unequivocally, Dr Abdoulaye Saine, Ms Sigga M Jagne, and Abdulai
Jobe comprise CORDEG’s equivalent of the UN Security Council with power to veto
anything they don’t like. The public deserves clarification on whether the
so-called “vision” statement predates the elections, or whether the “vision”
statement was crafted after the elections. I cannot accept that some of the
independently minded individuals I encountered in this struggle, and who
participated in CORDEG’s so-called elections, would have voted for such a
perverse arrangement had they known they were endorsing a dictatorship of three
social and cultural chums in the sense that the “Steering Committee”, and the “Specialised
Committees/Directorates” are utterly redundant in the area of crucial management
decision making. In light of the above, I emphatically reject the claim in the
so-called “vision” statement that CORDEG “enjoys wide mandate and legitimacy,
as the recognised representative and voice of the Gambian opposition the
world-over”.

Notwithstanding the claim of “home to Gambian
opposition political parties and Civil Society organisations at home and in
Gambia’s various Diasporas”, we know
there are other Diaspora groups with competing priorities and some are calling
for even CORDEG to join them. The claim and the reality therefore diverged.
Indeed CORDEG continues to ignore the fact that not all political parties were
present in Raleigh, and some prominent participants are now leading groups with
quite a militant approach to ending public lawlessness in The Gambia. CORDEG’s
very deficient “vision” statement can only make it impossible for those outside
this architecturally flawed “umbrella” to want to peep in, much less join its
cover. Although there appears to be many unanswered questions around CORDEG’s
intentions, or at least the intentions of those steering the entity in the
unlit pathways of potential deception, what is explicit in its own “vision”
statement is alarming enough to scare me away.

Those who contend for the proposition that unity is the highest value we
should aspire to in our fight against atrocious public lawlessness in Gambian
public life are counselled to embrace the more admirable philosophy of
objective reason and fairness as the highest foundational values of any viable national
space. As currently constituted, CORDEG’s “vision”, and top leadership team, lacks
both reason and fairness! CORDEG will therefore struggle for traction. Don’t
take my word for it. I am more than content to leave the verdict in the hands
of that great arbiter of human affairs – time. 
 
And in case any is tempted to brand legitimate queries on seminal
national issues as a distraction, I suggest some inner self-conversation around
the fundamental question of what you have done/are doing for the vital struggle
for a democratic Gambia that the person supposedly causing a distraction has no
done. In the event of a struggle for an affirmative answer, that inner
conversation should constitute cogent instruction that more self reflection may
be required. And in the event of an irresistible temptation to don a mask and
hurl abuse, ask if you are any better than the faceless criminals wreaking
havoc under colour of public authority on defenceless fellow citizens in The
Gambia 

Needless to say, I shall not be supporting CORDEG as currently
constituted and projected!
 
 
Lamin J Darbo

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