The Magi of 22nd July: Socio-economic Development, Human Dignity and Security

Once again President Jammeh’s speech has articulated the bedrock foundation of the APRC political
platform that envisions a better Gambia.  Jammeh has enunciated these three cardinal points at
various moments of his 22nd July address to the nation:  Socio-economic development; human dignity
by freedom of conscience and religious tolerance; peace and stability.
Jammeh is obviously a realist, a pragmatic politician and definitely no dreamer.  As such the APRC
approach to governance defines a stark contrast with the Opposition i.e. the socialist and utopian
PDOIS; the politics of vengeance as preached by NDAM, UDP, PPP and the marginal NRP.  The APRC
leadership has a firm grasp of what Machiavellian “virtu” means in a struggling democracy that
lacks the institutional guarantees modified by trial and error over years in developed countries.
The good of any society is cultivated by citizens exercising certain civic virtues.  Jammeh says
this very eloquently: “socio-economic development is a noble duty...of every good citizen.”  This
requires practical wisdom and not empty claims to some abstract human rights. Jammeh also echoes
the Lockean proposition that human beings have an “inalienable right to life, liberty and
property.”  So far history has proven the Magi of the 22nd July correct and yes Jammeh is right,
within only nine years the APRC has wrestled with ignorance by establishing a university and
expanding education beyond the imagination of all skeptics and nay-sayers.  Democracy and the
respect of rights do not rhyme with ignorance, illiteracy and poverty.  Again Jammeh is right,
without peace and stability life is absolutely impossible; human dignity has no meaning without a
conscientious belief in the transcendence within an environment of religious tolerance; and
liberty is unachievable without the acquisition of individual property.  Political defiance or
resistance without finance is a nuisance.  And nuisance not social justice is what most of these
“oppositions” are all about.
So what has 22nd July demonstrated to us in the new era of African politics?  Long ago, an era
that spans the whole postcolonial period, African politics was dominated by the meritocracy of our
learned doctors: the Osagyfos in Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana; the Ulemas in the Grand Teacher of
Tanzania peoples, Julius Nyerere; and the Kairabas in Dr. Jawara of Gambia.  These are all typical
philosopher-kings, the arch-enemies of any open, free and democratic society as the British
philosopher Karl Popper once argued.  They have mismanaged their countries, misled their people
and emasculated all hopes of a prosperous democratic Africa.  Instead they left a sordid legacy of
wretched idealism and lethargic wishful thinking that still haunt the Gambian “Opposition”.
In the new APRC leadership we have a new breed of leadership that augurs hope in Africa: a
synthesis of timocracy and democracy as manifest in Presidents Jammeh, Museveni, Toure and
Obasanjo- pragmatic leaders who know how to be a Machiavellian “fox and lamb” in order to husband
the civic virtues and energies of their people for the common good. These leaders exuberate the
very essence of a democratic spirit that great achievements always have a humble origin; that
nobility can rise up from just about any where, it has no social class, ethnicity or any other
special attributes.  Thank God none of these leaders intimidate the common people with a long list
of academic credentials.
Finally, I shall end with these sagacious words of Edmund Burke:

“In the course I have known and, according to my measure, have co-operated with great men; and I
have never yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the observations of those who were much
inferior in understanding to the person who took the lead in the business”.

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