Do you plead for you and your moment on the national stage, or do you plead 
for Gambia and her suffering people?

I am glad, even in the midst of our disillusionment, that there are 
Gambians, such as Lamin Darbo, who would demand for those that wish to lead 
us, to put Gambia First.  The above if anything, is what not only the party 
leaders must answer, but all Gambians as well, you and I, and honestly.  
This is why I am very very pissed off with our situation and how Gambians 
relegate the collective interest for sub interests, that is a loose loose 
situation for our peoples - all of us regardless of class, religion, 
ethnicity, and gender.  Let us not sacrifice the faith of a dying nation for 
the wishes of a few.  I hate to even contemplate Yaya running Gambia and 
Gambians to their graves, 30 years later.  That might happen if Gambians 
accept their situation.  When that happens, being a Jola, Mandingo, Wolof, 
Serrer, Fula, Ngajo, Sarahule, etc., will not do jack for you.  Whether you 
are a UDP, NRP, NADM, PPP, or PDOIS, will not do jack for you either.  What 
Gambians will have in common aside from mangoes, will be misery and more 
misery.  It would be a waste of energy to even say I told you so.  Five 
years will turn into decades and hey, dog eat dog continues.  I am getting 
tired of being tired for the way we are.  As usual Lamin, something for 
Gambians to really ponder about.  What we do with it, well it is for us to 
live with the outcome.

Chi Jaama

Joe



>From: Lamin Darbo <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: [log in to unmask]
>To: NADD <[log in to unmask]>, [log in to unmask],   UDPNRP Coalition 
><[log in to unmask]>,   The Gambia and related-issues mailing list 
><[log in to unmask]>,   [log in to unmask]
>Subject: [>-<] RE:  THE CERTAINTY OF DEFEAT FOR A FRAGMENTED OPPOSITION     
>     Date: Wed, 14 Jun 2006 11:48:09 +0100 (BST)
>
>  Memo to Leaders of Parties Comprising the Opposition Coalitions
>
>   RE:  THE CERTAINTY OF DEFEAT FOR A FRAGMENTED OPPOSITION
>
>
>   A bare three months to Decision Friday, there appears to be parity of 
>vision between the so-called opposition coalitions, and the APRC. Even as I 
>accept the possibility of a dramatic shift in the balance of competing 
>visions, and with it the electoral fortunes of a fully coalesced 
>opposition, it has to be recognised that any such window is narrowing by 
>the day.
>
>   If only to restate what numerous commentators at home and abroad 
>accurately surmised, there is no question that a fragmented opposition will 
>comprehensively collapse in any, and all efforts to electorally consign 
>APRC to history. Should the tragedy of defeat only tangentially exercise 
>your anxieties, the official formalisation of that foregone certainty may 
>permanently freeze most of you out of serious national leadership.
>
>   Even as you woefully failed in discerning the interest of Gambia, it 
>requires no genius to fully appreciate your very own, and act to promote 
>it. With Kombo East as clear microcosm of Decision Friday, I urge that you 
>revisit and reengage the issue of whether your personal interest lies in a 
>fragmented contest against APRC.
>
>   As you accurately preamblise in the five-party NADD Memorandum of 
>Understanding, lawlessness and self perpetuating rule, with their full 
>panoply of attendant perversions of democratic governance, continues to 
>corrode the fabric of our public life. A state of affairs where a sizeable 
>segment of the population accepts governmental heavy-handedness as normal, 
>and the majority lives in fear, cannot in any way be a harbinger of 
>pleasant tidings for the body politic of The Gambia. In light of our quite 
>precarious existence, it is extraordinary that NADD, as originally 
>conceived, foundered in the manner it did over the comparatively trivial 
>matter of a flag bearer.
>
>   Although willing to accept the possible existence of varying levels of 
>culpability, I reject the uncritical insinuation that only one party, and, 
>or, person, drove the original NADD off the road. On any analysis, this 
>sounds too simplistic. Confronted as we are with a national emergency, you 
>must now demonstrate the selflessness with which you were uncritically 
>associated, individually, and collectively. If the current impasse 
>translates to the ultimate collapse of the project, that can only exemplify 
>a collective tragic failure in leadership. In that eventuality, you should 
>seriously reconsider your positions, individually and collectively, as 
>standard bearers of national parties.
>
>   Either that or a betrayed public will loudly do it for you after 
>Decision Friday!
>
>   For the avoidance of any doubt, I take nothing from what I said about 
>Honourable Halifa Sallah in proposing him for flag bearer of the five-party 
>NADD. That proposal was the outcome of a cold and strategic assessment of 
>what I understood to be our nation's electoral reality, and NADD's best 
>weapon against APRC. It was also based on the assumption that the UDP – the 
>party I supported over the years, and with the numbers to effectively 
>torpedo any arrangement it opposes – would buy into the logic of Halifa as 
>flag bearer. In a nutshell, my overriding calculation was premised on the 
>assumption that as Gambians at the edge of the same precipice, we were also 
>staring at the same abyss and its terrifying possibilities. On purely 
>pragmatic considerations, and in the interest of nudging the original NADD 
>project to a deal, I now revisit my stance on flag bearer*
>
>   Should the opposition remain fragmented, Decision Friday will likely 
>usher in a tremendously changed political landscape. It is not fanciful to 
>postulate that as the current constellation of oppositionist party leaders, 
>you have a mere three months to fulfil your date with destiny. In the event 
>of a three-way contest on Sep 22, the APRC will "secure" the public mandate 
>for another five years. In that eventuality, the vast majority of you will 
>be consigned to the fringes of political leadership by 2011, assuming that 
>contest was not pre-empted by forces demonstrating a palpable lack of faith 
>in the "democratic" process. Some of your parties, and, or, your coalitions 
>will be moribund. As a credentialed crusader for the rule of law in The 
>Gambia is wont to quip, you can take that to the bank.
>
>   Notwithstanding respectable dissent, it is objectively clear that the 
>impending presidential polls represent a watershed in Gambian public life. 
>I therefore reject the defeatist suggestion that reconstituting the 
>original NADD is no longer possible. As such a contention has no basis in 
>political reality, any among you party leaders suffering the urge to act in 
>accordance with this particular position should have no business aspiring 
>to an area councillorship.
>
>   In similar vein, I reject the contention that reconstituting NADD 
>remains your exclusive prerogative as party leaders, the so-called 
>Executive Committee of the original entity. As stakeholders, the 
>opposition’s supporters are entitled to a say on how the September 
>elections ought to be contested. It is my view that, as the victims of 
>tyranny, and the intended beneficiaries of dislodging APRC from our 
>councils of state, any project in this regard is our enterprise. As party 
>leaders, and clearly crucial to providing direction and momentum to the 
>ultimate success of the enterprise, you are nevertheless mere trustees of a 
>vital national project. As fiduciaries, your duty is to the people you 
>intend to liberate from the clutches of tyranny. Your duty is to us, and we 
>accordingly have standing to challenge your vision on the way forward!
>
>   Notwithstanding your public pronouncements, you may be of the view that 
>referring to 2006 as a make or break year mischaracterises the magnitude of 
>our national condition. Even to the casual observer, the overwhelming 
>evidence of the gathering storm over our national space must be obvious. 
>The relentless atmosphere of repression is simply not sustainable, and 
>something has clearly got to give. On the grounds that no Gambian deserves 
>to suffer in a civil conflict against the dictatorship, I still contend for 
>the proposition that the electoral process must be the principal route and 
>a coalition the main vehicle.
>
>   Should the foregoing argument appeal to you, the urgency to reunify the 
>splintered NADD cannot be overemphasised. As a matter of principle, I 
>celebrate vision regardless of source, but reject all manifestations of 
>delusion in similar manner. Against a fragmented opposition in September, 
>it is delusional to even suggest the electoral vulnerability of APRC under 
>our first-past-the-post system. In the best of circumstances, neither of 
>your coalitions can do the job all alone.
>
>   How you fail to appreciate that the only empire likely to emerge out of 
>APRC’s ruins is that of the people - sired and nurtured on promoting the 
>rule of law and the dignity of the individual – is the extraordinary and 
>eternal shame of NADD's disintegration. As I cannot envision a new dawn of 
>kings and their legions of sycophantic courtiers, I reject any leadership 
>that mirrors the natural inclination of dictatorships in personalizing 
>political questions of national dimension.
>
>   And so you are not amiss in anchoring your hopes and policies firmly in 
>reality, national leaders who toy with any form of parochialism are better 
>advised to accept that Gambia’s communities are damned to the common fate 
>of camaraderie or tragedy. We are condemned to survive or collapse as a 
>national community, not as communities within a nation. Sink or swim, we 
>must experience our plight as a collective. That fate is absolute and 
>allows for no variation whatsoever!
>
>   Never in doubt about the agonising challenge of fashioning a workable 
>coalition, I am nevertheless of the firm view that those who aspire to the 
>rarefied task of directing the destiny of a nation must be mature and 
>pragmatic enough to appreciate and navigate the bottlenecks inherent to a 
>project of such critical import. I accept that we are yet to arrive at the 
>unfulfilled terminus of the five-party MOU driven NADD project, but now 
>more than ever, decisive and visionary leadership is of paramount 
>necessity.
>
>   An event of great moment occurs on Decision Friday. The choice is 
>between transiency and permanency, and it is your prerogative to choose, 
>and Gambia's to judge.
>
>   How do you then plead gentlemen?
>
>   Do you plead for you and your moment on the national stage, or do you 
>plead for Gambia and her suffering people?
>
>   Just so you are aware, Gambia is poised to render its verdict after 
>Decision Friday
>
>   In the meantime, I urge that Gambians sympathetic to the opposition 
>cause refrain from rewarding failure through the wastage of funds on either 
>of the coalitions in their conclusively tentative and futile efforts 
>against the APRC in the event of a three-way presidential contest. I 
>appreciate we cannot require specific performance on a five-party NADD as 
>originally conceived as long as you know not to count on principled and 
>pragmatic Gambians to sponsor your fruitless journeys to nowhere.
>
>
>   Lamin J Darbo
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>   *          PROPOSAL OUT OF THE OPPOSITION STALEMATE
>
>               In broad terms, I propose that:
>
>
>
>    Subject to any electoral rules, Ousainou Darboe be selected as flag 
>bearer of the five-party MOU driven NADD, and that Honourable Halifa Sallah 
>be selected as his running mate, i.e., as president, and vice president 
>respectively
>
>
>    NADD as a “neutral” entity remain the collective vehicle of a reunified 
>coalition unless there are electoral rules barring Ousainou Darboe from 
>heading it.
>
>
>    In the event of a NADD victory, a government of national unity be set 
>up, and that the transition period be reduced from five years to two years 
>to allow for stability and political certainty. All constituent parties of 
>the transition government should be able to contest in the post transition 
>presidential polls
>
>
>    Each of the party leaders be included in the national unity government 
>at cabinet level
>
>
>    A constitutional review commission be established to help make the 1997 
>Constitution rule of law, and separation of powers compliant
>
>
>    The government of national unity decide on how to approach the January 
>legislative elections
>
>   Details Subject to Negotiation
>
>
>
>
>
>
>  Send instant messages to your online friends 
>http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

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