Apathetic And Pathetic What's shocking, and in no small measure, is the painful realization that in scant six years of Yahya Jammeh's presidency, a lot has gone to wrack and ruin in The Gambia. Not since the tremors of 1981 and the consequential monstrosities, have The Gambia wallowed in so much political decrepitude with hopes for rectitude and salvation so fleeting after bouts of heightened national optimism. Jammeh's overthrow of a corrupt and decrepit leadership, and its propensity to perpetuate the misery and hopelessness of old rather than usher in momentous changes, leaves Gambians concluding, perhaps to the point of vertigo, that leaders can be worse than useless, and as a consequence, destructive to the national collective. Jammeh, once thought of a redeemer, now has his abject failures slake the public thirst for an immediate altering of the status quo. The Gambia is in deplorable conditions. When citizens suffer the way Gambians do, the ultimate effect is loss of credibility and legitimacy for leaders. Today, Jammeh is a leader short of credibility yet surfeited with arrogance and power to perpetuate himself and damn the consequences. His continued grip on power while unleashing a can of worms on the people is an affront to the sovereignty of the citizenry. Democracy teaches that leaders are servants not masters, and when they fail to render services, they must submit to rational public consensus and pave the way for fresh impetus. Has Jammeh failed the Gambian people? Yes, in ways unimaginable. Better still, does he know it? Yes again. And does he have the conscience of a democrat to listen to rational public opinion and submit to corrective measures or that failing, vacate the political scene? Absolutely not. He remains impervious to the miseries and concerns of the common man. Anchored in the obscurity of his home village, Jammeh is a leader out of touch with his people. Donating tractors received from the Taiwanese as pork-barrels, to farmers in the hinterland, is what translates into leadership-effectiveness for Jammeh. But if foreign hand-outs and vainglorious projects were what assuage political and economic decadence, dollops of foreign cash sloshing in Jammeh's litany of leviathan projects, would have created economic growth and prosperity. Well, newsflash: Gambians are poorer today than they were before. Employment opportunities are harder to come by. Job seekers hopelessly roam the streets like itinerant salesmen. Many Gambians have been dismissed from their jobs mainly for political reasons. As a consequence, numerous families are mired in economic depravity. Abject poverty is battering Gambian lives away to vanishing points. Yet the cushioning effects are in short supply. The political sector is harvesting a bumper-crop of leaders, corrupt and incapable of instilling verve and enthusiasm in the economic lives of the people. While the led dabble at the game of survival, the leaders perfect that of flamboyance and ostentation. Plush, expensive cars lit the streets. Representatives in the National Assembly avail themselves whopping salary increments, while the common man toils with beggarly incomes barely enough to eke out a living. And: Jammeh, as if insatiable in his wont to insult Gambian intelligence, recently bragged about his wealth, sufficient enough, he announced, to last him and his descendants. He is turning his native village into an oasis of bliss, while the rest of the country continues to sink into the abyss of economic hopelessness. Yet, indifferent to the plight of the people and lacking the sponginess required of leaders in times of simmering mass discontentment, Jammeh just waxes provocatively villainously. He threatens to bury his opponents six-feet deep. He incites his militants to wreck havoc in the community. His soldiers massacred innocent schoolchildren, and he shows no remorse but disrespect to the dead and their families. So, this is the leader The Gambia elected in 1996? Pity the Gambian people! Cherno Baba Jallow Detroit, MI _________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com. Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at http://profiles.msn.com. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html You may also send subscription requests to [log in to unmask] if you have problems accessing the web interface ----------------------------------------------------------------------------