Folks,

This piece, by another "Mental Midget" who has to sing Jammeh's praises to keep a lousy job, makes very interesting reading. I am sure the blinkered and narrow-minded on the List would be quick to challenge his views, but then again, why not? Afterall everyone is entitled to his/her opinion even if it borders on outright dishonesty.

Have a good day, Gassa.

Yahya’s Punkals & The Quiet Revolution

What struck me about the composition of the present government secretaries of state is their relative ‘youth’. They are turned on, tuned in and in touch with whatever is happening, they are ‘playas’ in other words streetwise and with the people.

The election of 2001 was not about countrywide issues, but local. It was the election when everything changed, and yet still everything stayed the same. It was as if the number of parliamentary seats held by the main parties was suspended in spatial ambience. But what contradict this soporific façade was a new politics was making itself felt, driven by primeval distrust of the old ‘cronyism’ system of past years and the return of local allegiance. That specific local motivation, not seen in the Gambian political arena since British colonialism, goes a long way to explain why such a drastic change occurred during the election. The election proved that ‘young’ heads are just as astute as ‘old’ heads. In dozens of seats nationwide, many good ‘old’ heads were voted out and replaced by young adventurous and modern heads. Many people were moved to vote for youthful MP’s and ‘old’ heads because (1) ‘old’ heads brought reasoning to temper the ‘young’ heads idealisms =’new realism’, (2) they were impressed with the way they addressed local issues and actions proposed to tackle corruption.

Political strategists in the ruling party realised that, the other parties’ globalisation of the issues facing the electorate has had an opposing effect of making voters connect more to overwhelmingly local issues. It is this that explains why so many young men of the APRC were elected. They understood that it is the quality of the local schools, hospitals and unemployment that were important and people deeply passionate about.

I saw the inauguration speech on television; I was also in Banjul during the Senegalese president’s visit. The speech by Yahya Jammeh shows the APRC have woken up to the ‘new realism’. “We would not compromise our security for human rights or democratic rights”. It was an extraordinary statement, but one has to understand the climate that exists after September 11, 2001 (the downing of the twin tower in New York), it is courageous and said with forthrightness knowing that his detractors will pick upon and milk it for all it is worth. Yahya’s uncomprehending opponents or the hard of hearing and blinkered would seize upon it and say the man at best is a dreamer, at worst is becoming a dictator. What was said simply meant, the progress made during the past seven years would be consolidated and future plans implemented. There are pills to be swallowed and it is not all going to be pleasant. Steps taken so far are promising and are heading at the right direction. The government reforms to the public services would be based on treating them as ‘community institutions and not part of the government’. The president pointed out that there should be a degree of local control; ‘centralisation’ of the past was a mistake.
Att: Mr MM Touray (page Two)

Yahya’s Punkals & The Quiet Revolution

A recent encounter with some of these ‘punkals’ (Yankouba Touray, Usman Bagie, Baboucar Sowe, Gibril Joof, Tamsir Jallow, Saidu Jallow et al) is a repudiation of everything that went on in the past. They seem to be united in one purpose, to make the Gambia a better place and they are also better informed about global politicking. During my conversation, there were no character assassination or ill will towards opponents. There is maturity in their thinking, very philosophical.

Yahya’s new slogan is ‘the sky is the limit’. In political terms the implications of this innocent word is enormous. It opens the way for the opponent of his government to criticise. What he means by ‘the sky is the limit’ is simple; together we can make the impossible possible. But it is even more radical; it also implies attacking the old form of governance, the doing away with the residues of ‘colonial’ centralised control, this played a greater role than expected in the ruination of local institutions. It will help people to focus this doctrine of returning power to the people, not dictating to them from above, fits easily with ‘traditional’ African society way of doing things. The empowerment of ‘bantabas’ (local councils), that acts as a go-between linking the person and the huge monolithic and unfriendly state. This new thinking of ‘the sky is the limit’ is profoundly at odds with everything that colonialism and 'past practices' stood for; it is giving back control to the people at local level that in turn will influence how central government behaved. It is a way of saying to the people; we could do even better than the previous five years.

More noteworthy, it puts the APRC at one with the mood of the times, the first in many years. The business community and investors are looking for a more dispersed chain of command formation. Some will say, the dispersal of power from state house will expose the president’s vulnerability, rather the opposite. In more ways than one, it gets rid of control freakery that lies behind the failings of many African governments.

Should the president go through with the doctrine of ‘the sky is the limit’, which I believe he will, it would be a hard act to follow by any other government, after his elected term ends. Yahya’s punkals find themselves for the first time in living African political memory to be enjoying a degree of goodwill and support not found before on the African continent. It is a challenge to the president himself, so far all the signs are he would deliver, he leads a progressive party, the will and determination are there, the implements for socio-political and economic change are being harnessed, it would take a little time, barring external interference in the country’s affairs and negative internal opposition support, just like making love ‘the sky is the limit’.

By, Musa –K
(Musa D’abo-Kalamulah) London 04-2002