Dear Pa Nderry,

I am writing this letter to the editor to protest your moderation of the most recent program with Elhadgi Mustapha who makes periodic appearances on your program. I recognize and value the notion that different Gambians have correspondingly different ideas on how to address the very serious problems we face as a nation. Our prescriptions therefore are not mutually exclusive nor are they going to always necessarily converge even as our intentions are by and large the same.

I am equally as frustrated as many well meaning Gambians are on the apparent lack of unity of the established political parties opposed to the terrible regime of Yahya Jammeh.


The solution however cannot come from the kind of vituperative exchanges you had with your guest in which you substituted the norms of a typical broadcast moderation with chortles and chuckles and indulged Mustaphas' ugly insinuations and lies accusing the person of Ousainou Darboe with everything from being on the payroll of Yahya Jammeh to tribalism.

Even if you share his opinions , not having Ousainou or an authorized representative of his on the program meant you as presenter of the broadcast had a responsibility to your audience to make him substantiate the garbage he was spewing. Instead you acted bemused and kept congratulating him on personally attacking someone who has no way of responding.


That Elhadgi Mustapha doesn’t like Ousainou Darboe or his political philosophy or styles is not the issue because he is entitled to prefer someone else or no one but to preside over a program in the one sided manner you did was wrong. If we all agree that the opposition are collectively falling short of what we the citizens want, we should by all means challenge them on the merits of the arguments we set forth.
In fact, I strongly urge all my fellow citizens to participate in the political process including taking the leaders such as Ousainou to task on their leadership or lack thereof. What we must all resist is to give into the occasional base human instincts that can only poison minds and further divide people by casting aspersions based on imaginary foibles.I would like to list a few of the odious pronouncements your guest made that have no bearing to the truth and in the process I challenge you or Mustapha to present concrete evidence to the contrary.

1-Ousainou Darboe is a tribalist. No he is not . If you or Mustapha
can cite one single instant, event, time, location , statement in
which Ousainou Darboe has demonstrated even an incling of tribalism,
please put it out there for your readership to evaluate. Allah knows
you can't and neither could anyone else. It is simply not the case.
Infact Ousainou's background is the quintessential celebration of
Gambian diversity having being raised by two colonial era politicians
his father Numukunda Darboe and PS Njie both of whom relied on cross
tribal coalitions for electoral success.Numukunda relied on the
wollofs and fulas outside of his native Bansang not his Mandinka
brethren to win. The politics was preceded by the good personal
relationships he had with all the diverse groups of people he shared
in his native Fulladu .Ousainou grew up in a household where all
people came and went and when it came time for High school it was off
to the home of PS Njie of established Banjul Wollof stock where he
stayed until it was time to go to college. From law school, the same
pattern continued and he married Aja Maimuna Ndure she too from the
Ndure's of Banjul and Sally Darboe of Hausa/Aku Marabout ancestry and
settled in for a life as any typical Gambian with daily interactions
and ongoing relationships with all kinds of people. When the UDP was
formed, it was constituted by a cross section of Gambians and it's
executive and local leadership has always reflected that.Ebou Manneh,
ahmadou Taal, Pesse Njie, Aja Sukaina Kah, Maraim Denton, all are
native Banjul wollofs who are all founding leaders of the party and so
is Yahya Jallow, shyngle Nyassi, Aji Yam Secka and many many others
from the rest of the country. I mention them and Ousainou's background
to highlight how thoroughly bogus levelling accusations of tribalism
against him and the UDP is. Unfortunately it was you and your guest
that impregnated your entire conversation with tribalism. You used a
discussion purported to be about lamenting the lack of unity among
those who offer the best chance to bring about positive change to show
discord and unfairly accuse an honorable of biases you yourselves
exhibited in such an ugly fashion.

2-Ousainou is on Yahya's payroll. Again not true and patently absurd.
Ousainou Darboe by the grace of God is not a needy man and has always
been able to provide for himself and his family. He entered politics
to serve the public good and like all the frontline politicians on the
ground he accepts the burdens that come with opposition politics
without complaint. He has willingly forfeited a substantial portion of
his earnings in the pursuit of what is right for his country and his
people.

3-Ousainou is afraid to confront Yahya in street battles. Again this is
another canard. What he has said is he is not going to issue a public
call for civil disorder on a whim or on the basis of some
theoretically appealing formula conjured up by people outside of
the country. He has never said Gambians should never resort to
alternative avenues to bring about change including civil disobedience
but he has insisted that proponents of such measures would more
advance that agenda if they go beyond verbally advocating and
actually come on the ground and help put it together with their fellow
citizens. After all patriots have to be willing to be equal
opportunity risk takers so that if one believes so strongly in a
cause, they should actually do something and not to try to subcontractthe realization of their ideals to someone else. There is not a single way to solve the vexing national problems such as the ones we face inthe Gambia .We have to try our hands at multiple solutions withoutlooking for villains from among the opposition or otherwise appealingto our base instincts.

Finally I urge you to use your media to bring what is best
in us as a nation and challenge those who use the privilege of your
programs to not add value to the overall discourse but reduce the
whole experience as a race to the sewer. Again Ousainou Darboe or the
UDP are not beyond criticism. I criticise him and I don't always agree with him but he is a good honorable man. He is a good listener but not one to be goaded into other people's fantastic ideas.

Thanks

Karamba Touray
UDP- USA

www.udpgambia.com

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