Courtesy: Maafanta.com

NEITHER NWAH NOR DARBOE CAN INHERIT FROM SIR DAWDA JAWARA
By Dodou Jawneh

The November elections in The Gambia have come and gone but its ramifications will live with us for a very long time to
come. There will be more of the lingering spectre we have faced since 1994, as it has been demonstrated clearly that
the Jammeh regime can never preside over a fair election. The regime came to power through the subversion of the will
of the people in an overt manner and over the period has learned to blend this with covert means in order to remain
entrenched in power for as long as it takes.

The overthrow of the Jawara regime, in as much as this signifies the very beginning of robbing our freedoms, it is not by
any means the last and we will no doubt continued to be robbed of our constitutional rights for the years that we have
Jammeh at the helm. The constitutional amendments undertaken by the Jammeh regime with the help of the country’s
rubber stamp Parliament could all be classed as separate coup d’états or part of a long process of usurpation of the will
of the Gambian people. Amongst these include the changes to the electoral laws that abolish the second round voting.
Although the insincerity of Jammeh’s motives has been clearly manifested with the overthrow of a civilian regime, an
added dimension to this is the manner in which he clandestinely removed the constitutional proposal for a two term limit
to the presidency. Several African countries have adopted this policy because it allows for relatively young nations to
develop a democratic culture without resorting to protracted power struggle and to prevent the entrenchment of power
for too long.

On his recent trip to Qatar President Jammeh claimed that he has learnt new concepts of development from the Middle
Eastern nation, but has failed to learn the simple lesson of presidential term limit adopted by several countries in the
continent and in the sub-region.  A 2008 Africa Barometer survey of 26000 Africans in 19 countries have shown
overwhelming majority favoured a term limit in their countries, in most cases a two term limit to the presidency.   For
Jammeh’s pan Africanist claim to have any credibility, it must start with respecting the opinions of ordinary Africans and
to adopt policies developed and tested under the African context. However, only visionary leaders can figure out the
need to put the interest of the people ahead of personal power and it is sad that The Gambia lacked this in President
Jammeh. They say power corrupts, but power stolen corrupts beyond imagination.
The literature on Jammeh’ s strategy to remain entrenched cannot be exhausted. In addition to the manipulation of the
laws to suit his need, their brutish utilisation has been the most useful tool for him. The human rights abuses that the
Gambian people had to endure since 1994 left behind a traumatised population and the impact of this on the future of
the country is a matter of grave concern.

The positive side is that regardless of these ancient and backward tools that the regime is resorting to, there is that
vanguard of citizens whose resolve to take back their freedom and with it their country has not wavered since 1994. An
even greater positive feeling is the fact that this group has within it a tenacious spirit that is fast influencing the Gambian
population. At the forefront of this vanguard are the Gambian opposition groups, both at home and abroad, standing
resolutely in trying to take back the loot from the robber and sooner rather than later their effort will lead to total
liberation. Furthermore, these groups are becoming more unified over a common purpose.
This is not to say that there are no followers of the Jammeh congregation and singing praises of regime’s myopic
development agenda, otherwise called development for propaganda, and devilishly ignoring the state of our freedoms
and even turning blind eyes as many of our citizens have to pay for with their lives. Most of them are self-seeking or
coerced into submission and are ready to jump higher than Jammeh had told them to do. There is perhaps also a third
category and they combined the two scenarios into a whole, best exemplified by the newly appointed Secretary of State
for Local Government and Lands, lamin Nwah Juwara.

Nwah Juwara was a key figure in the opposition movement who fought against Jammeh’s misrule until when he
abandoned the UDP and decided to follow the Jammeh cohort. Juwara is very ambitious and there were indications that
while in the opposition, he was not content with anything other than being party leader. It was no surprise to keen
observers when he broke rank with the UDP and formed a party that he would lead. The party he founded could not
gain any head way in The Gambian political landscape perhaps as a result of the people’s knowledge of Juwara’s past
tendency to abuse of power.

Although Juwara has switched sides and now works for the dictatorship, in his earlier life he bore the severe brunt for his
vociferousness against the regime. It has been reported on numerous occasions how the Jammeh thugs arrested and
subjected Nwah Juwara to some of the most vicious forms of torture. As early as 2004 Juwara gave hints that he might
retire from politics but as it turns out he only retired from opposition politics. Although his new ally, Jammeh hailed him as
the epitome of positive Gambian opposition and one he would be ready to work with, Juwara’s opposition front is seen
as one that simply capitulated.

However, Nwah has not just capitulated but gone on to try destroying the credibility of the party he was a part. It is
common knowledge that Juwara parted company with the UDP following the 2001 election when Darboe conceded
defeat. Juwara felt aggrieved about the party leader’s move to such an extent that he provoked a public spat with the
party leadership leading to him leaving the UDP. Notwithstanding this fact, which most people felt does not warrant him
breaking ranks with the UDP, Juwara revealed other stories at a rally prior to the November election hitherto unknown to
the public.

At the APRC Soma rally, Juwara gave a marathon speech (marathon as in its deceitfulness) delving into the conflict
between him and Darboe over the so-called amnesty proposal for former president Sir Dawda. According to Nwah’s
account, the UDP leader invited the party’s executive members to discuss Jawara’s impending return to The Gambia
under a compromise agreement between the former president and the incumbent. Nwah alleged that Darboe viewed this
agreement as a betrayal on the part of Sir Dawda and then he felt angered by Darboe’s position to the point that he left
the meeting abruptly banging the door behind him.

The pertinent questions to test the veracity of this story are: Why did Nwah not reveal this story until November 2011
even though the alleged incident must have taken place in the early part of the last decade? Why was there no hint of
the UDP’s opposition to the agreement if the leadership was so much opposed to it as Nwah claimed? The truth of the
matter lies in the saying, ‘kele borila te kuma kese fola’ meaning a run-away soldier does not say anything coherent.
However, in Juwara’s own words, Darboe called a meeting with other party leaders to consider this issue rather than
make a personal pronouncement. This is indicative of good leadership quality. Jammeh, his new found friend would not
have invited his opinion on a similar issue.

The so-called amnesty for Sir Dawda, quite rightly, provoked controversy within the Gambian population. In his book
‘Kairaba,’ Sir Dawda revealed how Sir Alieu Sulayman Jack expressed concern about his impending return to Gambia
and warned that he (Jawara) must not forget those living with him in exile. Yet the former Speaker of the House has had
a much closer working and personal relationship with Sir Dawda than both Nwah and Darboe combined.
The Gambian people knew that Sir Dawda had already retired and has declared his intention to stay out of politics. By
this time he had lost his property in UK, the cause of which lies squarely with Jammeh, albeit indirectly. It follows that
returning his rightful properties in The Gambia to him and enabling his return to the country was his right and could not
be an amnesty.

Juwara went further to contend that Darboe could not inherit Jawara’s position, citing the fact that Numuknda Darboe,
the UDP leader’s late father failed to support Jawara’s bid for leadership even though both men originated from Niani.
Nwah forgot that The Gambian people are not in the business of dishing out leadership positions on the basis of
inheritance and that the presidency was not for Sir Dawda to pass on as inheritance. For a moment, the octogenarian
former head of state, who expressed his desire to remain out of party politics, had become the propaganda Ping-Pong
for Juwara and Jammeh at the Soma rally. President Jammeh is in the habit of claiming that he does not like politics but
does revels in the spoils of politics and on this occasion, Nwah created the reverberating environment.

However, any right thinking observer must have realised that this cosiness would not last. In fact one may predict that by
joining Jammeh’s kleptocratic regime, Juwara has taken the short-cut to his earlier hint at political retirement, if not
political extermination. Those familiar with the Gambian president’s history will concur with this statement. Considering
that Jammeh who would not hesitate to take away innocent Gambian lives on the altar of political expedience, a former
foe joining him may not just be an attempt to commit political suicide but real suicide.

Nwah may have thought that he scored a political point by making reference to Numukunda Darboe’s membership of the
UP rather than the Protectorate People’s Party, but in reality that has nothing to do with Lawyer Darboe’s struggle to
cleanse the Gambia of the present brutality. Juwara could also be guilty of resorting to the use of a propaganda strategy
that resonates with the Orthodox Christian doctrine of ancestral sin, a concept that Muslims should not harbour. People,
and in particular leaders, should be judged by their own credentials not those of their parents. But Juwara and Jammeh
both carry the authoritarian gene and recently the Gambian regime also revisited the doctrine of ancestral sin to fire as
much as three of Sir Dawda’s sons from their respective positions in government employment. Could all three be guilty
of offences at different positions concurrently to warrant their dismissal? Or is it something to do with their father? A
Muslim Sheikh should have known better that Islam does not permit harbouring the doctrine of ancestral sin, unless of
course if this was the ‘fake sheikh.’

Nwah’s stinging attack did not stop at Darboe, but extended to the Gambian Diaspora opposition fraternity. Seen as the
last bastion that the Jammeh regime could not pacify, Juwara described them with the Mandinka expression, ‘faa fili ding
lu’, literally meaning children who have lost contact with their parents. Juwara went further to claim, in the Mugabe
fashion, that opposition groups in the West fighting against Jammeh’s regime are doing so through the instigation of the
Europeans powers, the same powers that are known to have no love for Africans. On hearing such rhetoric, it becomes
clear that within this short space of time Juwara has become perfectly fluent in Jammeh’s language. Nwah should
acknowledge that taking into account the period since 1994, the amount of subjugation Gambians have experienced
under Jammeh’s rule has no equivalence. His own past experience under Jammeh corroborates this claim.
On the contrary, Gambians living in the West have enjoyed a degree of freedom of opinion a fraction of which they
could not expect under Jammeh’s rule. In addition, the Gambian Diaspora’s contribution to the economic development is
well known and the ordinary families in the length and breadth of the country will support this contention.
The moral impetus driving the opposition movement will continue to grow in strength until they succeed in creating a
country that the future generation will be proud of. A combination of all the propaganda statements of the last election
plus the material forces of the status quo cannot be allowed to make a tiny dent on the opposition’s resolve. Nwah has a
simple choice to make. He should desist from trying to defend an untenable position. Therefore the best he can do for
himself is to resign from Jammeh’s government before it is too late.
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