*Gambia on a roll*

*By Baba Galleh Jallow*

In a recent “Letter from Africa” column for the BBC’s Africa service,
veteran Ghanaian journalist and former government minister Elizabeth Ohene
writes about how 2017 was a year that saw the departure of several African
sit-tight and not-so-sit-tight rulers. She narrates how in Ghana “out went
John Dramani Mahama and in came Nana Akufo-Addo.” In Angola “Jose Eduardo
dos Santos stood down.”  Of Zimbabwe she writes, “The event that led to
President Robert Mugabe finally stepping down after 37 years still seem
somewhat surreal.” In Uganda, she notes, “President Yoweri Museveni was
having a little more difficulty maneuvering to stay in power.” And in
Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is stepping down after two terms. . . . She
is being replaced by 1995’s Fifa World Player of the Year, George Weah.”
Ohene also mentions how Uhuru Kenyatta “was safely back in the Kenya State
House” after Odinga boycotted elections, how “There are continuing
demonstrations against President Fuare Gassingbe” in Togo, how in South
Africa Cyril Ramaphosa just “defeated Nkosana Dlamini-Zuma to become the
president of the ANC”, and how in Botswana, Ian Khama has “announced that
he will be leaving office when his term as president comes to an end in
April next year.” The Botswana story even includes a narrative about how
just before he announced he was stepping down next year, Ian Khama had
openly defied Donald Trump and voted in favor of a resolution asking him to
withdraw his recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. She informs
us that in fact, with the exception of Togo’s Faure Gassingbe, all African
leaders defied Trump’s threat to withhold aid and voted in favor of the
resolution. Ohene ends her interesting piece with the poetic note that “As
the calypso would put it, 2017 is ending on a roll.”

A Gambian fan of Ohene’s “Letter from Africa” reads through this piece
always expecting the next paragraph to say in tiny Gambia, the people voted
out a dictator and resolutely refused to be intimidated or to back down
from their insistence that Gambia Has Decided it will no longer be ruled
and bullied by Yahya Jammeh. The reader cannot believe that Ohene does not
mention The Gambia at all. The disbelief is magnified, almost surreal
because the popular revolution that ousted Gambia’s dictator of 22 years
without a single violent incident is arguably the most dramatic historical
event and the most dramatic change of leadership to happen in Africa 2017.
Zimbabwe perhaps comes second, because while there is a change of
leadership there, there is no change of government since Mugabe’s ZANU PF
still remains in power. In Gambia, there was both a change of leadership
and a change of government. Indeed, so dramatic is this change that we now
have a New Gambia that in many respects literally bears little semblance to
the old Gambia, Yahya Jammeh’s Gambia.

The dramatic event of December 2016 to January 2017 when the Gambian people
forced Jammeh out of power after 22 years of brutal dictatorship was an
event of universal significance and universal presence, and ultimately an
event that morphed into a universal project of rejection against African
dictatorship. Media all over the world covered the event, countries and
organizations all over the world expressed solidarity with the calm and
peaceful Gambian people who stared a brutal regime straight in the face and
told it no, you have to go, without putting themselves in harm’s way by
inciting violence. ECOWAS, the African Union, the European Union, the
United Nations Security Council, and individual governments from the United
States to Russia stood firmly behind Gambia’s decision and insistence that
Jammeh must go. Yet, Elizabeth Ohene omitted this monumental event of world
historical significance from her account on the ousting and even
near-ousting of African leaders in 2017. Well, the calypso probably did not
say this but the whole world knows that if 2017 ended on a roll as far as
the ouster of sit-tight leaders is concerned, Gambians ended 2017 in an
even bigger roll with the ouster of a dictator who publicly and repeatedly
claimed personal ownership of their country and threatened to rule them for
one billion years. Ohene’s omission, for whatever reason, is just simply
inexcusable.

Of course, we do not need Elizabeth Ohene or anyone to tell our story for
us. We do not need anyone to remind us, or indeed the world, that in 2017
Gambia decided that she would no longer be bullied by a brutal dictator. If
countries were ladies, Gambia would be the ultimate heroine and role model
for all African countries in the manner in which she calmly and decisively
expelled her macho ruler from her shores and reclaimed her right to peace,
freedom of expression and association, and freedom from political bullying
on her own shores. Gambia demonstrated loud and clear that with effect from
2017 she reserves the right to vote her leaders out in free and fair
elections and to assert and exercise her full right to self-determination.
And of course, when it comes to telling Gambia’s story, Gambia does it best
because she lived it, breathed it, and expressed it in loud, clear and no
uncertain terms. And so our issue with Ohene’s narrative is less about why
Gambia’s story is not mentioned and more about the fact that a BBC column
purporting to show how 2017 saw a series of dramatic departures of veteran
African leaders can possibly omit the Gambian case. Nor is it that Gambia
is hungry for mention on the BBC because over the past 23 years, we have
had our full and fair share of BBC coverage, from Jammeh’s dubious claims
to have found a cure for AIDS, to his dramatic concession of defeat on
December 2, 2016, to his fateful recanting of this concession on December
9, to his hollow threats to deal with ECOMIG forces should they dare to
invade, to the last minute flourish of diplomatic activity and threatening
planes flying low over state house that saw our self-styled Babili Mansa
and Nasiru Deen quickly boarding a flight into exile to avoid ECOMIG
capture. Surely, an African columnist of Elizabeth Ohene’s stature and
experience could not possibly have forgotten about these dramatic events?
Was it an editorial decision to excise the Gambia story from her original
piece, or did Ohene really forget? Some Gambian Facebook commentators on
the issue have suggested that it was an oversight on Ohene’s part. Well, we
may perhaps give her the benefit of the doubt with a generous pinch of
salt. This is simply because the events of Gambia 2017 are too big to be
omitted from any history of leadership changes in Africa 2017.

 History is full of examples of people trying to silence the future and
what happened in Gambia 2017 is a people’s refusal to have their future
silenced. Dictators like Yahya Jammeh are particularly addicted to this
impossible attempt at silencing the future. When dictators silence the
media, they are trying to silence the future sounds of protest that could
be inspired by media exposures of their corrupt and brutal practices; when
they silence critics, they are trying to silence the future sounds of
discontent and dissent that could be inspired in the public mind; when they
pass draconian laws banning public gatherings, they are trying to silence
the future voices of dissent that will be heard at those gatherings and the
sounds of the protests they could potentially generate. In all cases, they
fail to silence the future because the very act of trying to silence the
future creates the noises and the sounds and the protests of the future
that will eventually push them out of power. For twenty-two years, Yahya
Jammeh tried to silence The Gambia’s future through acts of brutality
against the media, against critics, against political opponents, against
protesters. But even as he tried to silence the future, he inspired the
lyrical revolution most dramatically expressed by Killa Ace and generated
the sounds of public displeasure and discontent that eventually led to his
downfall. When he tried to silence the future of Gambian democracy by
passing draconian and manifestly unjust electoral laws, he inspired the
Sandeng protest and the arrests of the UDP leadership, the sounds of the
Kalama Revolution, the resounding sounds of the Gambian marble against
dictatorship, the silent stares of Gambians at heavily armed soldiers on
our streets, the indignant calls for him to step down from all sectors of
the Gambian community, the loud and uncompromising hashtag of Gambia Has
Decided, the rolling of ECOMIG tanks into Gambian territory, and the
take-off sounds of the plane that finally whisked him off into exile.

Equally ineffective has been people’s attempts to delete the past. While
dictators often try to delete the past by omitting the good deeds of their
critics and opponents from the national narrative and by denying their
roles in atrocities they commit against their critics and other victims, it
is also a common practice among historians in both narrative and writing
cultures. Some prominent griots for example have been known to omit
embarrassing or otherwise uncomplimentary details of their communal
histories from their versions of oral traditions and history. But in this
day and age of instant recording and communication, an attempt to delete
the past - either deliberate or otherwise - is simply more impossible.
Especially if that past, like Gambia 2017, embodied events so prominent
that they mobilized universal attention, universal discourse and
near-universal support for the Gambian people. And while we do not in any
way accuse Elizabeth Ohene of trying to delete our recent political past,
we are obliged to say for the African historical record that as far as
peaceful revolution and a dramatic change leadership goes, Gambia was on a
roll in 2017 and has entered 2018 on a roll, with confidence in her heart
and a strong determination to succeed on her mind.


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