Thank Baba. What a great scholarly piece as always. I can't stop reading. Keep it coming.
Pa. Saikou Kujabi.
    On Tuesday, January 2, 2018, 3:49:34 PM EST, Baba Jallow <[log in to unmask]> wrote:  
 
 
Gambia on a roll

By Baba Galleh Jallow

In a recent “Letter from Africa” column for the BBC’s Africaservice, veteran Ghanaian journalist and former government minister ElizabethOhene writes about how 2017 was a year that saw the departure of severalAfrican sit-tight and not-so-sit-tight rulers. She narrates how in Ghana “outwent John Dramani Mahama and in came Nana Akufo-Addo.” In Angola “Jose Eduardodos Santos stood down.”  Of Zimbabwe shewrites, “The event that led to President Robert Mugabe finally stepping downafter 37 years still seem somewhat surreal.” In Uganda, she notes, “PresidentYoweri 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 StateHouse” after Odinga boycotted elections, how “There are continuingdemonstrations against President Fuare Gassingbe” in Togo, how in South Africa CyrilRamaphosa just “defeated Nkosana Dlamini-Zuma to become the president of theANC”, and how in Botswana, Ian Khama has “announced that he will be leavingoffice when his term as president comes to an end in April next year.” TheBotswana story even includes a narrative about how just before he announced hewas stepping down next year, Ian Khama had openly defied Donald Trump and votedin favor of a resolution asking him to withdraw his recognition of Jerusalem asthe capital of Israel. She informs us that in fact, with the exception ofTogo’s Faure Gassingbe, all African leaders defied Trump’s threat to withholdaid and voted in favor of the resolution. Ohene ends her interesting piece withthe 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 thispiece always expecting the next paragraph to say in tiny Gambia, the peoplevoted out a dictator and resolutely refused to be intimidated or to back downfrom their insistence that Gambia Has Decided it will no longer be ruled andbullied by Yahya Jammeh. The reader cannot believe that Ohene does not mentionThe Gambia at all. The disbelief is magnified, almost surreal because thepopular revolution that ousted Gambia’s dictator of 22 years without a singleviolent incident is arguably the most dramatic historical event and the mostdramatic change of leadership to happen in Africa 2017. Zimbabwe perhaps comessecond, because while there is a change of leadership there, there is no changeof government since Mugabe’s ZANU PF still remains in power. In Gambia, therewas both a change of leadership and a change of government. Indeed, so dramaticis this change that we now have a New Gambia that in many respects literallybears little semblance to the old Gambia, Yahya Jammeh’s Gambia. 

The dramatic event of December 2016 to January 2017 when theGambian people forced Jammeh out of power after 22 years of brutal dictatorshipwas an event of universal significance and universal presence, and ultimatelyan event that morphed into a universal project of rejection against Africandictatorship. Media all over the world covered the event, countries andorganizations all over the world expressed solidarity with the calm and peacefulGambian 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 SecurityCouncil, and individual governments from the United States to Russia stoodfirmly behind Gambia’s decision and insistence that Jammeh must go. Yet,Elizabeth Ohene omitted this monumental event of world historical significance fromher 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 if2017 ended on a roll as far as the ouster of sit-tight leaders is concerned, Gambiansended 2017 in an even bigger roll with the ouster of a dictator who publiclyand repeatedly claimed personal ownership of their country and threatened torule them for one billion years. Ohene’s omission, for whatever reason, is justsimply inexcusable. 

Of course, we do not need Elizabeth Ohene or anyone to tellour story for us. We do not need anyone to remind us, or indeed the world, thatin 2017 Gambia decided that she would no longer be bullied by a brutaldictator. If countries were ladies, Gambia would be the ultimate heroine androle model for all African countries in the manner in which she calmly anddecisively expelled her macho ruler from her shores and reclaimed her right topeace, freedom of expression and association, and freedom from politicalbullying on her own shores. Gambia demonstrated loud and clear that with effectfrom 2017 she reserves the right to vote her leaders out in free and fairelections and to assert and exercise her full right to self-determination. Andof course, when it comes to telling Gambia’s story, Gambia does it best becauseshe lived it, breathed it, and expressed it in loud, clear and no uncertainterms. And so our issue with Ohene’s narrative is less about why Gambia’s storyis not mentioned and more about the fact that a BBC column purporting to showhow 2017 saw a series of dramatic departures of veteran African leaders canpossibly omit the Gambian case. Nor is it that Gambia is hungry for mention onthe BBC because over the past 23 years, we have had our full and fair share ofBBC coverage, from Jammeh’s dubious claims to have found a cure for AIDS, to hisdramatic concession of defeat on December 2, 2016, to his fateful recanting ofthis concession on December 9, to his hollow threats to deal with ECOMIG forcesshould they dare to invade, to the last minute flourish of diplomatic activity andthreatening planes flying low over state house that saw our self-styled BabiliMansa and Nasiru Deen quickly boarding a flight into exile to avoid ECOMIGcapture. Surely, an African columnist of Elizabeth Ohene’s stature andexperience could not possibly have forgotten about these dramatic events? Wasit an editorial decision to excise the Gambia story from her original piece, ordid Ohene really forget? Some Gambian Facebook commentators on the issue havesuggested that it was an oversight on Ohene’s part. Well, we may perhaps giveher the benefit of the doubt with a generous pinch of salt. This is simplybecause the events of Gambia 2017 are too big to be omitted from any history ofleadership changes in Africa 2017.

 History is full ofexamples of people trying to silence the future and what happened in Gambia2017 is a people’s refusal to have their future silenced. Dictators like YahyaJammeh are particularly addicted to this impossible attempt at silencing thefuture. When dictators silence the media, they are trying to silence the futuresounds of protest that could be inspired by media exposures of their corruptand brutal practices; when they silence critics, they are trying to silence thefuture sounds of discontent and dissent that could be inspired in the publicmind; when they pass draconian laws banning public gatherings, they are tryingto silence the future voices of dissent that will be heard at those gatheringsand 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 thefuture creates the noises and the sounds and the protests of the future thatwill eventually push them out of power. For twenty-two years, Yahya Jammehtried to silence The Gambia’s future through acts of brutality against themedia, against critics, against political opponents, against protesters. But evenas he tried to silence the future, he inspired the lyrical revolution mostdramatically expressed by Killa Ace and generated the sounds of publicdispleasure and discontent that eventually led to his downfall. When he triedto silence the future of Gambian democracy by passing draconian and manifestlyunjust electoral laws, he inspired the Sandeng protest and the arrests of theUDP leadership, the sounds of the Kalama Revolution, the resounding sounds ofthe Gambian marble against dictatorship, the silent stares of Gambians atheavily armed soldiers on our streets, the indignant calls for him to step downfrom all sectors of the Gambian community, the loud and uncompromising hashtagof Gambia Has Decided, the rolling of ECOMIG tanks into Gambian territory, andthe take-off sounds of the plane that finally whisked him off into exile.

Equally ineffective has been people’s attempts to delete thepast. While dictators often try to delete the past by omitting the good deedsof their critics and opponents from the national narrative and by denying theirroles in atrocities they commit against their critics and other victims, it is alsoa common practice among historians in both narrative and writing cultures. Someprominent griots for example have been known to omit embarrassing or otherwise uncomplimentarydetails 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 todelete the past - either deliberate or otherwise - is simply more impossible.Especially if that past, like Gambia 2017, embodied events so prominent thatthey mobilized universal attention, universal discourse and near-universal supportfor the Gambian people. And while we do not in any way accuse Elizabeth Oheneof trying to delete our recent political past, we are obliged to say for the Africanhistorical record that as far as peaceful revolution and a dramatic changeleadership 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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