By Da One
By all indications, Adama Barrow is buying time to garner public support for him to go beyond the agreed three-year coalition deal. He is testing the waters and exploring all possibilities for safe anchorage. He has through his actions made it clear, he will coalesce even with the devil to make sure he stays in power. Of course, Gambians can read through his reluctance to make a simple and clear announcement that he is not going to honor the mighty three-year agreement in the coalition MoU. Here comes the news for you Mr. President. Yours is a losing battle.
The determination of Gambians to fight again, even over and over again if necessary, against elected individuals wanting to cling onto power for life, is at its all-time high. The people are ready to display their might peacefully come December 2019. I predict they will gain the upper hand and if Adama insist on continuing to occupy State House, he might have only dogs and cows to govern. We Gambians expect him to take the responsible route to resign and hand over power to the Vice President to continue until 2021 for us to elect a new head of state.
In order to have an orderly resignation and handing over the reins of executive power to a Vice President, thorough and meticulous preparation is needed. Hard decisions will have to be taken to avoid administrative chaos and ensure continuity. First, policy matters will have to be trashed out and aligned to those of the next on line. This, logically is Isatou Touray, the current Vice President of the republic. If her policy directions will be based on the worthless NDP, she might end up like Adama Barrow who is at the moment dancing like a headless chicken around a cyclone of confusion. She will become a legend if she takes the Coalition MoU and manifesto as her compass to smoothly guide the nation to the 2021 elections.
I would advise the president to-be, to relieve the entire cabinet and form a new one. The reason is simple. The current composition is too mired in partisan politics and other unfortunate administrative mishaps. A case in point will be the Faraba Banta and Kanilai incidents, where innocent Gambian lives were cut short through a sequence of negligent behaviors and incompetencies. A new cabinet composed of technocrats rigorously selected based on merit will once again give hope to a dejected populace seeking closure with the past whilst at the same time yearning for a certain future, a future that cannot be delivered by the person they elected to fulfill their needs and aspirations.
Adama, I would agree, should be accorded the respect of a senior statesman and all the benefits that comes with. He could in his capacity as a former head of state become engaged with different courses of interest to him in the country or even in the whole continent.
If on the other hand he wants to impose himself on the people beyond the three-year time frame he sold himself on as a presidential candidate to the electorates, another political impasse might be in the offing for The Gambia come December 2019. It might become hard for him to legitimately exercise authority over the nation and the people, and rightly so.
The real danger, however, lies in conflict breaking out due to mass protests and civil disobedience. The Gambian security apparatus is by default conditioned to use brutal force to quell any semblance of dissent through public assembly. Blood never fails to flow in such scenarios, unfortunately. But that will only make a bad situation worst.
The president should from now on be primed by his army of advisers to start preparing for life after the presidency. Failure to do so has the potential to take us back to square one. Let’s just say, Gambians deserve better.