{"id":477,"date":"2019-09-13T14:25:30","date_gmt":"2019-09-13T14:25:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.com\/gambia\/?p=477"},"modified":"2019-09-13T14:25:30","modified_gmt":"2019-09-13T14:25:30","slug":"failed-politics-of-unscrupulous-reformers-and-looters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/failed-politics-of-unscrupulous-reformers-and-looters","title":{"rendered":"Failed politics of unscrupulous reformers and looters"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Gambia\u2019s future is beginning to look like its vile past.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The political and economic euphoria that so many yearned for three years ago seems to be crumbling.<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is due, in part, to institutional weakness and lack of honest leaders\u2014which has led to the pervasiveness and prevalence of endemic corruption\u2014and to mediocrity of the leadership in The Gambia.<\/p>\n

Many of The Gambia\u2019s issues are symptoms of institutional failures, poor policymaking, and lack of honest leadership.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, the looting class, tasked with the onus of guiding the matters of the Gambia, have been the chief culprit in committing corruption. President Barrow\u2014the culprit-in-chief\u2014has unleashed a corrupt band of grifters into every sector of government to help him deliberately loot.<\/p>\n

History and well-established research have consistently shown that strong and stable institutions can avert corruption and abuses of power. Poor institutions or lack of institutional structures are critical factors constraining development and the rule of law in The Gambia. Likewise, honesty is a distinctive feature of leadership value.<\/p>\n

Generally, honesty is what people expect first from their leaders, yet it is the Achilles heel of Gambian politics. Truth be told, The Gambia will not achieve any meaningful development\u2014politically, economically or socially\u2014without the input of effective leadership and strong institutions. And, we ought to graduate from the self-personalisation that has led the political discourse in the Gambia to become more about individuals than about ideologies.<\/p>\n

The reality is that the new-found democracy has neither delivered improved standards of living nor economic development; instead, it has provided a seamless cover-up for massive looting. And there has been no key measure for meaningful reform.<\/p>\n

Upon his inauguration, President Barrow vowed to break the cycle of endemic corruption of the past that had held the Gambia down for decades.<\/p>\n

Today, President Barrow and his band of unscrupulous reformers and looters are more like mafiosos than public servants\u2014and they scarcely bother to imagine otherwise. And the current diplomatic passport scandal expounds my argument about the band of grifters around President Barrow.<\/p>\n

In the past year, Gambians have seen a disturbing self-righteousness in President Barrow\u2019s personal idiosyncrasies, which have undermined the efforts of key institutional reforms.<\/p>\n

It is an undeniable fact that endemic corruption and poor institutions are the bane of Gambia\u2019s overall development, and these phenomena have affected every sector of the country.<\/p>\n

From all indications, President Barrow is using every stratagem to stay in office by strategically bringing back former President Jammeh\u2019s enablers to occupy key government positions.<\/p>\n

This, in itself, is an infringement against the people who fought Jammeh and his band of thugs for decades.<\/p>\n

The Gambia needs a visionary and principled leader, a leader who can empower Gambians in every sense: politically, economically, and socially. Barrow has no moral integrity, vision, or political accountability, and there is no justification for such a failed leader to remain in office.<\/p>\n

The lack of institutional reform has had a profoundly negative effect on the judiciary, which experienced colossal failure under former President Jammeh.<\/p>\n

Attorney General and Minister of Justice Abubacarr Tambadou has not undertaken any important reforms to amend the more than two decades of Jammeh\u2019s blunders.<\/p>\n

In fact, Mr Tambadou\u2019s total indifference to former President Jammeh\u2019s victims highlights the misplaced priorities of this government. If anything, Mr. Tambadou has been a clog in the wheel of progress due, in part, to political interference from the top.<\/p>\n

With the establishment of the Truth Reconciliation and Reparation Commission (TRRC), one would hope that President Barrow and Mr Tambadou would advocate, and promote justice, for all of Jammeh\u2019s victims.<\/p>\n

However, Mr Tambadou has become unpredictable and ineffective. Releasing confessed killers is a deliberate insult to the victims of Jammeh and their families.<\/p>\n

The decision to release the Junglers could weakened the TRRC, and it undermines the population\u2019s trust in the process.<\/p>\n

On many occasions, Mr Tambadou has proclaimed respect for the rule of law and institutional reform, but his actions are otherwise.<\/p>\n

For instance, the phony charges against Killa Ace and others elucidates the government\u2019s increasing intolerance of and paranoia about critical voices.<\/p>\n

Is President Barrow and Mr Tambadou tacitly sweeping the past under the rug in order not to put Gambia\u2019s fragile democracy under pressure? The TRRC ought to serve as an important deterrent for all other leaders after former President Jammeh; if not, history will repeat itself again.<\/p>\n

With increasing political polarization, the rule of law is suffering, which does not bode well for the long-term welfare of The Gambia.<\/p>\n

Reconciling the past will be immensely impossible as long as former President Jammeh\u2019s enablers still serve as government ministers and occupy high-level government posts.<\/p>\n

Against these backdrops, the consequences of endemic corruption in the Gambia are depressing and deplorable. The effects vary from poor infrastructure, the misuse of public resources, mediocrity in leadership, high unemployment, and youth hopelessness.<\/p>\n

These are all triggers of violence.<\/p>\n

I task anyone to question my assessment of whether The Gambia can achieve any meaningful institutional reform or development with these kinds of unscrupulous reformers and looters in office.<\/p>\n

The key to long-term development is to focus on institutional reform and accountability while tackling the problem of power asymmetry as a whole.<\/p>\n

With President Barrow facing a profound crisis of trustworthiness and competency, the Gambia cannot afford to sail forth with an ill-prepared, foolish, and incompetent leader at the helm.<\/p>\n

Through his actions, President Barrow has lost all trustworthiness and sincerity.<\/p>\n

The only redemption is for him to gather the little sanity he has left and resign in December 2019 so that The Gambia can secure her interests in a better future.<\/p>\n

President Barrow has got to go. The Gambia deserves better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Gambia\u2019s future is beginning to look like its vile past. The political and economic euphoria that so many yearned for three years ago seems to be crumbling. This is due, in part, to institutional weakness and lack of honest leaders\u2014which has led to the pervasiveness and prevalence of endemic corruption\u2014and to mediocrity of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":64,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,12],"tags":[379,378,377],"class_list":["post-477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-news","category-policy","tag-corruption","tag-economic-euphoria","tag-gambias-future"],"yoast_head":"\nFailed politics of unscrupulous reformers and looters - Gambia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Gambia\u2019s future is beginning to look like its vile past.The political and economic euphoria that so many yearned for three years ago seems to be crumbling.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/failed-politics-of-unscrupulous-reformers-and-looters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Failed politics of unscrupulous reformers and looters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Gambia\u2019s future is beginning to look like its vile past.The political and economic euphoria that so many yearned for three years ago seems to be crumbling.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/failed-politics-of-unscrupulous-reformers-and-looters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Gambia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-09-13T14:25:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"adama\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"adama\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/failed-politics-of-unscrupulous-reformers-and-looters#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/failed-politics-of-unscrupulous-reformers-and-looters\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"adama\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/#\/schema\/person\/a7488a69bb91ed4cb95c78165665a7c2\"},\"headline\":\"Failed politics of unscrupulous reformers and looters\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-09-13T14:25:30+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/failed-politics-of-unscrupulous-reformers-and-looters\"},\"wordCount\":966,\"commentCount\":0,\"keywords\":[\"corruption\",\"economic euphoria\",\"Gambia\u2019s future\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/failed-politics-of-unscrupulous-reformers-and-looters#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/failed-politics-of-unscrupulous-reformers-and-looters\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/gambia\/all-news\/failed-politics-of-unscrupulous-reformers-and-looters\",\"name\":\"Failed politics of unscrupulous reformers and looters - 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