The Gambia Armed Forces are Africa's Dumbest Military- The Watchman
 
An army without culture is a dull-witted army, and a dull-witted army
cannot defeat the enemy."
                                                                        - Chairman Mao Zedong
 
A couple of weeks ago, The Watchman was at a military base discussing African politics and the effects of a changing environment on population movement, agriculture, reproduction and media autonomy with a colleague. Though the operational nature of the talks will not be divulged to prevent incitement and clumsy execution, the gist of the conclusion was that in light of the small nature of its territory, The Gambia and any government at its helm could be politically and physically overwhelmed by any military outfit with smarts but Gambia's army is too dumb and too skittish to fulfill such a task. The reasons given at the time of the parlance were too graphic and could easily offend the fragile sensibilities of Gambians so they will be outlined in less stomach turning detail.
 
There has been a lot of furor about Jollas being liberally appointed to all points of influence in Yahya Jammeh's administration and how this allows him to have a virtual and watertight lock on power. The image of domination is further enhanced by the fact that strategic positions of martial influence such as chief of police, head of prisons and army chief of staff are filled with Dr. Jammeh's kith and kin; which also leads to the delusion that since power begets power and Jollas want to keep their kind in the upper echelons of political patronage, they would do everything to prevent usurpers from other tribes from succeeding. This clichéd notion is far from true.
 
For starters, the Jollas are not a majority in The Gambia's melting pot. If the army splinters into various many factions and decides to render the current junta null and extinct, the worst that could happen is a stalemate where loyalists seek to defend their APRC masters against all odds by hanging on to logistical and symbolic loci of power such as GRTS, Denton Bridge, Banjul International Airport, Kanilai, Statehouse, Kudang barracks, Fajara barracks, power stations, banks and crucial border crossings to name an assortment. For their part, the rebel forces will simply occupy the rest of the state, pin the loyalist forces in their entrenched positions, manage to win the trust of some, not all, of the populace, engage in self-serving propaganda and play a deadly game of political wait and see. If the Jammeh forces decide to break out of their positions and neutralize the rebels they risk exposing their flank and stretching crucial supply lines.
 
If the rebels decide to assault the Jammeh diehards at their vantage points they could suffer huge losses by dint of their less fortified brigades, battalions or platoons. The best option then for both factions would be a stalemate where the Jammeh government can outfox its armed rivals on its way to retaking power or where the rebels seize on the deadlock and use it to effect political reform and address legitimate civil grievances. The latter was done rather successfully by the New Forces of Cote d' Ivoire after their game of chicken with the ruling regime  divided that nation into 2. The Gambian army does not dwell on this possibility because its members are busy spying on each other to prove their utter loyalty to the most mediocre leader Banjul has been cursed with.
 
Another vulnerability Gambia's army can exploit is Yahya Jammeh's insufficient political capital. In lay terms, political capital is accrued credit for tangible policy decisions that have yielded fruit for the public good and the ensuing trust in leadership that characterizes its aftermath. Despite the daily illustrations of Yahya Jammeh doling out buses, groceries and other manifestations of largesse to a poor and captive populace, his actions do not reflect the sound distribution of national services and economic efficiency that an able administration would have engendered as a part of daily Gambian life.  "King Jammeh's" impulsive display of charity and benevolence to his "subjects" are feudal and egomaniac and deride the inherent dignity and pride of Gambians.
 
With this in hand, Gambia's Armed Forces can expose Yahya Jammeh for the political manipulator and unworthy head of state of that he is. They could effectively undermine the cult hero status and sycophant raving that accompanies Jammeh everywhere during his comical annual meet the people jaunt around the state. This can be achieved by imposing a separate identity and source of authority that initially starts out indirectly as a counterweight to the insolent dictatorship (a move the tactician B.H. Liddell Hart would suggest) before explicitly asserting a fearsome independence identical to that of Turkey's armed forces. The next step would be to defang the myth that only Yahya Jammeh can hold the nation together since he is omnipotent. Once this is attained, the snowball effect will be an emboldened public that expresses its true disgust with the oppressive chains it has been held down with. The Gambia's military, using an enraged society as a buffer, can then divide the government by weakening the allegiance of key members to Dr. Alhajie Jammeh, reveal to the APRC that Gambia's people were feigning affection and praise while the crippled cabal was at its apex and usher in a new era of Gambian prosperity. This will be tricky because a generation of Gambians unlike their older compatriots tragically believes in Yahya Jammeh. The army should co-opt these fervent and youthful APRC militias if it is to meet with success. This feat is far from being executed due to the Gambian military not trusting the sovereign common sense of the legal benefactors of its services: The Gambian nation.
 

Lack of professionalism is a major self-inflicted hurdle Gambia's armed forces have to contend with and amend if they want to take on Yahya Jammeh. A quick survey of national armies worldwide shows that the most professional armies are the ones ensconced within a clearly delineated environment where civil-military relations ensure that no overlapping of duties is carried out to the detriment of governing equilibrium. In that sense, Gambia's army is totally disqualified from being a military outfit proper because it has allowed itself to be personalized by a head of state that uses it to wield brutal strength and engage in capricious vices. Gambia's army is a balkanized, ragtag, and lowly educated bunch that in essence functions as a mercenary arm of the APRC.  The lack of highly educated professionals in this so-called army has consequences that favor the systematic isolation of intelligent officers with respectable graduate or doctorate degrees, leads to suspicion of any officer who has embarked on career augmenting training especially externally and distorts the real aims and duties of an armed institution of the small republic in the minds of very impressionable cadets.
 
In allowing the slippage of technocratic and vocational ideals of an army from transforming into practical adherence even when it contravenes the illicit aims of its civilian administrators, The Gambian army has neutered its greatest and most potent claim to legitimacy even if it strives to topple Yahya Jammeh's traveling carnival of an administration. If it decides to suddenly act in the name of saving Gambians from an incompetent monster, its motives will be questioned and stereotyped as a typical African power grab by less knowledgeable outsiders. To blunt these accusations when it decides to launch Operation Kick the Hyena Out of Statehouse, the Gambian army must act upon cultivating a culture of independence and neutral efficiency immediately. Once it has gained reputation as the only institution willing to self-examine and improve amongst a discombobulated lot, balkanization will lead to merger between all tribal factions, the taste of real influence by virtue of being politically uncommitted will be too sweet to relinquish and the current double crossing and mistrust within its ranks will lead the Gambia's soldiers to realize that they should ultimately stick together or be hanged separately by a murderous and idiotic head of state. Ultimately it takes courage to act on these compelling scenarios and judging from their past inertia while Jammeh went on the rampage against even their own, Gambia's soldiers seem more likely to sit on the sidelines and fiddle with their idle AK-47s.
 
For some, the only way out of this political cesspool is through actions advocated by spineless leaders like Lamin Waa Juwara who has traded principle for appeasement and Bubacar Sankanu the disgraced former propagandist who subsists on daily rations at Berlin's soup kitchens as he tries, unsuccessfully, to makes us believe he of all people should be trusted with the moniker of "moderate Liberal Democrat". There are others who would squirm because specific individuals have been called out in this piece but for The Gambia to regain its dignity there should be a clear distinction between ideas that move us forward and pronunciations that exhort us to make do with what has been handed to us. Gambians deserve better. No more calls for "civility" among online commentators and journalists if  "civility" means the stifling of necessary speech and competition of ideas. Gambians have to understand that in the freest, safest and most opulent societies on Earth, intense debate is embarked on not to suppress the voices of freedom but to promote the continued burning of liberty's enlightening torch. We all need to become a little more hardier if we want to believe the Jammeh nightmare will cede soon.
 
 
                                In Memory of Captain Sadibou Hydara
Murdered by Yahya Jammeh in 1994 and mourned by true soldiers everywhere
 
 
Author can be reached at gambiaswatchman@gmail.com