Gambia Youths and Women- Rise up for the challenges of September 2006 election
By Abdoukarim Sanneh UK
The
forgotten citizens of the Gambia rise up to be counted! For many of my
generation of Gambian youths, you are the cradle for change; you are
the heroes and hero ness of the struggle for the restoration for
democracy, rise up to effect a change. Gambia youths, you are the
catalyst that can put an end to the madness, which our people are
engulfed into for many years only if you act wisely. The rise of Yaya
Jammeh into power was the beginning of your marginalisation and
exclusion in the mainstream society. The criminal regime has given you
nothing order than empty promises. For 12 years of APRC government,
what is the state of Gambian youths? The only answers to be found on
issues of development perspectives are as follows: - hopelessness,
disempowerment, poverty, hunger, unemployment, disease, environmental
damage, lack of safe drinking water etc. Our people from Kartong to
Koina are living on the edge confronted with all type of development
problems.
Now
that the elections are coming it is not a rocket science to detect the
flowery political language and hypocritical tunes of Yaya Jammeh. My
fellow youths because of your votes, the soldier turned a millionaire
who looted your coffers in front of your eyes and runs it dry is now
associating himself to your pledge. What a sick joke! Today many of you
and your families cannot even afford two square mills a day. I think it
is an insult to your intelligence for Yaya Jammeh and his gang of
heartless criminals to keep fooling you all the time.
What
can we do as forgotten and downtrodden citizens to beat the scam of
these political fraudsters? The technique is simple only when we act
wisely with our votes. We all know how Yaya Jammehs money politics of
buying votes and dishing out money and order economic mismanagement
policies have destabilised the state of our economy and further
depreciate the value of the dalasis against other foreign currencies
keeping depreciate the value of the dalasis against other foreign
currencies keeping inflation at significantly high. Dishing money to
you or taking money from corrupt politicians in the name for your vote
is only a short-term problems as it those not address issues pertaining
to your sustainable living conditions.
The
regime has criminalized institutions such as Central Bank of The Gambia
in its vote rigging exercise, coming with new sets of bank notes,
election after election. In the 1996 election it was his new notes of
dalasis that replaced that of the first Republic, then few weeks before
2001 election came the emergence of one hundred dalasis notes, the news
from Banjul is that on the 27th
of July, few weeks before the election another denomination of the
Gambian dalasis will be in circulation. Do the Gambians ever question
the rational behind the issue of such bank notes in the run up to
elections after elections? Watch out my fellow youths, your Excellency
have a stockpile of the new notes to dish out in his money playing
political game.
The
misrule of APRC regime has destroyed all sectors of our economy, which
are the source of your livelihood. Tourism and agriculture which are
the major employers are none existence. Gambia Government cannot pay
farmers for their groundnut for almost five years now and the hotels
are empty because Gambia is no longer an attractive tourist destination
due to poor marketing strategies. The militarization of the tourism
industry area and the destruction of Gambian owned beach bars as a
wrong solution of addressing bumsters has destroyed such a vital sector
of Gambian economy. Marketing Gambia in the global tourism market as a
smiling coast of West Africa while in the eyes of the tourists it is a
crying coast of West Africa-where they always witness military forces
parading the beaches like a war zone. They have absolute power to
torture you the very people whose livelihood depend on tourism.
Hailing
from Kombo, I know how much tourism means to the daily livelihood of
the Youths. It is the source of survival from a taxi driver to a
village gardener. The destruction of tourism industry by APRC regime
has created mass unemployment in many communities. Secondly the back to
land policy of the regime has turned out to be disastrous. Land
grabbing becomes the order of the day and because of lack of
sustainable land-use planning policies and legislation, fertile
agricultural and woodlands are turned into concrete jungles which have
further compounded hopelessness and exclusion especially in communities
that depend on land for their livelihood. The only back to land policy
means going back to Kanillai and farm for Yaya Jammeh. Ministers,
Directors and Senior Government officials leave their urgent official
duties to show their loyalist as a form of sycophancy culture, which
embraces Gambian public life. You can be sack if you never appear in
Yaya Jammehs farmer because you labelled as an opposition element. Why
would he not provide these facilities in your communities for your
sustainable living?
Youths
of the Gambia please make wise decision and give this criminal and
gangster regime a red card come elections. It is this very regime that
uses its absolute power to sack, murder, arrest, detain and torture
many decent Gambians both physically and psychologically for 12 years.
The Gambia National Youth Service Scheme, which the regime created to
promote the welfare of youths, becomes failed scheme like our nation as
a failed state. In 2002 election, the regime used the National Youth
Council in its strategic vote canvassing efforts. Most of what they
promised for youth development ended as futile promises.
In
the aim of Youth development, Yaya Jammeh and Baba Jobe in their unholy
alliance formed a company called Youth Development Enterprise which was
found by the Commission, of robbing our nations millions of dalasis in
the form of tax evasion, landing fee for millennium airline, rice
consortium and money laundering. Part of the proceeds of this criminal
activities against our nation, where evenly distributed to APRC
parliamentarians. One wanders to whom this money have been paid to now
that Baba Jobe is incarcerated. I hope the majority leader; Honourable
Churchill Baldeh will shade light about the payment of the loans.
Youths
of the Gambia there are lots of facts about the crimes and abuse of
power, which you cannot ignore. There are lot of substantive evidence
of wholesale state complicity in the act of barbarism. The rule of Yaya
Jammeh is the histories of the hanged. You should be determining to
take up the centre stage to peoples power if the election is rigged
even if the entire apparatus of the security forces are mobilised
against your course at the end of the day you are the winners. It is
time we set aside Gambian amnesia and square up to the realities.