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NADD: The Citadel of Hope-Commentary
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NADD: The Citadel of Hope-Commentary
By Foday Samateh
NADD: The Citadel of Hope
This
is not an opinion, it is the fact: the National Alliance for Democracy
and Development (NADD) is, over and beyond all other political parties,
the hope for The Gambia. This conclusion is sanctioned by common sense,
thinking mind, and all precedents of universally-applied principles of
analysis.
Those who need convincing, out of patriotic concern for
our dear nation quivering for its precious life, here are the
overwhelming candid truths that prove the conclusion beyond all
reasonable doubts:
Twelve years in power, Yahya Jammeh has run down
our country beyond the lowest level of the acceptable and plunged it
wreckage into the abyss of the unforgivable. It is not an act of a
genius to catalogue with eyes wide shut the Jammeh record of colossal
failure into the thickest encyclopedia on human events. Such a task is
even unnecessary in this election. All NADD needs to remind the voters
about their plight ─ the Jammeh misrule ─ is to ask them continuously
the simple question Ronald Reagan once asked America: “Are you better
off today than you were” since the last election? The answer will be an
emphatic universal shout in the NO! That response has the potency to
send packing Jammeh and his APRC junta out of the people’s business
this September.
The UDP, including its NRP appendage, does not
inspire any hope either. Lawyer Darboe is busy wanting to be president
that his only program for the presidency is to be president as the be
all and end all, and everything else is a discretionary expense for
that final goal. The reason he joined NADD was to use the alliance as a
convenient ladder to climb the presidency, and he quit the alliance for
only one reason: the democratic model he consented to in a ceremonial
signing ceremony turned out to be a stumbling block for his personal
ascendancy to the reigns of power. No wonder he could not render an
iota of reason in the name of The Gambia why he recoiled back into the
empty shell of his UDP. He and Hamat Bah called their signing of the
NADD Memorandum of Understanding “a mistake.” The only mistake about it
was that the democratic selection process was not a blank check for
Darboe’s path to power, because there is nothing in the memorandum that
has not been conceived in the best interest of The Gambia.
But this
was not the first time Lawyer Darboe betrayed group interest.
Allegation? Well-founded. In the last presidential, election barely the
winner was announced he went on television to concede the vote and
congratulate Yahya Jammeh for retaining his incumbency. Three months
later, he called on his party to boycott the National Assembly
elections on the reason that the playing field was unleveled to the
disadvantage of the opposition. But the question is: was it not the
same playing field he contested the presidency in? (You decide.) We
can’t avoid but say that since his presidential bid had failed, the
political career of other UDP members and the cause of The Gambia were
not important anymore, because they must come secondary to his grand
personal ambition.
Hamat Bah harbors the same selfish interest for
power. He presents his so-called “unbaked cake” parable as if he is
every bit selfless about defeating Yahya Jammeh in the polls this
September, but behind that thin façade hides an insatiable demagogue
for power. I am not so naïve in the affairs of politics not to infer
that he made a secret deal with Lawyer Darboe for him to be the vice
when the latter becomes president. Do you need anymore meaning of
“sharing a cake that is not yet baked”? It is the willful attempt at
deception with delusive illusions that are tantalizing to sentiment but
not intangible to scrutiny. I once wrote that Hamat Bah “will say
everything, anything, and nothing just to find his way into the State
House.” But now I can add with all assurances doubly sure that he will
do everything, anything and nothing to achieve the same objective. The
reason he left NADD is as selfish as Lawyer Darboe’s. He is angry and
disgruntled.
We cannot let ourselves be deceived by APRC and
UDP/NRP quacks. They are the problem. The only way forward for The
Gambia is the path of NADD. Therein the solution lies. Vote NADD this
September! Vote for vision! Vote for meaningful change! Vote for the
future!
(This is the First in a series of Ten Articles.)
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Posted on Thursday, August 10, 2006 (Archive on Tuesday, August 29, 2006)
Posted by PNMBAI Contributed by PNMBAI
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