Lamin,
How are you? I am glad you are here for I enjoy your company and indeed  hold 
you in high esteem. On rare occasions, your emotions overwhelm your  
intellect and an opportunity arises for us to share differing views. This is  such an 
occasion.
 
"Malanding: Remember Saints in the mid- to late-70s? When other  members of 
your class, including myself, were struggling with ordinary maths, a  select 
group of you were grappling with the stupefying concepts of Additional  
Mathematics under the tutelage of Father Flynn. If not him, then Father  somebody, but 
I think it was Father Flynn. After Saints, I stayed away from  the 
mathematical sciences and wouldn't know how to tackle metric concepts  especially in 
relation to socio-political questions." JDAM
 
Thanx for the reminiscence, I think it was father Flynn. I remmember him  
fondly. It is however unfortunate Lamin for an honourable citizen like  yourself 
to not appreciate the value of metrics or the actuarial sciences  especially 
in juridical decision-making. I know you're probably joking but our  friend 
Malandikukeh asked a very significant question that stood to accrue  enormous 
value for PDOIS were you to have taken it seriously. Consider  that by metrics he 
meant yardstick as opposed to derivatives, limits and  continuity. The 
problem you have created for yourself is that you have used  voluminous metrics and 
actuarial considerations in your juridical decisions, and  more importantly in 
assessing the worth or lack thereof, of Jawara's thirty some  odd years of 
leadership to conclude that it was devoid of any meaningful  achievement. You 
also obviously must have considered metrics in certifying the  ordainment of the 
1994 coup and in assessing the worth or value of Yahya's  leadership in 
comparison to a potential PDOIS leadership. I find it  disingenuous (for want of 
more benign adjective) therefore to retire ever  so discretely from an 
assessment of PDOIS' worth or lack thereof spanning  both the PPP and Yahya. I was so 
looking forward to a stellar performance and  possibly earning PDOIS new 
converts. I share that simple statistics such as  mean mode and median would do the 
trick. In fact, the use of add-math may  further blur your analysis in this 
area.
 
"Although another outsider, I am at least aware that through its principal  
information organ - FOROYAA - PDOIS has contributed tremendously to awakening  
and nurturing the political consciousness of Gambians."
 
I disagree with you here Lamin. As you intimated, Foroyaa is a PDOIS party  
organ. All communist parties have party organs, and like Foroyaa, they help  to 
diseminate the message of the party to the citizenry. I regualrly receive a  
newsletter from Siemens. The newsletter always teaches me about a new idea but 
 at the end, it shares that I can only yield value from the idea if I 
purchased a  Siemens component. So a party organ such as Foroyaa is a propaganda or  
advertising organ and to keep your interest in reading it, they cut and paste  
parts of the Gambia constitution to give the mirage of an educational paper.  
Although I applaud PDOIS for the vision to establish a party paper. If you 
say  Foroyaa therefore has contributed tremendously in awakening and nurturing 
the  political consciousness of Gambians, you are inadvertently admitting that 
that  political consciousness was already present in Gambians prior to 
Foroyaa. Since  Foroyaa is, by your own admission, a party organ, I understand you to 
share that  PDOIS engages in intellectually engineering acceptance by 
Gambians. Please  convince me otherwise.
 
"It is my understanding that PDOIS has a multi-purpose centre for the  
proliferation of education, especially in the socio-political  area." JDAM.
 
Would you mind sharing with us the name and location of this centre? If it  
is for the proliferation of education I would presume it is public, easily  
accessible, and its value assessible.
 
"And the leadership are usually invited by youth-controlled community and  
civic organisations to give speeches. I have a video of Halifa giving one such  
speech at Tujereng in Kombo South." JDAM.
 
Lamin, I also can share that Halifa spoke to our Sixth form class at GHS  
upon invitation, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. To this day however, I cannot  
recall what he spoke about or what it had to do with our lives. One thing you  may 
want to share with PDOIS is that if over the last two decades, they have  
given multitudes of speeches and churned out zillions of editions of Foroyaa but  
are still in the political doldrums, it may be a good idea for them to invite 
 citizens to give speeches at their central bureau in order that they may  
appreciate the value of what citizens have to say. I don't mean invite  PDOIS 
youth organs but ordinary voting citizens. It could prove useful. I'm  usually 
not in the business of advising political parties and certainly not  PDOIS who 
always know what I'm thinking or what I should think about.
 
"Outside party political functions, I do not recall the leadership of any  
other political party being invited to share their socio-political views with  
fellow Gambians." JDAM.
 
And look at their poll records at elections. Lamin, this ought to at least  
inform a more inclusive strategy for PDOIS as opposed to rely on invitations to 
 speak.
 
"In my view, the reason may be attributable to the fact that in our pre-  and 
post-1994 systems, both the dominant parties have no sensible programmes to  
sell to Gambians, and hence continue to exploit the easy option of steering  
national life in darkness." JDAM.
 
You must admit Lamin that given their shortcomings in vision for Gambia,  
Gambians desire them over PDOIS. Or maybe Gambians still haven't gotten PDOIS'  
extraordinary and divine message for governance yet.
 
"To preempt a retort of why their relatively insignificant political  
representation in government, I suggest you search for answers in the atrocious  
unaccountable systems of PPP and APRC." JDAM.
 
Lamin, Men how can you ask Malandikukeh to search for records that are not  
there (unaccountable systems). You did not pre-empt the retort of why their  
relatively insignificant political representation in government. So I will  ask 
retort to you: Why PDOIS' lackluster (insignificant is too extreme for  me) 
performance at the polls over two decades at least?
 
"If you require quantification of the benefits of PDOIS "relentless  
programme of political education and civic consciousness", I do not have the  
mathematical wherewithal to do that," JDAM.
 
It would have been very easy to quantify or even qualify the value of  PDOIS' 
relentless programme of educational proliferation if it were there.  Lamin, 
what you confuse with education am afraid is ideological indoctrination  under 
the guise of philanthropic education. I'd like you to engage in a simple  
poll. That may satisfy Kukeh's query:
 
Get a ballpark figure of Gambians PDOIS educated say last year and  share 
that with us.
Then share with us how many of those PDOIS-educated citizens are PDOIS  
militants or party members or children of PDOIS party members and  sympathisers.
 
I guess you know where I'm headed with this. I have some more detailed  
questions if you'll indulge me. At the end, we will not only be able to quantify  
but qualify the worth of a PDOIS Relentless CIVIC CONSCIOUSNESS  exercise.
 
"but I take it the evidence is obvious in the number of other parties  
obliterated from the national consciousness with the passage of time. The PPP  
itself is one such victim, and the party was at the centre of national life for  
three decades." JDAM.
 
It is terribly unfortunate and counterproductive for PDOIS to keep  comparing 
itself to PPP, a party you admit is as good as dead. If you wish to  keep up 
with growth and life in PDOIS, it may be time to compare it with living  
organs and organisms. Ironic idn't it? Besides, you were all too happy to  partner 
with the PPP to form NADD just about a year ago Lamin. One exercise that  may 
give you a yardstick is to compare the health of PDOIS under PPP and under  
APRC and ammend your activities accordingly. I take it PDOIS prefers APRC to the 
 PPP era. I know why but I can't share that. It would cost you $100,000.00 to 
 complement my funds for a research hospital in the place of the state house  
mosque when I become President of Gambia.
 
Lamin, this is the one area that I think you and I have polarly opposite  
views on. It is healthy though because I give you the opportunity to convince me  
that I should support PDOIS as opposed to APRC or UDP/NRP. Trust me if you 
can  convince me, Kukeh and Suntou will be a piece of cake for I will join you 
in  persuading them. You know Suntou is already leaning that way. If he were to 
lean  any further he'd fall into the ditch. A friend of mine told me that it  
generally gets pitch dark before total darkness. I suppose you guys and gals 
at  PDOIS would say "Darkness usually comes before Minuit". I haven't seen  a 
handful of folk so hopefull about darkness as you PDOIS folk.ll :  >>>)!!! 
Holla back.
 
Haruna. 




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