Unnecessary Political Gimmicks


The Independent (Banjul)

COLUMN
August 6, 2001
Posted to the web August 6, 2001

D.A Jawo
Banjul, The Gambia

"Better a Little With Contentment Than a Lot With Contention" - B. Franklin

Wonders really never cease in this country. When the present ruling clique
came to power in a military coup in 1994, they told us that they were
soldiers with a difference, but it now appears that even as civilians, they
are still behaving quite differently from the norm.

Can anyone ever imagine that for just taking delivery of an ordinary
generating set, the entire government machinery and virtually the whole of
the population of Banjul would to be mobilized to sing and dance in the
streets for it, apparently making monkeys of themselves?

That is certainly well above and out of the ordinary. This country has been
taking delivery of generating sets of various shapes and sizes since time
immemorial and never had anyone ever come out of the streets to dance for
it. Why therefore should that be the case this time? I have no doubt that
the captain and crew of the ship that brought the generator and indeed
everyone at the Port would have been quite surprised to see such antics
being displayed just for the receipt of a generator. They would also
certainly wonder what type of a country this is that would mobilize an
entire capital city to sing and dance for a new generator.

The truth is however quite obvious to all those familiar with the brand of
politics being played in this country nowadays. Everyone with some
commonsense would know that the regime is using every available opportunity
to campaign for the forthcoming presidential elections, and all those
unusual antics were part of that campaign. Rather than creating such events
just to use the public media to campaign, they should be honest enough to
come out plain to do that rather than try to hide behind such antics.

While President Jammeh and his regime may have a genuine wish to provide
electricity and other amenities to the people of this country, but it is
certainly unfair and unethical to use those facilities for their own
political ends. Despite what President Jammeh has been saying and all the
noise that his 'wailers' are making, those facilities are being provided
from public funds and it is therefore quite unfair for any particular
political party or political aspirant to use them for heir own political
ends. That unfortunately is what seems to be happening in this country.

This is indeed a clear manifestation that the APRC leadership, despite all
the things they are saying about their adherence to free and fair elections,
they do not seem to have any genuine intention to create a level political
playing field, otherwise they would they would not have been using public
public resources and facilities to score points against their opponents.
There is no doubt that they want to capitalize on the situation and use the
public facilities, including the public media to mount a campaign for the
APRC, even before the official campaign period when the opposition parties
are also expected to be given access to the public media.



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