No figure generates as much controversy and sensation in the Gambia 
as Lamin Waa Juwara, alias “Mbarodi”.  Waa in time is an illusive 
character whose political ambitions has ever been mistaken for public 
courage.  There is a Waa, the con artist since his days as the heavy 
handed “commandang of Janjangbury” who preys on the young girls at 
Armitage High School, and has now transmogrified his prurient desire for 
power as a solace to the wishes of a dead beat “Diaspora”.  There is a 
Waa, the icon wanna-be who symbolizes the opposition and dominates the  
anti-establishment political narrative.  And there is also the vulgar 
Waa the iconoclast- an irksome maverick to both the opposition, the 
incumbency, and the entire social order in the Gambia.  All these three 
characters are systematically compartmentalized in Waa in order to slave 
for his ultimate heart-aching desire:  H. E. Alhajie Lamin Waa Juwara, 
president of the Rep. of Mandink...the Grand Nephew of Dr.Fafa ( 
remember him ?)

The Gambia is cursed, hexed and jinxed by the dearth of leadership.  The 
human ego is a sucker, and it adhors a power vacuum (which by the way is 
quite rampant within the opposition establishment).  One interesting 
issue that constantly baffles me is how much choice does the Gambian 
people have in choosing their “opposition leaders”?  If one spans the 
entire opposition  spectrum from the inept UDP to the marginal NRP, the 
answer is none.  However, Waa has this talismanic effect such that his 
saber rattling never fails to resonate with the desparate Diaspora whose 
voice is unheard, unheeded and ignored by the voters that matter come 
the general elections in 2006.  

Sedition is a serious crime sanctionable by the Gambian Penal Codes; it 
is not a human right guarranteed by the Constitution- a distinction 
which seems to escape the current talk about Waa’s arrest.  These days 
Yaya Jammeh’s government has all rights to respond seriously to any 
rhetorics that disturbs the public peace, law and order... if it only 
connects the dots between the Senegalese intervention in 1981, and 
domestic public unrest in the Gambia.  It is a very volatile security 
situation because this time around our “neighbors” want more than a 
confederation... they want to pull the strings from Dakar with a puppet 
at No. 1 Marina Parade,

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