Bakary Darboe, The Beautiful Soul
   
  Credulity is one of humanity’s great vulnerabilities.  It provides a standing invitation for the wicked to exploit their brothers and sisters.  I am not accusing Mr. Darboe of wickedness nor attempting any form of public indictment of his actions or omissions in public office.   However, I feel compelled to challenge his non sequitur mind numbing rebarbative dribbling about his actions in 1994.  I have also noticed the banal reverence to “His Excellency” which I think shall earn the envy of the yokels of Kiang who are perhaps waxing sentimental over their favorite son from Dumbutto who is now in exile.  For all the gentleman’s worth, nobody disputes his “record of service” to the Gambia:  a talented bureaucrat who does what he is told to do, represses his ambitions with stoic servitude and keeps his nose clean whilst bidding his time climbing the ladder from a lowly commissioner to the Vice-presidency by default… All hands down Mr. Darboe is a very pragmatic manager of
 “situations” as he repeats that word umpteen times during his interview.
   
  On one version of his “situations” which he calls “objective”, he was part of a “political leadership” whose chief’s long tenure in power is “frowned upon” in well established democratic practice but nevertheless the expressed mandate of the people who successively elects him.  Jawara’s repeated presidency was a matter of settled law in the constitution of the First Republic but reading Mr. Darboe, whether the “effective leader” is canned or not was an affordable “luxury” opened to debate.  On another version of Mr. Darboe’s “situations” power was confiscated by force from the people of the Gambia in 1994.  This was an infraction of the rule of law, an “illegal act” committed by the “unscrupulous” Chairman of a “junta” as Mr. Darboe calls it.  Now judging from his own rendition of his experience one can discern a stark contrast within a fragmented Bakary: One Bakary Bunja “a democrat who believes that power is derived from the people…otherwise it is illegitimate”, and
 loyally serves an “effective leader”; another Bakary Bunja who made a Faustian pact with an “unscrupulous” criminal (who resented his guts). The first Bakary is in the league of morally principled democrats like the Omar Jallows and Halifa Sallahs who never subjected their beliefs to an “opened debate”, and never compromised their faith in the rule of law under some flimsy patriotic excuses.  The latter Bakary Bunja displays a fragmented soul that lacks political integrity.  This character climaxed in a parody of an unapologetic Bakary Darboe’s words: 
   
  “For me, the ultimate test, the acid test of the junta’s sincerity and good faith was the “Rectification Program” I micro-managed in order to crown myself the new chief in town.  When they rejected it, in the most cavalier manner, and on the flimsiest of grounds…I drew the conclusion that I shall never be the President of the Gambia .”
   
  This latter Bakary shows nothing but a naive ego possessed by some delusions of grandeur.  Mr. Darboe’s interview ranks with an aura of passive superiority complex.  It is sheer manic relish larded with half-truths and braggadocio. 
   
   
  Ebou Jallow
   
  Washington , DC 
     


       
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