Guest Editorial

This is the Endgame

By Professor Abdoulaye Saine, Miami University

The 1994 army coup in The Gambia, now disingenuously dubbed a “revolution” is ironically eating its children.  Witness the recent wave of arrests, dismissals and detention of the high and powerful to the low, abused and discarded.  Jammeh is literally the lone survivor so far, the only person standing on clay feet fifteen years later.  His co-coup conspirators, Sadibou Hydara died under suspicious circumstances in prison of alleged hypertension; power-drunk Sana Sabally, once the second-in-command now lives in self-imposed exile after a nine year prison-term at Mile II; the once powerful bloodhound, Edward Singhateh eventually bit the dust, disgraced, and Jammeh’s spineless propagandist, Yankuba Touray, fittingly languishes at Mile II. To the fallen “soldiers without a difference” are countless security personnel and civilians who fled Jammeh’s reign of terror fearing for life and limb.  Those not so lucky are buried “six-feet deep,”  “disappeared” or forever mangled- physically and in spirit.

 Alongside the bones of the buried in Gambia’s own “killing fields” are the putrid remains of grandiose promises: democracy, transparency, probity and human rights and in their place- “greed is good, and might is right!”  A state-security apparatus designed to insulate and protect cannot save Jammeh from his demons.  Embattled, every waking moment is enveloped in paranoia and even in slumber; Jammeh is tormented by ghosts of atrocities past. 

But be warned.  This is the endgame!  The day of reckoning is but hours.  The writing is on the horizon- clear for all to see but Jammeh himself.  Jammeh must go, and go peacefully.  Arrests, detentions, Killings and more threats of killing journalists and human rights workers will not save his skin nor avert the inevitable.

 To save his skin, and avoid Doe’s gruesome end, Jammeh must relinquish power and restore sovereignty to a union government.  We need a national conference to ferret out what the future holds.  In exchange, Jammeh stands trial at The Hague- never to be seen or heard from again.  Forget blood-letting in the country!  That only rewards the warlords and sets the country back- it already is a failed state.  The Gambia cries out for new visionary and bold leadership, a transformed political and economic ethos to cradle the poor and the less privileged in society.  It cannot and must never be business as usual- not another dictatorship of the professionals.

Gambians refuse to go back to endless political posturing, rancor, divisiveness and recrimination. We must stand strong and demand a place at the political table- not the crumbs.  Gone are the days of handouts and bottomless greed. This is the time to look inward and forward to rediscover what really matters.  We have already traveled too far afield.   Must we now continue to wallow in collective amnesia, denial and national misery?  Where are the sons and daughters who spoke “truth to power”?  Whatever happened to trust and community?  The Gambia weeps uncontrollably awaiting rescue from the grip of ignoble sons and daughters.  This is the endgame!

Alas, will intolerance and arrogance drown different and dissenting voices in the new dispensation?  What about opportunists who hover waiting for the opportune moment to swoop their prey?  Are we ready to stand in as our brother and sister’s keeper?  And could we together build a nation out of our disparate socially constructed identities- united only by what is good for Gambia and most Gambians?  Never mind change, we have no use for past injustices and greed. 

The endgame looms and we must prepare.  The writing is on the horizon for all to see but Jammeh.  They must all go without spilled bitter blood to forever taint Gambia’s holy grounds.  No, no need for prizes of mangled and dismembered bodies and certainly not Jammeh’s head for a trophy. This is the endgame and it looms!  We must rebuild anew because the alternative is hell.

**Abdoulaye Saine is Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Miami University and author of The Paradox of Third-Wave Democratization in Africa: The Gambia Under AFPRC-APRC Rule, 1994-2008.