The presidential elections are history, and the parliamentary elections have just concluded; yet the war for the soul of our country is only just beginning. If we have learnt anything from these two elections, it is that democracy without an educated electorate and a civic-minded population is as good as no democracy at all. Today, like yesterday, Yahya Jammeh is patting himself on the back as his APRC supporters gloat, but like the presidential elections a few short months ago, this too is a hallow victory. Twelve years of Jammeh’s dictatorship has produced a population that has become conditioned, through intimidation, coercion and bribery to be subservient to the wishes and desires of Yahya Jammeh. The consequence is that a segment of our population is now predisposed to ignore and to discount Jammeh’s over-reach as well as the atrocities committed by his regime. Yet, even as each day passes, there are more and newer revelations about the manner of deaths of fellow Gambians who had disappeared, thereby cementing the accusations by the wider media of gross and widespread abuse of human and civil rights. Nowadays, nothing that Jammeh does will surprise us anymore, as we have seen and heard the very worst of him, yet the ease and the level to which many of our countrymen have succumbed to his tyranny is baffling to many of us.

The result of last week’s parliamentary elections ought to have left a bitter taste in the mouths of APRC supporters and their masters: Jammeh and his gang of thugs. Clearly, a thirty-four percent voter turnout is hardly any thing to boast about, and Jammeh and his APRC stalwarts ought to instead be studying the meaning of this poor voter turnout. Without a doubt, the sixty-six percent of the Gambian electorate have by not casting their votes or participating in the electoral process, rejected this government and what it stands for. But, as Jammeh and his APRC enablers go about abusing, torturing and killing our fellow citizens, they must always remember that without the support of the majority of Gambians, theirs is a government of the minority. Additionally, because the thirty-four percent voter turnout represents both APRC and opposition votes cast, the real percentage of total APRC votes will be computed once the actual results are out. One thing is certain; the total percentage of APRC votes could well turn out to be in the twenties, which by all accounts, is a government without a popular mandate, and a government that should not be allowed to exist one single day.

Without a doubt, the just concluded parliamentary elections are themselves not unlike the presidential elections of a couple of months ago when a forty-eight percent voter turnout then, also meant that total voter support for the APRC dwindled to the low thirties percentage when opposition votes were accounted for. The voter apathy seen in our country by and large tells a story; a story that Gambians are sick of thisPresident and sick of his government, but seem nonetheless to have given up and given in to the whims and caprices of the Jammeh dictatorial regime. However, Jammeh and his minions ought not to take solace in the last statement, rather, they should be concerned that they are in a corner, scorned, hated and vilified by most Gambians. Today, most of us have each in our own ways joined in this long and hard struggle to restore pride and dignity to our embattled citizens, and we will not quit until our aspirations for our country are realized. All across our land there is clearly an uneasy peace, twined by bottled up hatred that threatens to explode in our faces into a thousand little pieces. But until then, we can only speculate how long the Jolas under Yahya Jammeh will continue to expand and solidify their stranglehold on our country, our institutions and our government. Just how long will this Jola rule last? If history is any guide, then the days of Yahya Jammeh’s reign of terror like many before him are also numbered. For now, as Yahya Jammeh continues to win the small electoral battles, he is losing the big war, as progressively, more and more Gambians have decided to stay home rather than vote for the APRC. The parliamentary elections are another hallow victory; hallow because Jammeh and the APRC lost by merely winning. What happened this election cycle was passive resistance at it’s finest: non-threatening, effective, subtle, yet deadly in every sense of the word. There is now no doubt that The Gambian people are maturing politically, and to say that the country is ready for a popular revolt against this brutal, corrupt and incompetent regime may be an understatement.

Another beachfront party may be in the works to celebrate APRC’s parliamentary elections win, but most Gambians are not in the mood to celebrate. Many families continue to be torn apart by the actions of this government and the official and unofficial agencies that answer to it. Imprisoning and jailing our countrymen has become second nature for Jammeh and his NIA to the point that the number of families affected in a direct way has grown exponentially over the past few years alone. When the breadwinner in the family is arrested, jailed, loses their jobs, disappears, or is murdered, their whole family, their system of extended family, and our country suffer the consequences. But, the fact that Jammeh and his gangs do not seem to care that children and women suffer deprivation as a result of their actions, speaks volumes about them. As of today, all the media outlets singly and in concert are still trying to piece together the true picture of the extent of the damage this government has done to our country. There are still citizens unaccounted for, we still keep guessing the number of people who have been killed, and untold number of families continue to search for their loved ones. The arrests, detention, torture and murder of fellow citizens has reached an unprecedented level, as police stations from Bakau to Fatoto also fill with innocent Gambians in the aftermath of the presidential and parliamentary elections. Prisoners and detainees are denied the right to have families and loved ones visit them, but more importantly, our laws are made meaningless when detainees or prisoners are denied due process and held captive beyond what our laws allow. Jammeh and his Gestapo do not feel obligated to obey any law, and he continues to give the directives on which our judiciary bases its treatment of innocent Gambians wrongfully detained and imprisoned against their wills. Just prior to the recent elections, the government launched a cracked down campaign on many opposition candidates and supporters alike; the like of which we have never before seen in our country in any pre-election season. The primary reason for this crack down and intimidation was to impact the election results in favor of the APRC candidates. Now, days after the elections, the government continues to arrest opposition supporters and candidates. In my own home village of Sare Gainako, and the neighboring sister village of Sare Demba in the Niamina West District, all the young men have been arrested and detained at the Police Station in Sambang for supporting the opposition candidate who is also related to them by blood. More arrests of supporters of the opposition are reported in Manneh Kunda in Basse where the opposition candidate is being unlawfully detained as we go to press. In Penai Village, Niamina West, APRC supporters from the Mandinka side of the village reportedly invaded the opposition Fula Kunda side before they were repelled. This and other similar incidences across the country clearly show how much work will be left to do to bridge the widening divides being purposefully created by this regime.

The last two weeks left many Gambians stupefied by Jammeh’s claims to supernatural healing powers, and needless to say, I was befuddled too, but for a different reason. Unlike the rest, I did not question Jammeh’s delusion; instead, I questioned his sanity, and I did not question his judgment, rather, I questioned his thinking process. Wait a minute. The cure for HIV AISDS and asthma, two of the world’s deadliest diseases, afflicting millions, and Yahya Jammeh from the jungles of Cassamance has the cures for them? Let me pinch myself first, or better still Yahya Jammeh better pinch himself to see if he is alive or brain dead. How could any sane person make such claims with a straight face? Jammeh’s claim to supernatural powers is one more reason why we should not allow him to continue at the helm of our government, because once he believes in what he is saying, which he does, everything he dreams up will likely be translated into government policy. We already had one nut case like that before; Idi Amin Dada: remember him? Idi Amin was reported to have dreamt that God asked him to get rid of the Asians from Uganda, on that fateful morning nearly three decades ago; he gave the thousands of Asians living in Uganda twenty-four hours to pack and leave that country. The scary thing is that Yahya Jammeh exhibiting the same characteristics as Idi Amin did earlier on in his rule? The question then remains whether he is capable of doing something similar to what Amin did? The answer is yes. But, luckily we are far removed from the seventies when Amin’s reign of terror touched the lives of people around the world. If anyone has to leave The Gambia today, it clearly has to be Yahya Jammeh himself. Pictures of Jammeh touching patients at the Royal Victoria Hospital were embarrassing, yet the serious thing about that episode is that Jammeh has demonstrated by word and by deed that he is incapable of governing in a sane, sober and calculated way. More importantly, giving false hope to terminally sick patients on their dying beds is an irresponsible and criminal behavior, and Jammeh must be reprimanded for his actions and behavior in the hospital saga. It is now past time to pull the plug from under Yahya Jammeh. Our people have suffered enough already.

The other day I stumbled on a newspaper article as I was surfing the Internet. It was by a British journalist who quoted Edward Singhateh as saying that Jammeh has done a lot of work for The Gambia. Edward cited 260 schools and hospitals that he claims have been built by Jammeh. Really? 260 schools? Hmmm. I wonder where these schools are located? But, that aside, Edward Singhateh clearly demonstrated intellectual dishonesty when he failed to mention the atrocities being perpetrated by the government he is part of. Besides, it is not Yahya Jammeh who builds the schools, it is the government, and it is a mark of stupidity or ignorance or both for Singhateh to equate Yahya Jammeh to our government. Yahya Jammeh is not The Gambia, nor is he the government, and each time a person like Singhateh submits to his desire to curry favor with Jammeh, he loses a bit of his pride and dignity. The result is that eventually, he will succumb to Jammeh’s passion to humiliate and trample upon people's rights. To date, both Edward and his brother Peter Singhateh have been largely spared the glare of the media and The Gambian people only because they have made no waves, choosing instead to keep low profiles. But, as Jammeh’s reign of terror continues with both brothers watching from the inside out, it is uncertain how much longer The Gambian people will cut them the slack. Keeping low profiles may not be sufficient to shelter the brothers from Jammeh’s train wreck. The only way for Edward and Peter to save themselves is to put a clear and convincing distance between them and Jammeh’s madness, otherwise they will forever be joined to him at the hips. It is not in anyone’s desire or interest to make The Gambia a hell of a place for the brothers to live, because unlike Yahya Jammeh, they are both Gambian nationals. Many of us have seen Edward growing up poor in Banjul, as we also grew up poor at the same time, and so our earlier lives are similar in very many ways. Like Edward, we know the romanticism and nostalgia of what it is like to have been a “ndongo” Banjul. But, if now the Singhateh brothers choose to ignore the reality of their past suffering and poverty, and instead become privy and collaborators to the creation of the endemic poverty that is ravaging our country, then they will have no one but themselves to blame for the consequences of their actions. They like some of us understand what it is like to be hungry and not have food to eat, and they ought not enable Jammeh’s creation of these growing conditions of poverty and helplessness that have pervaded our country.

Finally, today it was brought to my attention that Jammeh is single-handedly causing the price of fish to skyrocket as his henchmen purchase the fish from fishermen around Tange and elsewhere to feed the animals in his Kanilai zoo. Women in the greater Banjul area and as far away as Kombo Brikama, are reportedly complaining not only of fish shortages, but also of the unaffordable price tag for fish. The cattle market is also suffering a slump as Jammeh’s front men are sent out to buy cattle for his Kanilai herd. Jammeh’s self interest guides everything he does, and anything else he does, is an after- thought. Jammeh has shown over and over that he has no heart or compassion for the poor and suffering people of our country, because he shares kinship not with them, but with those he imports from the Cassamance. The divisions Jammeh is creating amongst our people are reflected in the last parliamentary elections, when the opposition stood no candidate in the Fonis. Besides, for the opposition to drive through the Fonis has sometimes turned into a nightmare as they are pelted with rocks and threatened with their lives. Are the Fonis about to cede to the Cassamance, or are they still a part of The Gambia? How much longer will the 7% Jola population control and maltreat 93% of our population? The last two elections have spoken volumes. They show that Jammeh’s is not a popular government, but they also show something else; that the majority of Gambians don’t want Jammeh any more, but fear for their lives, want to protect their jobs and businesses and are therefore scared to be identified with the opposition. So, rather than vote, they chose to stay home. And stay home they did, all 66% of them; Gambians who would rather die than vote for Yahya Jammeh. This epitomizes passive resistance at its very best, and with so many Gambians ready for the inevitable change, the time might just ripe now.