It’s five months since the deadly coronavirus emerged in The Gambia. Since then the government had declared a number of state of public emergencies with partial measures to fight against the spread of the coronavirus.

But due to the government’s negligence, they went further without proper assessment of the situation of the virus in the country and opened the airspace. 

And people have fervently advised President Adama Barrow and his government not to open the airspace as he and his administration members were equally advised of the consequence of opening the airspace.

But they paid no heed to the advice of the people. And it was on those incoming planes to be precise, the SN Brussels Airline which one could say was flying from the hardest-hit countries in Europe brought many of the infections in the country.

The most strange part of this show is when President Adama Barrow decided on 24 July to scrap the state of public emergency at a time the country has started to see a spike in the number of daily coronavirus cases.

It seems Barrow and his government has lost the will to fight the virus in this most demanding period that citizens would be heavily relying on their governments all over the globe to introduce measures and safeguards for getting rid of such a deadly disease. But in The Gambia it is a different show.

Let us be honest and frank to each other! Everybody in this country, unless you want to bypass the truth, but the rise in cases in the country is caused by government negligence.

Now that things started to get out of control, the President Adama Barrow has withdrawn responsibility by scraping the state of public emergency at a time Gambia needs stringent lockdown.

I have been a fervent advocate in the citizenry masses – calling on the government of The Gambia to not only rely on lockdown measures as a primary solution to this virus. But we are living in a country where the government doesn’t listen to the advice of its citizenry.

Given the fact of our fragile state of healthcare system, this government under the mantle of President Barrow should not open the airspace despite the presidency’s Friday statement stating that the land, airspace, and sea borders remained closed.

The truth is that, still the land borders are extremely porous. People can move in and out of the country at any time.

And with the local transmission at which we have seen high numbers of new cases within this short period of time have triggered worry in everyone in the country.

By Adama Makasuba