The Gambia’s political leadership has been found wanting since the country gained independence in 1965.

In 57 years, The Gambia has produced three constitutions and only elected three presidents. Unlike in the United States, where eleven presidents had served in that period.

Without peaceful power alternation and presidential term limits provision in our constitution, we are doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past. So, what is the democracy deficit in the Gambia?

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “A man cannot ride your back unless it is bent.” It is the people who are allowing their backs to be ridden. One cannot entirely blame our politicians for staying in office too long. The people sit back and complain, curse the darkness but will not light a candle.

It is unimaginable that after 57 years of independence and a few years before then, the Gambian people have seen only three leaders. It is an indictment against our leaders. 

However, more than that, it is an indictment against our people. After 57 years, is this the best we can do? Do our leaders have any conscience or morality? Do our people have no conscience or morality? 

Instead, three leaders and now dinosaur political leaders who feel entitled to rule over the masses are on the sidelines, hungering for power.

Do our leaders not know that their continued political dominance, presence, and pursuit of political power reflect their lack of leadership? After all these years, to not have groomed, mentored, or facilitated anyone else to hold the office of the presidency ought to be a direct and indirect egg-on-their-face moment. 

Furthermore, our people – are they not just as culpable? In the 57 years since The Gambia’s independence, the United States has seen at least eleven presidents. 

However, we cycle and recycle the same archaic, burnt-out political minds. Minds are so politically institutionalised that they cannot escape their political quagmire. 

Minds that have lost love, passion, and a sense of absolute altruistic patriotism — the sort of vision they claim to have. They have come to internalize the President’s office, so much so that they deceive themselves into believing they are current and most effective simply by being in office.

If I did not know better, I would swear that The Gambia’s second president, Yahya Jammeh, campaigned on the platform that, among many other promises, the Office of the President would be limited to two terms only. 

That promise certainly took on wings and flew into the political abyss. He overstayed and served 22 years in office. His predecessor Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara, did 30 years in office until he was overthrown. 

So Gambian people are in a dilemma whether President Adama Barrow dishonours a presidential term limit and perpetuates himself like his two predecessors? 

However, President Barrow must ensure that the Gambia has a term limit provision in its constitutional amendments, or President Barrow’s new constitution promised to  Gambians. 

However, there are signs that President Barrow, too, maybe intoxicated or affected with the same virus as his predecessors in overstaying in power.

Have we no brighter minds? Hear the embittered voice of Cassius in Julius Caesar to Brutus: “Why has Rome space for only one man?” Or, in the instant case, two men. 

Moreover, no, my voice is not embittered. On the contrary, it is patriotic to the core. Have we no more visionaries? Have we no more revolutionaries to revolutionize what we do in The Gambia? 

If the answer is no, then our educational, vocational, and educational systems have failed us and our political mentoring system – if there ever was one in the first place. 

Thus, potential political leaders with vision and brilliance are chased from the political ring. Those who remain are duped into patronage rather than patriotism. What a crying shame!

It seems that there is a genetic claim to the office of the presidency. Still, at least it results in a new potential leadership face. 

Moreover, if that displeases the masses, how could we not be more dissatisfied with carrying on the shameful hereditary system of political entitlement that presently exists? It is a shame on us as a people. 

Do we breed a political die-in-office mentality in the Gambia? Is there anyone alive with vision, passion, devotion, leadership qualities, and expertise other than those who have already expired in office? 

The oppressor never gives up oppressing. The oppressed must rise. Again, Cassius’ remarks to Brutus reverberate through the eons of time and across the length and breadth of our islands: “Caesar would not be a wolf except that we are but sheep.” Instead, our political leaders have been made wolves, empowered by the passivity and complacency of our people. 

Our political leaders have been anointed as wolves, even by those in religious circles who supported partisan politics to the detriment of our nation’s advancement.

The existence of an aura of brazen shame, so embedded in the Gambian people and our politicians that both are unaware of its existence, exalts a people over the nation with the view that the country is at the heart of the people concludes with the illusion. 

However, Yahya Jammeh has been President for almost two decades in power, lost the presidential election to Adama Barrow in a shocking 2016 election results but has refused to leave office. 

Yahya Jammeh has been given short notice to leave the country after regional leaders sent troops across the border to support President Barrow. 

The Ecowas union of West African states said its troops would forcibly remove Mr. Jammeh from power unless he agreed to finally hand power to his democratically elected successor, Adama Barrow. 

However, Yahya Jammeh’s departure heralds the first democratic transition of power the Gambia has seen. Jammeh initially accepted defeat but later rejected the election result and declared a national state of emergency in an attempt to cling to power.

When the new Government of President Adama Barrow took over the reins of Government from Yahya Jammeh, Gambians danced in the streets and hoped for a brighter political future that would dispense suffering without reason and emotive fear as well as scrapped antiquated laws on the statute books(s), effectively dismantling the archaic colonial laws owing their origin to the British, but are still in practice. 

The 2016 Grand coalition of opposition led by Adama Barrow’s campaign agenda and election promise included a “Presidential Two-Term Limit.” 

In other words, he promised Gambians that no president would be in power for life or overstay their mandate as did by his predecessor, who removed presidential term limits by enabling them to rule The Gambia indefinitely.

It is not but ought to be an insult to allow any leader again to sit tight in power for more than two five-year terms. Our political leaders should be ashamed of their leadership traits, not mentor young people of these isles to lead the country forward. 

The leadership fruit is ripe for the picking again in the new Gambia because part of the political agenda that Gambians fought for is not to allow leaders to perpetuate the leadership vacuum. Furthermore, the Gambian people deserve a presidential term limit.

By Alagi Yorro Jallow