Inna lillahi wa inna ilaihi rajiun

Honourable Lamin Waa Juwara (Mbaroadi) passed on today at 76. Our condolences go to his family, his people in Brikama and Niamina, and fellow Gambians.

A nationalist has breathed his last. A dogged fighter is no more. A consummate nation builder has shifted base to the other side of eternity. A child of God has gone home to be with his Creator; we should mourn his loss. May Allah, the merciful, the beneficent, grant him Aljannah Firdausi. 

Here, under Lamin Waa Juwara, commonly known as Mbarodi and the rest – for Mbarodi was an honourable man. He was a decent human being, a faithful man and just to The Gambia, he loves dearly spilled his blood, sweat and tears his hard work and loss of a limb for the Gambia

But, he was ambitious; and Mbarodi was an honourable man. William Shakespeare in Julius Caesar. Act 3, Scene 2. It has been said that all of life is a preparation for death. 

The Psalmist said: What man is he that liveth, and shall not see death?

Death is the universal adversary. 

Presidents must succumb to it; Senators must succumb to it, Honourables must succumb to it, Parliamentarians must succumb to it, Kings must succumb to it, rich people must succumb to it, poor people must surrender to it. So the holy scriptures said, “There is a step between me and death.”

Now, death has snatched away from our inimitable Lamin Waa Juwara, Mbarodi. 

Waa Juwara was a strong man. I know he would have battled valiantly to keep the monster-called death away from his doorstep. 

Still, the death stealthily steals past his guards and down the corridors to his royal bed chambers picked Mbarodi. 

My heartfelt and profound condolences to the bereaved family, the entire Gambian media fraternity, the political class, and the entire Gambian people. I am beset by one of the awful news of 2022. 

The Gambia has just lost a father, grandfather, friend, uncle, and comrade in the struggle for better Gambia and scholarship. 

In addition, the Gambia has lost another worthy citizen; The Gambia said goodnight early to one of its best, an actual politician of vast knowledge, a friendly person, a patriotic who had a strong faith in the Gambia’s growth and development. I joined the entire Gambia to mourn the loss of Mbaroadi and equally sympathize with his family.

A good man and a lovely man have gone. He emerged as one of his generation’s great idiosyncratic and fearless political talents. When I heard of it this morning, all that I could say was, “Inna lillahi wa inna ilaihi rajiun.”  

Waa Juwara was a good man. He meant well for this Nation. He was a patriot. He was a strong man who had paid his dues. History will be kind to him in two sessions: good and bad. 

He was an ambitious man; he was like a cobra; where a cobra sits, that is where its food comes to meet. He was a hero, and I had once written about him when I titled it “Lamin Waa Juwara, An Unsung Hero.”

His maker answered his prayers. He did not roll in the mud and did not grovel before the moral kindergartens of Brikama or of anywhere before he took his final bow. 

He did not join others to wear gowns to town and etch inconclusive elections on the forehead of his country’s democracy. He achieved everything a real man would wish in full measure, but he made just half of the target age. 

Death kills the man. Death is just a tool in the hands of fate, of inscrutable destiny. Death is closer than we think. Life and death are Siamese twins, although our lives were separately lived commonly was she with purpose-filled. 

From the beginning of time, the wise have not been able to decode death and its mortal software. That precisely is why crooked mahogany stands bent in the forest to eat funeral cakes of straight, upright Iroko. 

Nevertheless, strangely, we do not think the death of death should be man’s priority. So instead of distracting death with all the delicacies of the earth, we spend the little time we have feeding pearls to some impotent ash in accursed hearths. 

We leave deleterious leprosy untreated and spend our life savings curing eczema. We know death is the immortal enemy that needs appeasement, but we will not take our choice wines to his presence. 

So instead, elaborate shrines and propitiations are prepared for some small, lame gods in rocks and villas who have no finger to raise when the spirit of finality strolls in.

Lamin Waa Juwara departed in an interview about his unsure beginning. As a baby, even later as a pre-teen, he said everyone believed he would die the usual death. 

Waa Juwara played on the world stage to avoid taking a local pedestrian exit. However, his maker chose that sudden closure and rested in peace. He played his part, fulfilled his mission, and delivered the message fully and clearly. 

He was an activist and a statesman, politician, teacher without borders. There was no subject he did not touch – morning newspaper headlines, morning, afternoon, evening, night. 

His words were as restless as his world. His every phrase is a professorial lesson in Language, Literature, Culture, Philosophy, Politics, Economics, Religion, and even everything about the Gambia. 

In his death are lessons for the wise. He was an older adult retired politician who died but have we noticed that Mbarodi had been mentioned in all news reports and blogs in the Gambia and the diaspora community social media? 

His story makes the dominant paragraphs in essays and commentaries on his life with anxieties and controversies. No one is talking about his possessions, but all tongues and fingers toast his humanity, his patriotism.

An uncompromising stance on injustice, defending human rights, fighting for the restoration of democracy and ending tyranny, and unpretentious anger and angst at his country’s refusal to be of good behavior. 

The global focus has remarkably been on the fecund mind and heart and brains his maker endowed him with. His media engagements and talks hoist him as a loyalist of untainted truth, patriotism, courage and consistency, and honest living. 

However, even if he could look back and see his loved ones,  militants, and supporters, he would kneel before his maker in absolute gratitude for the universality of his acclaim. 

Mbarodi was sent here to play a part, and he played it so well that even death gave him a total compliment at departure. He is a successful brand, very well blessed that he had the grace of waving goodbye with a red flashing light – honking a sorry goodnight for (and to) an increasingly irredeemable Gambia. 

It is not easy to write about Lamin Waa or praise him and not come out as Jali Bamba. His flattery and court jester deifies Mbarodi embarrassingly, even as he knows he was a mortal of common fears and normal faults. 

It is not easy to praise Mbarodi without descending to sycophancy. It is also not easy to write about Lamin Waa Juwara (Mbarodi) and criticise him without coming out as a  court poet, and many others who think statecraft is an art or science with definite rules as the holding of elections and the preservation of friendships.

It is not easy to criticize him without descending to vitriolic proclamations of the trivial type. Lamin Waa Juwara, who needs no introduction. He was a vital member of that axis of activism. Alone and aged now, he was by the hearth, burning the fire. 

Mbarodi fought with an indomitable spirit, his back to the wall. Defeat is for those who accept it. For most parts of his life, Mbarodi was either teaching or in detention or on the streets fighting injustice or by his table under his mango tree in his Brikama residence. 

His disciples always surrounded him, giving them lectures and civic activism about the Gambia and saving it from Kleptocratic rule under Yahya Jammeh since July 1994. 

In the daily newspaper headlines in the Gambia, he engaged the present and the future in a fearless gaze. The man, Mbarodi, belonged to an iconic cast of resilient rights defenders who wove his affection for the good of the Gambia in personal adversity. 

He opposed evil never made excuses for failure in governance. For this, Mbarodi was always in and out of jail all prisons, most times, Mile II Central Prisons, Janjanbureh prisons, and other detention centers countrywide. 

Waa Juwara’s engagement in the Second Liberation struggle was not about individuals or families, even though some heroic roles should be acknowledged. 

Many people died, lost their jobs, liberty, and limbs, all for that struggle, not to mention those who suffered untold persecutions and deprivations. 

What is needed is an action that will touch every hero and heroine of the third wave of Gambian struggle and revolution (most of whom are unknown) through genuine democratic engagements that will usher in precise fiscal, resource control, electoral reforms, good governance, eradication of poverty and joblessness, holistic restructuring and fundamental constitutional amendments, all to be achieved through enduring legislation. 

That was the genuine aspiration of Mbarodi. The common man has felt the whip of oppression; to serve the purpose. He spilled his blood upon every historic struggle; he suffered the cruelties of political intolerance; the sweat of his brow is an intellectual property doctrine of democracy in the Gambia.

Some philosophers say life is a race between what you have and what may yet come. Others insist there is no race in life, that everyone has a measured step to take towards meeting their assigned destiny. 

Whichever is correct here, the truth is that life is a journey. For some, it is a long, winding trek; for others, it is a flight, some straight, some with stopovers and connecting flights. 

However, moreover, you ask: To where? Ultimately, all of us will land – our ports of embarkation and disembarkation of political life and private life.

Mbarodi is hard to write about a few times in his years in politics and public life. However, those very few informal meetings were enough for one to form a solid opinion on this politician who could talk – and he was never afraid to talk. 

Sometimes, he talked himself into real trouble and strolled off unperturbed. You looked at him and pitied him. However, the cracks joke and smiles and laugh even in terrible storms. 

He would turn the dissing homewards if no enemies were to whip with costly vibes. “They say I talk, but I am a bona fide Mbarodi man from Miami.” 

He said this on occasion, and you could not fault his code. Niamna people would say whatever is in their mouths, their way, even if the roof is on fire.

Lamin Waa Juwara was an original activist who never took his mouth to the washerman. He was his own man. He was not a perfect man; he made mistakes, some very unnecessary. 

However, he did many good things that should make him evergreen unforgettable. Lamin Waa Juwara will always be remembered for his defining moment’s involved acts of compromise, pragmatism, and reconciliation with his fiercest rival. 

All agreed he could be severe, not autocratic, and stubborn. However, one count displayed flexibility and magnanimity to serve Yahya Jammeh’s cabinet. “To err is human.; to forgive divine”.

Mbarodi encourages reconciliation and fraternity and never believes in divided and fragmented Gambia.

Lamin Waa Juwara was a good man from Niamina who held nothing back. He was our excellent friend of private media and independent-minded journalists. We did not start as friends. 

There was a mountain of unsmiling ice between his part of the ocean and the Independent. There were several standoffs, both sides sizing up each other. 

There were real tense moments, even the exchange of hostile correspondence. He later realized why we were and why the Independent could not let politicians talk and roam freely. 

Then, gradually, the ice thawed. He told us many things that only a friend would know as he helped strike down conspiracies of dark politics aimed at killing the Gambia’s most vibrant newspaper. We understood him; he understood us. The rest is history. We were his friend, a staunch supporter of freedom of the press.

Suppose Mbarodi has come of age in his contribution. In that case, inevitable apparent failures of his are not approached perpendicularly but in an asymptotic and shy endeavour. 

Yes, Mbarodi reached an age when political appointments to high office are possible for people with proper education, good training, and proven experience. 

Thus, it is not easy to criticize Lamin Waa Juwara (Mbarodi) without safeguarding certain positions and actuating prudent rationalizations for secret motives.

I am not alone expecting a payslip when Waa Juwara, another founding father of the Second Liberation, the Nation, agrees to end kleptocratic rule and despotism. 

Yes, I know Waa Juwara was a repository of so many ambitions. However, in so many ways, he was also frustrated with Godfathers. So many people think he will harvest some good, but a good number also hopes the whale should swallow him for good.

However, I will write about him and hope that in mourning him, I will not fall to Jali Bamba’s level of the tongue that wants to keep bread and the mind that has no other alternative. 

So I will write about Waa Juwara and hope not to reach the zenith of hopeless disharmony or Jali Bamba’s inept reading of Niccolo Machiavelli and his unlearned interpretations of the Lao Tse the Chinese wisdom on statecraft. So I start to write about him.

Lamin Waa Juwara easily qualifies as one of the few Gambians who can genuinely be called a statesman. The independence heroes like Edward Francis Small and Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara were easy to describe as statesmen. 

This is because they had fought a foreign coloniser and got us independence. Later, during the second liberation struggles, which properly considered should be seen as the first liberation from our homegrown oppressors, Lamin Waa Juwara, Halifa Sallah, Seedia Jatta, Ousainou Darboe, among many others, including university professors and students who paid in mortal kind opened for us the democratic space. 

They defeated the idolatry of Shiekh Yahya Jammeh as the Oga, the Farmer number, Babilimansa, Doctor, Nasiru deen, Philosopher, and fighter of HIV/AIDS. That was achieved in early 1994-2016. I was lucky to be a witness to this history.

We learned a viable lesson: some people fighting reforms in opposition parties are not doing it out of deep convictions but out of cowardice and the fear of losing comfort. 

Although with anemic dispositions, Waa Juwara has proved a steadfast fighter for good governance and human rights. 

However, it must be given to him that Waa Juwara’s formidable performance in the last three General Elections had his weight behind the intent of defeating the incumbent and uprooting despotism.

Through Lamin Waa Juwara’s patriotic campaign, he campaigned for the rejection of the 1997 Draft Constitution in the referendum against solid forces, which included some members of the military Junta who believed and still believe certain rights and opportunities could not be given to Gambian in temenos(in sacred places) like a people approved constitution. 

In 2022 we today yearned for a new constitution. However, the reformist forces, led by Lamin Waa Juwara and the comfortable troops, were in opposition and had less acrimonious relationships.

The military Junta’s morphed into civilian rule confirmed Lami Waa Juwara as a Bishop of sacred good and a person to whom so many Gambians have vested their faiths. 

The Archbishop is trusted with tithe and offering, and in him, we can sow seeds. Mbarodi can transact with the devil, for we believe he did dine with the devil and not use his spoons. 

Why is Lamin Waa Juwara the only one allowed to fight anyone tooth and nail, and when he decides to retire his guns, his followers read betrayal and not a strategy? 

The people trusted him. They believe he has never betrayed them since he embarked on the quest for truth and justice, public office rectitude, and the institutionalization of egalitarianism. 

Waa Juwara cannot act but rightly and could not act without acting rightly. He has never acted unwisely like many other Gambians who abandoned the progressive forces to enjoy the glory of being Ministers and ambassadors for a brief period of years in Yahya’s rejected leadership. 

These things make Lamin Waa Juwara a bishop to be beautified. Any time he is seen with the devil, it is understood to be a trip of exorcism and not the fall of the Holy Spirit.

Mbarodi dealt with Yahya Jammeh and came out virtuous and not naked. He wrestled with Ousainou Darboe, and we got much good. He engaged Halifa Sallah, PDOIS, Gambian diaspora strugglers, media, and adherents believe only good will come out of the engagement. 

Gambians want peace, to enjoy the fallacy of personal advantages we all vote for in every election. Lamin Waa Juwara( Mbarodi) is the hero of democracy and human rights for his objectivity and candor in an era where blind politics and zombie-like loyalty have become the tone and flavor of party or individual preference.

It bothers me much when a man campaigning on the platform of “honesty and accountability” is caught with both hands in the cookie jar not once or twice but severally. The clamour for “change” as it is – is that of change for change’s sake, as long as there change, wherever that leads or leaves us.

What is required to liberate the Gambia and her citizens from poverty, disease, insecurity, and a dearth of visionary and purposeful leadership without first and foremost frontally confronting the Gambia’s dysfunctional institutional decay

Whether he will be eaten by sharks or survive in the belly of a whale remains to be seen. However, I think Lamin Waa Juwara vomited in Nineveh, where the people of God await his message. 

Therefore, I will not criticise Lamin Waa Juwara (Mbarodi); instead, I will mourn and grieve. 

Waa Juwara was a star that other constellations could not stop and shone forth inconsistency, integrity, and intentions. I hope individual politicians will learn some lessons from the death of Mbarodi? 

Would our politicians remember the words of Antony in William Shakespeare at the funeral of Brutus? Would they learn that none of us can be sure when the next moment the journey will be?

By Alagi Yorro Jallow