The Gambia suffers from too many men and women of comfort and convenience. Persons whose whole existence revolves around convenience, comfort, lies, and flattery are commonly known as “dogo dogo syndrome.”

Individuals who interact with elements throughout their lives solely because it is convenient for them. Convenience is the state of being able to proceed with something with little effort or difficulty. 

It, therefore, implies that men and women of convenience and comfort have an affinity for the path of least resistance.

The path of convenience, therefore, invites no room for reflection, criticism, and/or introspection. 

The highest aspiration for men and women of convenience and comfort is correctness – to be seen or perceived as “nice”. They are a bunch of whited sepulchers who masquerade as intellectuals and religious persons.

“Who are you to judge”, “God will judge”, “It is not good to discuss dead people”. I submit here that these are statements of convenience, for beyond these phrases, lies truths we would rather not face. It is convenient to play “safe” than to engage in an open, constructive discussion.

An expedition into convenience requires urgent obfuscation of facts, twisted truths, and stretched excuses to meet preset expectations. Convenience is the father of unholy compromise and the grandfather of mediocrity. 

Most mediocre persons in private and public life are men and women of convenience and comfort.

Men and women of convenience are everywhere – in offices, at home, and in public offices. Some are our friends, relatives, wives, and husbands. 

In the public sphere, you have politics of convenience – voters and politicians taken to identity politics and ethnic balkanization because it is easy to hide behind an “identity.” It is easier to blame “others” – “we” against “them” – than to take responsibility for commissions and omissions.

We even have friends of convenience; they are the educated fools and pseudo-intellectuals dangling papers of academic excellence, but when they get down to the real practical work, these folks will fidget out because of lack or realtime knowledge. 

Some of those persons of convenience and comfort with their Masters and Ph.D. degrees and you can tell with grandiose temerity that those papers are pieces of crap that ought to be dumped because they don’t adhere to the basic tenets of organic intellect and knowledge. 

They don’t deliver instead; they rely on government jobs and work in multinational organisations through the use of their influence lobbying on foreign contacts and prepares to work in war-torn countries doing clerical duties without cognitive skills to apply.

People are presenting as friends who are around us because it is convenient for the time being. People who are your friend and will sing your praises only until the last round of beer.

People who will attend a funeral, sign the condolence book, say many “right” things. At the same time, the record of their past public pronouncements about the deceased is diametrically opposed to their “well crafted” eulogy. 

The sole purpose here is the convenience brought about by the publicity of being seen as an undying “friend” of the deceased.

Men and women of convenience do and say convenient things, with absolute inability to reconcile themselves to the truths, realities, and consequences in any descriptive circumstances. 

In private life, it is men of convenience who become deadbeat fathers. It is convenient to provide excuses than to face the burden and commitment that comes with taking care of your child.

Convenience turns even the most “educated” and reasonable persons into experts at “political correctness.” The set of persons who are always taken to saying the “right” things all the time. 

Persons whose relations, friendships, careers, thoughts, writings, and social media timelines are an act of “correctness and hyperboles.”

For the duty of a man or woman of convenience is to remain on the path of convenience and comfort, and so, one must always say popular things, at the expense of the important but unpopular. 

There being no reflection, irritation, or resistance, the amount of energy required to maintain convenient interactions and relationships is minimal. You just need to show “correctness.” 

And in the end, men and women of convenience make for the best sycophants, revisionists, hair-brained court jesters, and chief eulogists.

By Alagi Yorro Jallow