Dear Mr President,
By the way, may I thank you for the achievements of your administration since 1994, especially in the areas of education health and communication, even though a large number of them are dysfunctional? Gambia Radio and Televisions Services (GRTS), which is a blessing in disguise as most of their programmes are geared towards aggrandising you and your perceived unprecedented developments instead of the common good of the populace. However, they are indeed your edifices, which you have worked so hard to achieve. Bravo!
Mr President, for almost twenty years of your rule, you hijack our fundamental human rights and put the country into a bleeding state with gross economic mess. Is it not time for you to reflect and punder over all the atrocities you have inflicted on the citizenry? Why do you choose totalitarianism, dictatorship, and tyranny over freedom, democracy and Justice? It is important for you to know that the Gambian populace like any other people on the planet earth cherish economic prosperity that is accompanied by freedom and democracy to a mare infrastructural development which you pride yourself on or boast of, even though you know very well that most of these infrastructures are dysfunctional. The down fall of tyrants like the late Sani Abacha, who used to call you “my son”, despite his unprecedented increase in the Nigerian foreign exchange reserves, from 494 million dollars in 1993 to 9.6 billion dollars by the middle of 1997, reduced the external debt of Nigeria from 36 billion in 1993 to 27 billion in 1997, and reduced the inflation rate from 54% to 8.9% from 1993 to 1998, these did not immune him from the rot of his country because people would never compromise their freedom to economic prosperity, let alone you who only surmounted Gambia’s poverty and misery(en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Sani_Abacha).
Mr President, you must have been told that the fundamental pinnacles for good governance are the rule of law, with a distinct recognition of supremacy of the law, equality before the law and fundamental human rights, separation of powers, checks and balance; which your government is practically devoid of. Thus it is only in The Gambia, where a constitutional or a sovereign state’s President presumes to be above the law. It is also only in The Gambia, where the principles of separation of powers and checks and balances are grossly violated by the head of the state. You unlimitedly abuse power by interfering in the functions and operation of both the legislative and judiciary. Your abuse of power even extends to the appointment of district and village heads as you fires them any time you want. In a normal democratic society, the district heads are elected, the process that you found in place before your usurpation of power. In other to legitimise your act of firing members of parliaments (MPs) in your party, you twist the arms of your MPs to change the constitutions so that once an MP is dismissed from his/her party he automatically loses his seat in parliament. You did this purposefully in order to have absolute control over your deputies so that they dare never challenge you. Again, your interference in the judiciary has gravely affected the dispensation of justice by judges as they no longer enjoy their immunities. The position of a chief justice has become a hot iron seat. Only those who go by your wishes will find it cool and last longer in that position.
Mr President, your inconsistency, unreliability and ungrateful traits have not only jeopardised the fate of your loyalists but your spin doctors, who have fought for you by sacrificing their relationship with the public. The lessons The Gambians have learned in your bid to betray and damn your stakeholders and loyalists are enough for anyone to refuse your offer of employment, if there is no threat or insecurity of rejecting it.
Mr President, Lamin Jobarteh, the former Justice Minister and Chief Justice, is a human being like any other person who cannot claim perfection but has wholeheartedly served and supported you like your many other loyalists and aides. However, you fabricated and inflated crimes against them all, in order to silence them. Why do you frame people to exonerate yourself from the wrongs that you should have taken the responsibility?
Mr President, the constitution of any democratic state does not allowed the president to engage in business, since he would not pay tax and to avoid his attention being distracted from state affairs. However, you are a different President, who does not only engage in private businesses but monopolises some of them at the expense of the citizens. The Abuko abattoir, your bread bakery, etc are good examples that manifest your vaulting ambition of amassing wealth for yourself at the expense of the state. No wonder, Dr Kwame Krummah of Ghana, said, “Despite of the initial euphoria and optimism that is generated immediately after a coup de ta, it is apparent that, the soldiers, by their training are not well equipped as the civilians in grappling multi ferrous administrative problems. Most of the time, they give prevalence of corruption as the reason for the over throw, but they becomes more corrupt than their civilian predecessors” (Saloum k.S 1996).
Mr President, why do you like impelling or inducing tribal sentiment to the Gambians who have harmoniously lived together peacefully, for centuries without having any differences on the basis of ethnicity?
Could you explain why you decided to withdraw Gambia from Common Wealth membership? Or did you just dislike them for promoting good governance? Or have you forgotten the scholarships that Gambia benefits from her membership of Common Wealth? Who told you to believe in and practice Machiavellian principles at the destruction of your people?
Mr President, the reason why you are attributed to tyranny and dictatorship is neither philosophical nor bias in interpretation or description of your brutality and ruthlessness to your subjects.
In the lights of the above facts, may I advise you to learn from the mistakes of the past dictators most of whom were either brutally killed or languished in jail for the rest of their lives. It is high time for you to stop blood shed and reconcile with people, and allow people to practice their rights as citizens for the good of the country.
Thank you.
Your subject
Amadou Kuyateh.
Ends