There is no way to probably understand the Gambia today without considering the country’s history.

We also have to acknowledge the impact of past and present events -slavery, colonialism, neo-colonialism, globalisation, the COVID-19 pandemic, and different wars around the world on the current realities of the Gambia.

However, despite these, I contend that the Gambia is not a poor country. Our problem is that we are stealing its wealth.

The tragedy of most of our leaders is that they learned too well from the colonial masters how to steal wealth from their people through bribery and corruption.

The bulk of our political elites have few original ideas. Thus, they could only copy and paste from their colonial masters, whose pattern was to steal Africa’s resources. As a result, most of them can not exploit our natural resources and harness them to uplift the condition of their countries because that was not the interest of the colonial masters.

If it is exploited, however, they siphon the money into private foreign bank accounts instead of their people.

On this trajectory, most of our leaders govern without real accountability and weaponise the law to serve ruthless private interests.

Look at our tiny Gambia, a population of less than three million with comparatively vast amounts of natural resources that, if exploited properly, we should all enjoy a decent life contrary to the beastly poverty in the country.

River Gambia, for example, is one of the most essential waterways in Africa. It is the only river in Africa navigable by ocean-going vessels all year round. It has the potential to generate hydroelectric power. And we have commercial fishing potential offshore and in the river.

Equally, we have large quartz sand deposits. We are endowed with zircon, titanium, clay, laterite, sand silica, etc. It is a beautiful coastline with some of the most beautiful beaches in West Africa.

Our climate favours agriculture and tourist attractions. And we have a young population. Nevertheless, the potential of these young populations lain fallow without use. And, yet, we are one of the poorest countries in the world.

Revenue from exploiting these resources should provide enough funds for our country but instead fuel corruption, environmental degradation, and poverty. Sadly, any resource exploitation initiated benefits only to elites and their lackeys.

With this, I maintain that hyper-corruption is today’s Gambia problem, not poverty. Hence, our leaders are mainly responsible for this artificial poverty the country is in through greed, selfishness, and stealing.

Therefore, in the context of the Gambia, criticisms should be directed to our presidents, especially to Barrow, who have proved unable to fight corruption and to provide Gambians with essential services.

The president and his cabal reduce politics to nothing but a racket to steal money from the country, with government contracts awarded to well-connected individuals with no capacity and questionable credentials to fulfil but for kickbacks.

Piles of Auditor General Reports cataloguing monumental corruption languish in oblivion because the people who are supposed to act on them are those affected by the reports.

Also, read Malagen Newspaper reports by investigative journalists – untold corruption was excavated, but nothing happened that indicates that our government is serious about cracking down on corruption.

With this, to mask their failures, they give in to the temptation of appeals to ethnic, tribal, linguistic, and religious divisions like the colonial government.

Then, they allow corruption to set in and become a way of life. Anybody critical of their misgovernance will be labelled an enemy of the country.

The country is witness to the testimony that President Barrow, who came from nowhere and within seven years as president, gets super rich while the county plunges into the bottomless pitch of degrading poverty.

Not only is mass corruption confined to President Barrow, but the sweep of his family, friends, and supporters suddenly became rich and powerful to the country’s detriment.

Bogged down in the vicious circle of misgovernance, it can be argued that we as a country aided and abetted stealing of our country’s resources advertently or inadvertently. Weird it may sound, but this is the reality – self-cannibalism at its best.

Some of our struggles against dictatorship and support for political parties are merely so that we can have a chance to feather our own nest in government positions.

We only shout from the pinnacle about stealing when it is not our family, friends, tribe, religion, or region. Only a few genuinely mean consistently fighting corruption for the country’s sake.

Since our independence, billions of money have been misappropriated from the country under our governments. Our leaders, especially former president dictator Yahya Jammeh and President Barrow, both came from rags to riches and, within a few years, owned everything in the country, including the people.

Thousands of Gambians suffer when our hospitals are without essential services, schools are without chairs, people are without water and electricity, and young people are without jobs. These are some graphic and tragic demonstrations of the failure of leadership in the Gambia, spreading impoverishment’s net ever more expansive.

That’s the consequence of corruption when vast sums of money are stolen from the country’s wealth. Which Forces impoverished Gambian people into material, political, and economic deprivation by their government.

In this tsunami of chaos, it is incomprehensible that our primary loyalty remains rooted in tribal identity, party political affiliations, family, friends, status, and regional connections to the detriment of the country.

In addition, the so-called gift-giving, an acceptable feature of our country, is being manipulated and abused to facilitate bribery, corruption and control. Thus, we all join in the grand procession of corruption and accept corruption as a means of earning a living.

President Barrow has the chance to learn from the former presidents’ mistakes. He should equally remember how Gambians fought to ensconce him into power. However, under him, the country climbed new heights in breathtaking levels of corruption and buffoonery.

Robbed of the last sheets of his innate dignity, he vaingloriously boasts of his powers, achievements that are nothing of the sort. At the same time, the country is abandoned, economically menaced, constitutionally vandalised and reduced the country to be derided internationally.

Public appointments are made not on ability, integrity, or capacity to do the job – but allegiance to the president and his political party. There is no coherent policy framework to address the issues affecting the poor, powerless, and needy.

One can, therefore, argue that the Gambia under President Barrow is catastrophically corrupt, his unfitness for office is no secret, and our economy is mishandled.

Everything is built with borrowing, not earned money. This is a time bomb that is accumulating.

Based on these, the Gambia is hurtling towards another challenging year in 2024, and.

Unless we as a country get serious without compromise to hold the president accountable and demand that our economy is run correctly, governance systems improve and get serious about corruption.

Political accountability in the Gambia, I maintain, should no longer become the new but simply the expected.

The Gambia, I argue, cannot succeed unless we force our leaders to wipe the state of governance clean. This should not be a spectator game – all should get involved.

Because the self-interest of each of us is best pursued by advancing the common interests of all of us.

Ebrima Scattred Janneh “EB”