The fish rots from the head. Leaders make or break the country, or the institution, organization or group they lead. The tragedy in the Gambia is poor leadership. Whether it’s the Government or public institutions or political parties or civil society organizations or communities, the prevalent challenge is leadership. The lack of good, honest, open and visionary leaders who are compassionate, effective and accountable.

The poor governance and weak democracy within the government and political parties lie in poor leadership. The failure of leaders to uphold and submit to democratic values and standards. The prevalence of corruption and the widespread mismanagement of public resources point to poor leadership. Because of poor leadership, social and economic development remain unattainable because public institutions and officials as leaders cannot design good policies and if they do, they cannot ensure effective implementation of those policies to produce results that bring meaningful change in the lives of citizens.

For 7 good years the combined leaderships of the Executive and the Legislature and the political parties cannot bring themselves together to make the country have a new constitution. Rather, these leaders waste our time blaming everyone except themselves.

For 7 good years, leaders at State House and the National Assembly cannot make this country to achieve good governance, decent human development and respect for the rule of law and protection of human rights. Yet the laws are there and clear as the sun at noon.

For 7 good years, leaders of this country cannot bring about real social, economic and political transformation to build a whole new society! While they increase taxes, take huge loans and grants on behalf of the people, still majority of the people live in abject poverty. But these leaders as the President, Ministers and NAMs can buy multimillion dalasi vehicles for themselves without any feeling of guilt or shame!

Sadly, the most apparent reality of the country is to see and hear leaders betray, steal, lie, fail, insult, defraud, divide, abuse, incite, deny, mislead, distort, disinform, divert, dodge, and disrespect. Hardly we see a social, cultural, religious, or political leader accept the truth and take responsibility for failures or mistakes, or compromise or withdraw from a position just for the public interest! Rather what we see is how our leaders do not practice what they preach.

Sometimes when one takes a close look at the situation and the issues taking place in the country one wonders where are the political leaders, where are the imams and priests, where are the traditional leaders, where are the opinion leaders and where are the intellectual leaders of this country? Who is coming to save the Gambia?

Top of the leadership is the President of the Republic. Yet it is incredibly worrying that the President himself has in fact been the very source of all the rancor, division, disunity, anger, hatred and the corruption in the country! His words, decisions and actions have always been the cause of much disturbance in the country! Instead of the Presidency be a source of unity among the people, it has become a source of disunity in the country!

What an amazing country!

By Madi Jorbateh