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The Gambia stands at a precipice. Once celebrated for ending Yahya Jammeh’s 22-year dictatorship through the ballot box in 2016, the nation now risks backsliding into the very autocracy it overthrew. President Adama Barrow’s pledge to deliver a “legacy” of constitutional reform—including presidential term limits and an absolute majority voting system—rings hollow amid a cynical
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BANJUL, The Gambia — When U.S. officials included The Gambia on a list of countries facing potential travel bans last week, the reason was unambiguous: America fears our passports cannot be trusted. This international rebuke exposes a devastating truth—The Gambia’s immigration system has become a bazaar where citizenship is auctioned to the highest bidder, threatening
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BANJUL, The Gambia — A farmer stares at cracked earth where millet should stand. Drought has scorched his fields, but it is not nature alone he battles. His children eat one meal daily. School fees are a dream; medicine, unthinkable. His government, shackled by debt and austerity demands from Washington, has stripped away the supports
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In a dimly lit garage at Gambia’s State House, rows of dust-covered Bentleys and Rolls-Royces stand as decaying monuments to a tyrant’s avarice. These vehicles – once tools of ostentation for Yahya Jammeh, who ruled this tiny West African nation with terror for 22 years – now symbolize a far more insidious reality: the unfinished revolution haunting
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BANJUL, The Gambia – Imagine a nation blessed with sun-drenched beaches, a vibrant river artery, and resilient people. Now imagine that nation systematically bled dry for six decades by its own leaders. This is The Gambia’s reality since independence in 1965. Corruption isn’t merely a problem; it has been the defining operating system of successive
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Banjul, The Gambia — The sun still sets beautifully over the Atlantic, painting the beaches in gold and crimson. Tourists sip cocktails in oceanfront resorts. But beyond the hotel gates, a dangerous transformation is underway. The Gambia, long celebrated as West Africa’s “Smiling Coast” and a bastion of stability, is being strangled by a surge in
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In December 2016, Gambians everywhere celebrated the end of dictator Yahya Jammeh’s 22-year rule, a victory significantly fueled by diasporic activism, funding, and digital mobilization. Today, that same diaspora feels betrayed. In March 2025, Gambia’s National Assembly rejected a clause granting voting rights to citizens abroad, dismissing their constitutional claims and immense contributions. This decision
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BANJUL, The Gambia —Threat to The Gambia’s democratic progress isn’t a coup or foreign meddling, but failure of the nation’s brightest minds abandoning or being uninterested in elected office. This behavior is paralyzing institutions, hollowing governance, and endangering Africa’s smallest mainland nation. The National Assembly – the engine of legislative reform – badly underrepresents The
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In 2016, Gambians achieved the remarkable: they ousted a dictator, Yahya Jammeh, through the power of the vote after 22 years of repression. His departure, fueled by promises to rule for “a billion years” and bizarre claims like an AIDS cure, shone as a beacon for African democracy. Yet a decade later, The Gambia’s democratic
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BANJUL, The Gambia — In this slender West African nation, where the Gambia River stitches together communities, a frantic political assembly is underway. As the December 2026 presidential elections approach, The Gambia is witnessing an epidemic of political entrepreneurship. Opportunistic formations like the Reform and Development Party (RDP), launched recently by Imam Musa Jallow, join
The Civic Scribe: Articles & Poems 