Have We Come This Far Only to Come This Far?
By Baba Colley
A Cycle of Stagnation: The Gambia’s Recurring Pattern of Lost Momentum
The Gambia today is a hive of activity. Rallies fill the air, speeches are proclaimed, policies are announced, and versions of the “Meet the farmers tour” seem ubiquitous. Yet, beneath this surface frenzy, a profound national inertia persists. We are spinning energetically in every direction but remain, frustratingly, in the same place. I cling to the hope that progress can be achieved without a catastrophic catalyst, but mounting evidence suggests otherwise. History whispers an uncomfortable warning to us: we often refuse to move until something breaks.
The First Cycle: From Liberation to Complacent Stagnation
Sir Dawda Jawara arrived at the pivotal moment our nation required, providing the visionary leadership necessary to guide us from colonial rule. He fulfilled that initial promise, steering the country to independence with dignity and competence. Yet, as time passed, the revolutionary ideas that fueled the nation-building project gradually waned. The fierce fire of creation dimmed to faintly glowing embers. We found ourselves on a hamster wheel, expending tremendous energy but making no forward progress.
Herein lay the peril of achieving stability: comfort bred complacency. With no pressing external crisis demanding transformation and insufficient internal pressure for innovation, Gambian society settled into a static pattern. The already-prosperous continued their comfortable existence, while the majority of the population remained frozen, watching opportunity perpetually pass them by. Upward mobility became a fantasy reserved for the well-connected few who could secure visas and opportunities abroad. For everyone else, each new day was a mirror image of the last.
The False Dawn of Revolutionary Change
When Yahya Jammeh erupted onto the national stage in July 1994, a substantial part of Gambian society welcomed the disruption. Their support was not rooted in revolutionary ideology but in profound restlessness and boredom with the status quo. Imagine that Friday morning for the average Gambian: no major national projects on the brink of completion, no transformative initiatives on the horizon, no tangible sense that tomorrow would differ from yesterday. It was simply another day of stasis.
Initially, the coup injected the nation with a jolt of energy. Here, at last, was movement, change, and the palpable promise of something new. However, as the initial shockwave subsided and years stretched into decades, a grimly familiar pattern re-established itself. Jammeh’s focus increasingly shifted from national development to the singular project of clinging to power. Innovation was supplanted by intimidation; progress surrendered to paranoia. The vast authoritarian apparatus he constructed to maintain control ultimately crushed the very dynamism needed to propel the country forward.
Over time, the ranks of the dissatisfied swelled from a disappointed minority to a frustrated majority. This culminated in a broad coalition movement, united by one overriding objective: ending Jammeh’s authoritarian stranglehold. In 2016, against considerable odds, the people collectively voted to close that dark chapter.
The Third Cycle: The Fading of Barrow’s Promise
It has now been nearly a decade since President Adama Barrow assumed office amidst a tide of unprecedented hope and optimism. We had long escaped colonial rule, moved beyond the post-colonial era’s imaginative limits, and freed ourselves from dictatorship. Yet, here we stand once more in that achingly familiar territory—the point where momentum dissipates and stagnation takes root.
The excitement that heralded Barrow’s rise has evaporated. The coalition of hope has fractured into familiar factions of political maneuvering. His government now faces escalating accusations of corruption, nepotism, and a profound indifference to the very aspirations that brought it to power. Promises of system change, a new constitution, and security reform linger unfulfilled. Cabinet ministers are perceived to live in grandeur while ordinary citizens grapple with soaring costs and vanishing opportunities. Grandiose projects remain confined to paper and political rhetoric.
We feel it again—that restless, gnawing sense that only some external shock or internal crisis can jolt us into meaningful action. The wheels are spinning furiously once more, generating heat and noise but delivering precious little forward movement.
A Stark Historical Warning: Learn or Repeat
The current government must heed this warning with the utmost seriousness: it must begin crafting a dignified exit strategy before circumstances force a chaotic and ugly departure.
The pattern is clear and ominous. Governments that exhaust their ideas while desperately clinging to power rarely exit gracefully. Sir Dawda overstayed his welcome and was removed by force. Jammeh refused to relinquish power peacefully, requiring a regional military intervention to dislodge him. Each transition grew messier and more traumatic because the leaders failed to recognize when their time had passed.
President Barrow’s administration is approaching that critical juncture. The signs are unmistakable: swelling public frustration, mounting and unanswered accusations of corruption, and a pervasive sense that the administration has depleted its vision and now governs primarily to maintain its position. If these grievances continue to accumulate without a substantive and meaningful response, history suggests the outcome will be pleasant for no one—least of all those currently in power.
An exit strategy does not mean immediate resignation; it means governing with a clear endgame in mind. It signifies prioritizing legacy over longevity, transformation over mere tenure. It involves asking not, “How can we remain in power?” but “What will The Gambia look like when we leave?” It demands investing political capital in foundational reforms that may not win the next election but will benefit the nation for generations. Most critically, it requires the humility to recognize the signs that your government’s ideas have run dry before the people deliver that verdict through protest, unrest, or worse.
The Unanswered Question: Why Do We Slow Down?
This forces a fundamental question that should haunt every Gambian political leader: Why do we consistently slow down just as we begin to move forward? Why does each administration commence with energy and vision, only to settle into the quicksand of comfortable mediocrity? Why do we perpetually confuse activity for achievement, mistaking the spinning of wheels for genuine travel? Why have we failed to build the institutional machinery capable of sustaining momentum across political eras?Perhaps we are trapped in a cycle where the colossal effort of removing failing leadership exhausts our national spirit, leaving little energy to conceive what truly effective governance could be. Perhaps our political culture inherently values survival over innovation, patronage over performance. Perhaps we have never developed the essential civic infrastructure—robust institutions, a fiercely independent media, an empowered civil society—required to hold governments accountable and focused on the long arc of progress. Whatever the root cause, this debilitating pattern must be broken. We cannot endure another turn of the cycle: hope decaying into disappointment, energy dissolving into stagnation, promise curdling into betrayal.
The Merry-Go-Round of Power: The Recycling of Faces
For Gambians of a certain age, there is a palpable sense of déjà vu with every cabinet reshuffle or new agency inauguration. The same constellation of faces appears, endlessly rotated through different ministerial portfolios like players in a slow, predictable game of musical chairs. The Finance Minister becomes the Foreign Affairs Minister; the Education Minister resurfaces at Health. The Permanent Secretary at Agriculture later heads Trade. This cycle perpetuated itself, with individuals amassing titles and allowances while the nation’s core challenges persisted unchanged.
This was not governance by merit; it was a closed ecosystem where a select few circulated through the corridors of power irrespective of their expertise, performance, or capacity for fresh thought. Exceptional skill in a role was less important than reliable membership in the club. Competence was overshadowed by connections; vision was secondary to loyalty.
How the Recycling System Worked
Under Sir Dawda’s government, a relatively compact political elite monopolized decision-making roles. If you were educated, well-connected, and politically reliable, you could anticipate a lengthy career oscillating between ministries, commissions, and state-owned enterprises. A spectacular failure at Education? A transfer to Agriculture would follow. Proven ineffectiveness at Trade? Perhaps Tourism would be next. The system was designed to protect its own, ensuring that failure rarely meant expulsion from government service, merely relocation within its vast bureaucracy.
When Jammeh seized power, he initially swept this old guard aside, vowing to inject new blood and ideas. Yet, within a few years, a new iteration of the same pattern solidified. The faces were different, but the mechanics of the merry-go-round were identical. Loyalists to Jammeh were rotated through positions based not on qualification but on personal allegiance. The circle grew smaller and more paranoid, but the relentless recycling continued unabated.
The Barrow Era: New Government, Ancient Habits
Now, nearly ten years into the Barrow administration, those who remember the past are besieged by a familiar sinking feeling. Scrutinize the cabinet appointments, the agency heads, the ambassadorial postings. While the faces may have changed, the entrenched pattern persists. A new political class has emerged—coalition partners, former Jammeh loyalists, former party leaders, shameless UDP defectors, the well-connected—who are being rotated through positions with the same disregard for specialized expertise that plagued previous regimes. Individuals with no background in finance manage the economy; those with no experience in education oversee our schools; people with no expertise in health navigate complex public health challenges. When these individuals fail or underperform, they are seldom removed from the government ecosystem. Instead, they are quietly moved—reassigned to a different ministry, appointed to lead another agency, or dispatched to a diplomatic post abroad. The merry-go-round spins on.
The Cost of Recycled Leadership
This relentless recycling of a limited talent pool has devastating consequences:
· It stifles innovation: The same people, with the same perspectives shaped by the same system, cannot produce breakthrough thinking. Fresh graduates with modern training, diaspora professionals with global experience, and innovative young Gambians find the doors to decision-making firmly locked.
· It rewards mediocrity: When poor performance leads not to dismissal but to reassignment, all incentive for excellence evaporates. Why strive, think deeply, or take risks when your position is secured by allegiance rather than results?
· It breeds public cynicism: Citizens witness the same figures occupying different chairs, delivering the same hollow promises across various sectors, and they lose faith in the government’s capacity—or will—to solve problems. Political engagement withers under the conclusion that nothing will fundamentally change.
· It wastes national expertise: Talented Gambians with deep, sector-specific knowledge—educators, doctors, engineers, agricultural scientists—remain sidelined for lack of political connections. The nation’s human capital lies fallow while connected generalists falter in specialized roles.
Breaking the Cycle: A Demand for Better
To escape this gravitational pull of stagnation, we must collectively demand an end to the revolving door. This requires:
· Insisting on merit-based appointments, where documented expertise and a relevant track record decisively outweigh political loyalty or familial ties.
· Demanding genuine accountability, where failure in a role leads to actual consequence and departure, not a lateral move to another ministry.
· Creating pathways for new voices through term limits for senior positions and proactive recruitment of talented professionals, both young and from the diaspora.
· Building institutional memory within a strong, professional civil service that does not depend on a rotating cast of personalities.
· Valuing fresh thinking and resisting the seductive comfort of familiar faces who have long demonstrated a lack of transformative vision.
The current government possesses the power to shatter this pattern, but only if it chooses to wield that power. The old merry-go-round continues its slow spin, the same tired music plays, and those who remember have seen this show before.
The urgent question is whether this administration will finally step off the ride to chart a new course, or whether we will watch, yet again, as a generation of the same faces rotates through different offices while the nation stands still.
We have seen this film. We know its ending. It is time to write a new script.
The Gambian people deserve more than a rotating cast of governments that begin with promise and end in disillusionment. We deserve leadership that sustains momentum, that governs with a vision extending beyond the next electoral cycle, that builds institutions far stronger than any individual personality.
The current government still has a window to alter this trajectory—but that window is closing. The warning could not be more explicit: begin planning now for how to leave a positive legacy, before a far more unpleasant force writes your exit for you. History is observing, and history in The Gambia has shown little mercy to leaders who ignore its lessons.
The wheels are spinning. The question remains: Will they finally catch traction and move us forward, or will we remain stuck in place until something breaks? Again.