Carried by the People, Now Threatening the People: Where Is His Integrity Now?
By: Ndey Jobarteh
What Barrow conveniently forgets, or hopes Gambians will forget, is this, he is the first President in our history who abandoned his own people, fleeing the country and getting sworn in on foreign soil while Jammeh’s security forces still prowled our streets. It was ordinary Gambians, not Barrow, who stared down Jammeh’s tanks, stood unarmed at roadblocks, mobilized the International Community, and ultimately forced Jammeh out. If anyone deserves credit for restoring democracy, it is the Gambian people who risked everything, not the man who watched from afar.
And yet, after being carried to power on the backs of those very citizens, Barrow has squandered his mandate. Instead of the sweeping reforms, justice for victims, and new democratic order he promised, he has entrenched patronage, delivered selective justice, corrupted State Institutions and State House to protect himself and punish his rivals.
Now, out of ideas and terrified of accountability, he resorts to insulting and threatening the very citizens who put him in office. He ridicules young people for “making noise,” claims he loses sleep out of sheer anger at them, and then issues a brazen threat:
“This is why when some of these young people are beating their chests making unnecessary noise I get very angry. Sometimes I even struggle to sleep at night because of anger. These are the same people who left this country when things were tough. They were scared of coming to the country. Some of them have not contributed a single dalasi to the change,”
“But now, the same people are now in the UDP making noise that President Barrow will not run for a third term, and that if I want to run this and that would happen. I swear to God I will do something to you that would be very bad,”
This is the unmistakable language of tyranny. It betrays a man who sees the Presidency not as a sacred trust, but as his private entitlement, one he will guard by intimidation if he must.
Gambians did not overthrow a dictator only to have another stand on a podium years later and threaten them for demanding accountability. The question isn’t where today’s critics were during Jammeh’s reign, most of them were fighting for change while Barrow was still an unknown.
No, the real question is, where is Barrow’s integrity now? Where is his courage to accept dissent, to uphold the Constitution, and to lead with humility instead of fear? Because when a leader has to threaten his own people just to hang onto power, he’s already lost the moral authority to lead.
Video Source: GRTS TV & Baboucarr Ceesay
