My Personal Reflection on The Dictator Is Us by Alagie Saidy-Barrow

By Ndey Jobarteh

I want to begin this reflection by sharing something quite personal. My copy of The Dictator Is Us is not just any book, it was bought by Cherno Bah and he made sure that it bears Alagie Saidy-Barrow’s signature and Adama Njie carried it from Gambia to Norway. That alone made it precious to me before I even turned the first page. But reading it, slowly, deliberately, and with frequent pauses to catch my breath, transformed it from a signed book into something profoundly deeper, a mirror I wasn’t entirely ready to look into.

This isn’t an easy book to read, not because of its language (which is clear and direct), but because of the hard truths it lays bare. Alagie Saidy-Barrow doesn’t just tell us about Yahya Jammeh’s brutality, he tells us how we, as Gambians, in small ways and large, made it possible. He forces us to look at ourselves, at our silence, our compromises, our greed, our tribal loyalties, and sometimes even our cruelty.

Reading through Alagie’s accounts of victims who vanished without a trace, or women humiliated by witch hunts, or the silent offices that turned away from cries for justice, I felt a heaviness I can’t quite describe. There were moments I had to close the book, put it down on my lap, and just sit in silence, thinking of all the mothers, fathers, children who are still searching for answers.

But beyond that sadness, I also felt anger, at Jammeh, yes, but also at all those who enabled him. The lawyers who drafted the decrees that choked our freedoms. The religious leaders who crowned him with titles of piety while he desecrated the very sanctity they claimed to uphold. The journalists who chose flattery over truth, becoming praise singers instead of watchdogs. The everyday people who shrugged and said, “Allah wills it,” so they wouldn’t have to risk losing their comforts.

Alagie writes with an honesty that is almost ruthless. He does not spare us, not even in our private moral excuses. And in doing so, he forced me to ask myself: what would I have done in their place? Would I have spoken up? Would I have risked everything? Or would I have, quietly and conveniently, looked the other way?

What I appreciated most is that this book doesn’t just retell the horrors of Jammeh’s rule as if it were a distant nightmare. It shows how the seeds of dictatorship are still there, in the mindset of “clearance from the top,” in our still fragile institutions, in the many ways we normalize small wrongs every day. It’s sobering to realize that the machinery Jammeh built didn’t vanish when he fled, it simply shifted shape.

Alagie also shows how deeply intertwined fear, power, and personal gain can become. How easily good people can slip into complicity. How dictators are not simply monsters who emerge fully formed, but are fed, nurtured, and kept alive by our own failings. That truth hurts. But it is necessary.

At the same time, reading this book also made me think of the resilience that sometimes gets overshadowed. The few who stood up when it wasn’t safe. The families who kept searching. The victims who testified despite threats and trauma. I wish there were even more pages dedicated to them, because they remind us that there is another side to our national story, one of courage and integrity, even if rare.

Holding this signed book from Cherno Bah, reading Alagie’s unflinching words, I found myself tracing my own journey. All the years I’ve spent advocating for justice, running civic education programs, fighting for accountability, they suddenly took on a sharper meaning. Because this isn’t theoretical. This is about us, our lives, our neighbors, our families, our future.

In fact, I feel this book is not only relevant, it is urgently timely for today’s Gambia. We are still grappling with many of the same patterns that enabled Jammeh’s rule, the same petty divisions, the same tribal suspicions, the same willingness to excuse wrongdoing when it’s convenient. We are still seeing old enablers finding new positions, still seeing communities quick to tear each other down over politics. Reading The Dictator Is Us right now almost feels like reading a cautionary manual for the very crossroads we stand at today.

There were moments reading this book when I questioned whether we have truly changed. Whether we, as a people, have learned enough to make “Never Again” more than just a slogan. Whether we are willing to confront our own tribal biases, our tolerance for mediocrity, our easy forgiveness of people who should never hold public office again.

And yet, despite all these heavy thoughts, I closed the final page with a renewed sense of duty. Because what choice do we have but to keep trying? If this book teaches anything, it is that change isn’t a one time event. It’s a painstaking, generational process of building institutions, rewriting our cultural instincts, and nurturing a citizenry that refuses to bow to fear.

The Dictator Is Us is more than a book. It’s a national reckoning. It’s a painful, beautifully written testament to what went wrong, and what must go right if we are ever to heal. I believe it belongs in every Gambian home, every political science and social science class at the University of The Gambia, and most importantly, in the conversations we have with our children.

So thank you, Alagie, for daring to write what many would rather forget. And thank you, Cherno, for placing this book in my hands. I carry it now not just on my shelf, but in my conscience, and I believe it is exactly the book we need in this very moment in today’s Gambia.