| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Momodou |
Posted - 11 May 2026 : 03:48:55
Dancing with the truth
By Baba Jallow
The downfall of the Jammeh dictatorship gave way to a vigorous search for the truth in The Gambia. Through a holistic transitional justice process deploying several mechanisms, the government and people of The Gambia looked into the recent past to uncover a large number of uncomfortable truths about the ousted dictator and his regime. Through the Janneh commission, the Constitutional Review Commission, and the Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission, Gambians unearthed painful truths about a leader and a regime that subsisted on illegality, corruption, impunity, cruelty, and outright criminality. The ultimate reason for seeking out the truth was to ensure that the damage done is remedied and that nonrecurrence is guaranteed.
But the truth is not always a comfortable commodity to discover. In post-conflict and post-authoritarian situations, it is more of a painful reality to confront and live with.
Discovering the truth brings invaluable knowledge and insights, but it also causes pain, traumatizes society and re-traumatizes victims. Those who sought it out are then challenged, both legally and morally, to effectively address it, remedy it, and ensure that the worst parts of it do not recur. It is a function of the truth that it shall set you free. But it is also a function of the truth that it shall make you uncomfortable. And it shall present you with a choice to either do the right thing or not. And so, society, Gambian society in this case, is required by the very logic of its national aspirations, to confront the challenges of the truths discovered through our transitional justice process and to take the necessary, bold, and admittedly difficult steps to remedy the wrongs of the past and guide the country to the next level of peace, progress and stability. That is the right thing to do. And that is what Gambians must do.
Admittedly, doing the right thing about some truths discovered through transitional justice processes may be challenging; but it is never impossible. It gets complicated when doing the right thing threatens the privileges of the new power elites of a post-authoritarian dispensation. Under a principled, committed and visionary dispensation, this complication does not arise at all. But in the absence of principle, vision and unyielding commitment to the truth and nothing but the truth, some of the wrong actions and practices of the old regime suddenly become indispensable avenues for the continued enjoyment of newfound privileges by the new power elites.
Suddenly, the use of draconian laws to clamp down on peaceful protesters or restrict freedoms of association and expression are considered reasonable responses to legitimate public concerns over law and order.
Suddenly, limiting the powers of the executive or ensuring presidential term limits are considered needless obstacles to the new national project. Suddenly, carrying out crucially important institutional reforms are considered unnecessary distractions from the aspirations of the nation, which are now rendered coterminous with the self-righteous aspirations of the new power elites.
Suddenly, it becomes okay that the new power elites could actually repeat some of the wrongs of the past as long as they can get away with it. And so they double-down, deploy the awesome power of incumbency and status, conveniently ignore all truths that challenge their personal aspirations, pay heed to some of the less harmless truths, and, citing legal justifications, lay claim to de facto ownership of their offices – just as in the bad old days. The national mind is then treated to the strange but sadly amusing spectacle of the new power elites dancing with the truth.
Suddenly the new power elites become expert orators and creative manufacturers of ambiguous justifications of a nonexistent right to overlook some of the worst discovered truths about bad laws, including colonial era laws, still in our books. They staunchly assert their right to desist from changing the constitution to enhance smooth changes of leadership and transfers of power because they want to stay in power for the foreseeable future, contrary to the dictates of the discovered truths, the enlightened aspirations of the nation, and the sanctity of the inviolable social contract. They loudly protest their innocence and make old and tired postulations about divine will to make their actions less objectionable. And they brand those who dare to raise objections unpatriotic citizens who do not have the best interests of the nation at heart! Just like the bad old days.
Suddenly the political space of the new power elites is populated by well-known shady characters. Former enablers of the ousted dictator suddenly wield strange public authority, sometimes in direct contradiction of the demands of the discovered truths. Some old and bitter enemies and rivals of the new power elites, willing to trade their principles and integrities for a sumptuous proximity to political largess are readily bought over and brought closer. They are patronized and rewarded with high offices, fancy titles, luxury cars and a measure of bragging power. And so the new power elites surround themselves with pseudo-jingoistic hangers-on whose sole term of reference is to support their projects and aspirations, whatever these are. Just as in the bad old days, true or false, right or wrong, good or bad are no longer considered essential ethical considerations at the heart of universal human conduct, but selective and fungible matters of personal and sectional choice. Convenient truths become the order of the day as vigorous attempts are made to exclude ethics and morals from political affairs as long as these clash with the aspirations of the new power elites. Given to impromptu flights of fancy and lofty but ethically-starved pronouncements on the virtues of proper conduct and total honesty, the new power elites and their enablers do the exact opposite of what ethics and morality demand, namely, doing the right thing by society and the nation!
And so the new power elites continue carelessly dancing with the truth, with convenient truths and self-righteous justifications firmly stuffed into their ears. They render generous lip service and declare absolute commitment to doing the right things, but carefully avoid doing those right things that run contrary to their personal interests but are essential to the national interest, which in some respects, is now transformed into a matter of invented priorities. A large segment of the society, not sufficiently alive to the gravity of the issues at hand, merrily dance along, just the way they danced in the bad old days, even as the bad old regime dragged them into their current existential predicaments. In their heavy dancing with the truth, the new power elites are all too willing to downplay these now amplified existential predicaments through the bad old politics of manipulation, patronage and to some extent, arm-twisting, sometimes subtle, sometimes brazen.
Happily, there are some Gambians who insist that if they must dance at all, they must dance on the right side of the truth, the right side of history. They know that however strong their shoes, those who dance on the wrong side of the truth will eventually develop lost foot syndrome and be forced to succumb to the uncompromising realities of life, to the abiding power of time in all its indomitable majesty. They would then be forced to sit down, and let the people go. Just ask Yahya Jammeh. #NeverAgain! |
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