When President Barrow announced he will be going on his constitutionally mandated “Meet The People Tour” with his "own robes", I knew we are in deeper trouble than initially thought.

His "own robes", he means his own crowd of idle revellers. Barrow did not read his job description. 

Speaking of reading, his reading inability has been a running joke both online and offline. On Saturday, he embarrassed himself again whiles delivering a televised statement on the tragic event of the capsized boat en route to Spain. 

Word has it that GRTS did him huge favour because the first few recordings were terrible, they had to do it a few more times before getting a better one. He pronounced ‘coast’ as cost, ‘prosecuted’ as 'prostituted' and ‘human’ as 'homan'. 

Back to the tour, Barrow thought it was a popularity test. His so-called crowds were swelled with students and civil servants. 

Two weeks before the commencement of the tour, a leaked memo showed that per diems has been increased from D650 to D2000 per night as an incentive to get as many civil servants as possible on the tour. 

First stop was the Niumis, where he promised them the last time that he will build a bridge between Banjul and Barra to depopulate the Greater Banjul Area. Construction was meant to start in 2019 and will take four years to complete with 100 years guarantee. Interestingly, there was no update.

Previously, Brikama was promised free Wi-Fi and smart streetlights, and they are still waiting. No wonder this time he skipped the semi-urban cosmopolitan town. 

Barrow and team feel that if the crowds weren’t big, it would tantamount to embarrassment. For that reason, the advance team went with bags of money to mobilize people to attend his meetings. Youths were packed in Gele Geles like sardines, transported from one venue to the other. 

In almost all meetings, indigenes account for less than third of the attendees and the bulk are either part of the delegation or mobilized from satellite villages. 

Some elected councillors were duped into attending these meetings only for some BYM riff raffs to claim that they left their respective parties and defected to BYM. 

These fools don’t know that elected officials leaving their parties have consequences, it would trigger a by-election. President Barrow and his minions are pretending to be having sex on an empty bed. In this case who are they fooling? People or themselves? 

You see Barrow has two sets of supporters: bought supporters and anti-UDP. The former is in it for the money and privileges and the latter is driven by tribal bigotry. Neither is genuine, whenever his presidency is over, his political party will collapse quicker than a deck of cards. 

They claimed to have support but scared to death about the thought of a snap general election. One thing I found odd is that usually opposition parties measure themselves up to the President, but in The Gambia, the reverse is the truth. Barrow is measuring himself up to the opposition and comparing crowds. That is pathetic.

By Saul Sarr

UK