Ever bought the narrative that Sir Dawda Jawara is a national hero and father of our Nation? Here are five reasons why we should never celebrate him in the New Gambia.

Corruption

Jawara may not be corrupt himself for the entire thirty years he has been in power, but he presided over and enabled corruption for thirty years he has been in power with his ministers and close friends stealing money from government coffers with wanton abandon.

Lack of Education

Jawara may be have been lucky enough to be educated himself as a boy from the provincial town of Barajally but never cared about bringing education to the door step of poor and provincial Gambians. Jawara was more concerned about staying in power and thought expanding education to the provinces and poor people can develop a mass of educated and enlightened people he can never provide jobs for which can threaten his stay in power. Until Yahya Jammeh came to power in 1994, there was only one government built high school in The Gambia.

Killer Jawara

Picture this example people, if your daughter is sick and you refused to take her to the hospital and as a result she died, who is responsible? No doubt you are guilty of reckless homicide and that’s what Jawara perpetrated against Gambians for 30 years. There was only one referral hospital for the entire Gambia (Royal Victoria hospital) and poorly equipped for that matter. So many poor Gambians died on their way to RVTH or died while taking home made remedies because there was no medicine at the hospitals because Jawara never cared about anybody but himself and his corrupt cronies who send their kids to Europe and America for education and health check-ups.

No University

Dear one’s, this is very painful and sad and just made me cry for real. Can you imagine that The Gambia after 30 years of independence never had a University not for lack of resources but because one power hungry man and his cronies thought an educated society is a threat to a corrupt and elitist PPP government? While late Leopold Sedar Senghor was busy building universities and state of the art hospitals in Dakar, Jawara was busy stepping his foot down on a project to build a university in The Gambia because it doesn’t serve them to educate the children of the poor masses and farmers so long as they can send their own kids to UK, US and Canada for further studies. This is a tragedy of monumental proportion. If your uncle is so intelligent but never lived up to his potential as the doctor, engineer, inventor and Professor he could be, Jawara and his cronies sat down in a cabinet meeting decade ago and decided that your mother, uncle and father are not worthy of a high school or university education. Yahya Jammeh thank you for wiping our tears by building a world class university and giving the sons of poor farmers a belated education Jawara denied them for years.

No electricity

Have you grown up in darkness, studied by a dusty and unhealthy kerosene lamp to pass your exams in the village? This is an all too common experience for majority of the Gambians who grew up outside Serrekunda and Banjul. Jawara was an elitist who never cared about the poor but the elitist living in Banjul. Can you imagine that a big town like Kombo Gunjur never had electricity and pipe borne water until 2010 in the year of our lord? Just imagine how many future doctors, nurses, engineers and writers never discovered their potential because there was no electricity to enable them to study well enough to get into only one government built high school serving the population of a million people. Jawara is a dream killer for power!

Jawara the Elitist

If you ever bought the propagandistic story that Jawara is a provincial born and bred kid who fought for Gambian independence and then went on to fight for the poor, you may need to go to rehab to be desensitized. Jawara never cared about his provincial roots and in fact made a point by never sleeping or building any house there for 30 years of his presidency. Jawara is unethical and fake too. He converted to Christianity just to marry his first wife, a Banjul Aku. While Jammeh spends his annual vacations in Kanilai, Jawara spends his vacation playing golf in England and kissing the ass of his British masters who were status-quoistic and never interested in developing The Gambia.

By Nfansu Matida

Gunjur