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American journalist, Berkeley Rice, effectively characterized us as a group of improbable when he referred to the occasion of a newly independent Gambia as birth of am improbable Nation.
Undeterred by such international pessimism fueled by questions eminating from the UN about the economic viability of a Nation of 250,000, Sir Dawda proceeded to prove the doubters wrong, armed with nothing but a can-do spirit by cultivating international understanding and cooperation.
Soon, the improbable became the possible until a man named Kukoi visited us with his rag-tag army made up of Serrekunda taxi drivers with names like Simon Talibo Sanneh and Ampai Jatta. The 1981 coup did set The Gambia back with wanton loss of life and destruction of property and other physical assets.
What Kukoi failed to do, however, was to dampened the spirit of the Possible Nation until everything the country stood for Progress, Peace, Prosperity was buried with the arrival of the "soldiers with a difference" who reversed the national development agenda to suit their individual personal agenda: self enrichment. And when their agenda is threatened by international isolation and Presidential Proclamation from Washington, they lash out at their former friends with venom.
They've maligned the Commonwealth for a withdrawal that was the decision of an ungrateful. They unleashed similar tirades against Taiwan that has been with the regime since 1995 and has been its most generous and reliable partner for almost two decades. Jammeh and his minions will not hesitate to attack anyone who do not succumb to their childish behavior or question their style and form of governance. So, in our almost 50-year of history, The Gambia has morphed from an Improbable Nation to a Possible Nation to an Ungrateful Nation. It is a sad story that the international community is finally beginning to come to grasp with.
