Dear Mr. Yaya Jammeh, please leave peacefully

Sidi Sanneh 

The vultures are circling while obituary writers are busy crossing the t's and dotting the i's on their respective editions in readiness to announce the death of a unified opposition.

We hope, the anticipatory excitement, driven, in part, by Jammeh's agents, will prove to be premature.  We also implore all parties to take note that Jammeh last wish is to see a unified opposition and will do anything to ensure that it doesn't materialize.

The outcome of the Inter-Party Coalition talks, leaked to the online press even before, at least one opposition party leader was aware of the initial outcome of what is seen as the preliminary stages of a long negotiation process.

There is something nefarious about the manner in which disjointed, imprecise and unconfirmed information slowly seeps into the online press.  That said, we hope and pray that all is not lost and that the onslaught will cease as cooler heads take full charge of the negotiations which have entered a critical phase.

The opposition party leaders must take full charge and direct the negotiations in the direction that will put the interest of the country in the fore which can only be achieved by shutting off the noise coming from social media.  The lives of Gambians are too precious to allow exogenous sources, with no skin on the game, to influence the outcome.

Folks on the ground, directly and constantly impacted by a brutal, corrupt and incompetent regime, should have the final say in any negotiations, and these negotiations are led by opposition party leaders and not by talking heads and pundits.