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By Pa Louis Sambou  Not even the bookies could have predicted how events turned out. The snap ambush laid dressed in white winter gear in anticipation that the snow-white terrain will last the skirmish but, low and behold, the heavens rained cats and dogs, melted away the cover and spectacularly gave the position away. The elite smelt blood but, it appears it was a false start after all. It is said that the ‘bus driver’ is a poor navigator but, I doubt the same could be said of his sense of smell for ‘treachery’. Well, it is often said that it takes one to know another. The ‘bus driver’ has of course not committed any treachery in recent times, has he? The ‘incompetence’ label often attributed to President Barrow appears to give opponents and on-takers an unrealistic sense of leverage and strength; I suppose this is a strength in disguise thanks to which  the ‘Coalition partnership’ and his ‘political god father’ were unexpectedly seen off without a fight. One would have...

By Pa Louis Sambou The recent Executive engineered movement of human resources assets within the Civil Service would certainly not have been the first of its kind, the methodology and craft are textbook Yaya Jammeh modus operandi. But, served cold with passive Barrow guile rather than bombastic Jammeh ‘candour’. Repeating a failed tactic is total madness but indulging it is, I’m afraid a dead wish. We indulge this at our peril. ‘President redeploys SSHFC MD to Senegalo Gambia Secretariat, appoints new MD’. Imagine waking up from a coma to such headline, one would assume that Jammeh has returned to power in the hours of their unconsciousness. In reality however, this assumption won’t be far from reality at all because there is hardly any transformation to what is, today in 2020 from what was, in the previous republic. It is interesting how the popular letter ‘o’ word has all of a sudden evaporated from the vocabulary of the political Executive; we were promised an ‘overhaul’ of w...

By Pa Louis Sambou  Any informed examination of a final outcome or return of any task must first identify the objectives which were set by the mandate for the given task and then match the final presentation against such objectives. Any determination not based on this objective principle can be justifiably written off as, at best an ill-informed opinion. I am no exception to this credibility threshold. Therefore, in my assessment of the subject matter, I shall restrain myself within the boundaries of sound objective reasoning [as if my life depends on it] based on the available facts and not my biased corruptible opinion.  Now, detailing the circumstances which necessitated the need for a review of the existing Constitution and the assignment given to such review body (The Constitutional Review Commission (CRC)) is perhaps a logical place to kick things off from I would imagine. The current Constitution, as an intended instrument for a progressive republic presen...

By Pa Louis Sambou (first published 24-Nov-19) In light of the heated debate which has been prompted by the omission of the word “secular” from the draft Constitution by the Constitutional Review Commission (CRC), I feel obliged to share my thoughts on the subject matter. In this regard, I will very briefly address three salient fundamental questions: 1.       What does it mean to be a “secular republic”? 2.       Should the absence of the word “secular” be a cause for concern? 3.       What’s the way forward? What does it mean to be a “secular republic”? Secularism in literal sense means “…the principle of the separation of government institutions and persons  mandated to represent the state  from religious institution and religious dignitaries…” Effectively, it is the separation of State and religion.  Contrary to what’s being spread in certain quarters, Secularism...