“When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when the character is lost, all is lost”- Billy Graham. Fitting Graham’s words into the African context, it seems all is gone for us. At the center of the Gambian endeavor is attitude or character which mares our very development.
In Gambia, talk of the character of discontinuation of many developmental projects by various governments, the attitude of lateness to work, the satisfaction to live with filth, the desire to shirk our civic obligations and a sheer violation and misapplication of basic rules of society. Even in cases where logic is underrated and a cynosure is manipulated as a navigational rudder to common sense and positive attitude, we still skim and violate them.
It is not surprising for a group among us to feel that Africa and for that matter, Gambia should not have been unencumbered from the chains of dictatorship. Ostensibly, their feelings are not far from right when match with Thomas F. Dixon words on questioning the African capability and attitude.
These are people whose eyes lack the strength to see the suffering of their next door neighbour or the destitute on the streets in their various homes before contributing to political parties.
Unfortunately! Are we always interested in what will benefit us less against what is a home or national pride? Wonder what the answer of the Gambian would be if he/she is ever questioned on his citizen priority? Going into the future, maybe Gambia needs a college of common sense to function well.
At the heart of Gambia’s development is the mind-set of people. Why is it that Litterbins are provided as guideposts to a healthy and clean environment yet people drop their trash under the bins but not inside? Arguably, the restorative for our sanitation challenges is not bins but the mindset. This attitude does not only manifest itself in the sanitation sector alone but it is across all our development spheres in different forms. Quran 13:11 says that “Verily, Allah (God) does not change the condition of a people until they (first) change their ways and their minds”. Thus, our stagnation as a nation, is not a matter of resource gap neither is it a leadership problem- nonetheless, it is cumulative of negative attitudes perpetrated by indigenes of the country. The many religious chants and incantations cannot save us from the horrors and mess created by our own hands until we change the mind-set as a people.
Henceforth, Gambians must not disentangle themselves from the many governmental slips and failures but consider them as a testament of their individual failures as a people
We stand for the interest of Gambians and together, we shall fight for the change we deserve