| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| Momodou |
Posted - 10 Sep 2026 : 19:19:45
*Old Man Musing*
The Conscience Of A Citizen Edition
PART 1
By Hassan Gibril
WHY I SPEAK: A Testimony Of A Bona Fide Citizen Who Owes No Man, Fears No Man, And Seeks Nothing From Any Man
On Civic Duty, The Silence Of The Intellectuals, And The Price Of Truth In The First, Second, And Third Republics
My beloved Gambians,
Let me state, with the clarity that old age grants and with the traditional “Kersa” (modesty/good manners) which Bathurst taught me, why I speak, and why I shall continue to speak until the breath that remains in this tired body is recalled by its Maker.
I speak as a bona fide citizen of this riverine republic — nothing more, nothing less.
I do not speak as a partisan.
I do not speak as a job-seeker.
I do not speak as a praise-singer or supporter in search of a contract, nor as an opponent in search of a platform.
Those who have known my walk through the First Republic of Sir Dawda Jawara, the Second Republic of Yahya Jammeh, and this Third Republic of Adama Barrow, know that my tongue has never been for sale or rent.
Since 1995, when our nation stood at the crossroads between tyranny and hope, I, behaved and acted, without any remorse or regret, in truth when truth was a dangerous currency and indeed that cost me my over 2 decades of public service career.
I did not whisper in the London drawing rooms or even elsewhere.
I stood, I acted and I also contributed, in my own humble insignificant way, to the “Coalition” that ousted the 22 years of autocratic rule — a contribution that many, then and perhaps still alive or now dead, can and will attest to.
And I did so and will continue to do so without seeking a single photograph opportunity or newspaper or press release headline.
In 1995 and again in 2017, when the State House became a kind of a “Mecca”, and every man who owned a suit or “haftan” queued and still continue to queue to shake hands with the powers that be for a photo-op, several well-meaning friends urged me: “Hassan, go. Just show your face."
I declined. Not out of pride, but out of principle.
For I had not joined the struggle for change in our beloved country to be seen or photographed.
I had joined it because not to join it would have been a betrayal of my own conscience.
I considered it not activism, but civic duty — “fard al-kifayah” — the obligation that falls upon every citizen when the house is on fire.
Even when it meant putting my own life, and my family's comfort at direct risk, I did it, notably at advent of the Jammeh dictatorship.
And let this be understood forever:
I am a citizen first, before I am a public servant (national and international), nay before I am anything else.
The lie that we have passed down or sold to our youth is that politics is only for politicians.
No. Because political decisions can invariably decide whether we will survive or be doomed, as a nation and as a people.
Whether the “dalasi” money in our pocket buys bread or buys shame.
Whether our sons will stay in Banjul or die in the Backway.
Whether our daughters will learn in a classroom or learn in a street.
Therefore, I have not only a right to speak, I have a duty to speak whenever I believe it necessary.
My commitment to the truth is not seasonal.
It is not conditional on who is in the State House.
It does not expire when a political party wins, nor does it awaken only when a political party loses.
What, then, troubles my soul in this winter of my life?
It is not the noise of the sycophants.
I have seen sycophants in three (3) republics. They are predictable, like the rains.
What troubles me is the thundering, calculated, profitable silence of the intellectuals — the professors, the lawyers, the journalists, the doctors, the former permanent secretaries, the men and women who supposedly know better, who purportedly know that a road is leading to a ditch, yet say nothing, because perhaps their consultancy is being paid, their board appointment is being kept safe, their visa for travel abroad is now secure.
They have made a Faustian bargain:
They will trade their voice for position.
They will trade their conscience for comfort.
Let them be warned: silence may protect one’s interest today, but history will judge that silence harshly tomorrow.
For history does not record only those who did evil.
History records, with even greater contempt, those who saw evil and polished their glasses and looked away.
So, whenever the true history of our beloved native Gambia is written — and it will be written, not on Facebook timelines that vanish, but in books that endure — there will be a chapter titled “The Complicity of the Silent”.
And many big names will be in it, not for what they said, but for what they refused to say when their nation needed their voice most.
Let me be final, clear, and categorical, so that no political agent and no future ruling class agent ever misunderstands me again:
I neither seek nor expect an appointment, favour, contract, consultancy, ambassadorship, or reward from any political dispensation or regime or from any government — present or future.
I am not auditioning.
I am not lobbying.
I have no CV in circulation.
The Almighty God remains my sole Provider and will always be my Sustainer.
What I have, though small, is enough.
What I lack, though much, I do not need from any political dispensation or from anywhere else.
My contentment is my wealth, my “tawazu” (inner strength) is my protection, and my grave whether in the Old or New Jeshwang Cemetery or even elsewhere will not be any wider if I become a Cabinet Minister or any other high-ranking personality or statesman.
I speak because I must.
I speak because if men like me do not speak, then who will teach our children that a citizen is not a beggar of the state, but its owner?
- CONCLUSION: Three Sobering Lessons For The Generations Yet Unborn
1. The most expensive thing a citizen can sell is his silence.
You may think you are protecting your business, your job, your family's income by remaining silent.
In fact, you are mortgaging your children's future for your present comfort.
For the Gambia that you are silent about today is the Gambia your children will inherit tomorrow — voiceless, because you taught them that silence is wisdom.
Silence is indeed not wisdom.
Silence in the face of shared national decay is cowardice wearing the “boubou” or “waramba” of false diplomacy.
1. No political dispensation or regime can buy a man who has already been paid by the Almighty God.
When your provision is tied to a man in power or to a set-up in place, your tongue will forever be tied to their swings or moods.
When your provision is tied to the Almighty God, then your tongue is free.
Seek therefore to be free economically, however modestly, so you may be free morally, however loudly.
A citizen who needs nothing from anyone can tell anybody everything.
1. History does not remember crowds at State House or Any Seat of Power.
History remembers the one man who refused to go.
In every republic, there are a thousand photos of men shaking hands with power.
There is only one story of the man who refused to shake hands for a photo, because he believed power should shake hands with the people, not the other way around.
Be that man.
Be that woman.
Speak, even if your voice shakes.
For a nation dies not when the wicked shout, but when the good whisper: “I don't want to be involved."
You are indeed involved, willy nilly.
By birth, by blood, by burial ground, you are involved.
And so, I will continue to speak — not for a political party, not for a politician, not for profit — but for that little boy in Half-Die or in Soldier Town in the 1950s who believed that Bathurst belonged to him, and he belonged to Bathurst.
And that boy, by the grace of God, is still alive, and is still speaking.
Let the reader, therefore please, understand !!!
Hassan Gibril
(The Nondescript Old Man But Forever Banjulian)
To Be Continued …… |
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