The fragmentation of opposition parties on the basis of nationalist tribal politics and selfish individualist ambition of power struggle for leadership, have continued to put The Gambia in the map of nation-states stuffed and starved for a political change, for yelling to functioning democracy and rule of law.
With the decline of opposition party support, our country is virtually a one party state.
The political terrain in The Gambia since 1994 is a transition from one form of coup d’état to another.
It is over-whelming with astonishment when our elite politicians usually in constructing their political debate keep quoting section after section of the bogus philistine 1997 constitution as if the regime is operating within the context of the legal framework of constitutional democracy;
Yahya Jammeh’s driven agenda of building a capitalist enterprise called a nation-state Gambia.
In his pursuit for wealth and material accumulation, he is ready to use the force of absolute power just to stay in power.
Since 1996, there has been a continual manipulation of the constitution to entrench or consolidate Jammeh’s rule.
The only changes from military rule to a cosmetic constitutional democracy, was that Jammeh’s APRC having jettisoned the letter F but his absolute power remains.
The 1996 constitution has gone through amendment after amendment using the largely lowly educated rubber stamp parliamentarians, who cannot determinate the legal ramification of their actions.
For many of these MPs, it is the only means to meet ends in their lives. Many will never think of such privilege positions in the Gambia when the rules are based on educational background, skills and experience and democratic culture that is free from individual manipulation.
The first manipulation of the 1996 constitution started when the majority decision for limiting the term of Presidency was advocated during National Consultative Review process and during the review of the 1970 constitution that was never included in the final draft.
The constitution as a political document was subjected to discussion when there was a ban on political parties.
It was crafted to indemnify members of Armed Force Provisional Ruling Council in the name of crimes committed for our so-called freedom/liberation.
The removal of trial by jury, amendment of the provision on local government clause and thus giving the head of state the power to sack and remove divisional governors, elected councillors, chiefs and village heads were the handy work of our legislators.
They further went into extent of empowering the head of state to even sack and remove the head of electoral commission.
Within his 17 year rule, Gambia has seen the sacking and hiring of 4 commissioners of Independent Electoral Commission.
It is part of these loopholes that continue to undermine the conduct of free and fair election in our country.
Now giving that the crack headed paranoid, Jammeh knows that there could be looming threat of prosecution over his head on numerous accounts of alleged human right crimes committed in Gambia under his leadership;
He thus turns his professional sycophants lobbying to safe his soul.
The rubber stamp Parliamentarians will do their bidding, knowing their track record, but it is the referendum, which is the main determinant for genesis of Gambia into one party state because of the mechanism is an entrenched clause in the constitution.
Within these 17 years, we have seen how Yahya Jammeh has built his own personal fortune.
The 1996 constitution is designed to entrench dictatorial powers using APRC Parliamentary majority in all the acts regimenting or excessive orderliness.
The constitution of the Gambia has gone through numerous amendments after and after amendments by the rubber stamp parliamentarians, the vast majority of whom are APRC, whose political maturity is a cause to quest.
These bunch of political prosecutes can even sacrifice their own children without proper reasoning for nothing order than political power and position.
They never reason what is their role and function to the citizenship. They allow their hands to be twisted in the name of loyalty to a party. They continue to pass bills after bills leading to enactment of laws that undermines the constitution, abuse of power, retard civil liberty and functional democracy.
For 17 years now, every move of the rubber stamp parliament is motivated by greediness, egoism and systematic selfishness, which are a continuum to destroy the fabric of Gambia society.
The deficit of the 1997 constitution is so numerous that it requires a scholarly research for students of constitutional jurisprudence to ravel into.
The first violation to signal to the Gambian people that the constitution would be respected after soldiers civilianise themselves was the provision of constituency demarcation.
In his pursuit to strengthen his regional politic, Yahya Jammeh’s regime re-demarcated constituency, giving Foni more representation than Kombo North, Central and South, each with more a voter population more than Foni.
The regime prevailed on its majority in the parliament to amend section 63(2) - which deals with possibility for a second round of voting.
The enactment of military decrees and imposition of such decrees as statuary codes, which are never put into scrutiny also, undermine functional democracy in the Gambia.
The 1996 constitution legalise most of the military decrees as legal binding statuary codes without giving the law-makers to scrutinise their efficacy in a democratic environment.
Three General Elections were conducted, which are all administered by military decrees. In most of these elections when rules of fair level playing field or electoral malpractices is challenged by the opposition parties in High Court, Judgements are often given in favour of the regime, mostly based on technicalities arising from the loopholes in the drafting of the decrees and thus open to abuse in favour of the incumbent.
The enactment of decrees 70 and 71 and its replacement with Media Commission Act, was all part of the efforts of the regime to curtail press freedom.
The enactment of the decree in 1996 imposes heavy fine on media houses with astronomical sums of money and thus led to news black out for weeks. In July 2002, came the media Commission Act.
The Gambia Press Union strongly opposes this act. The act was challenged with a lawsuit in the Supreme Court on the merit of its unconstitutionality.
The commission, which was composed of non-journalist draw a code of conduct for media houses and, thus give themselves the power to dictate what the media houses have to do.
Journalist should reveal the sources of their stories and that they could issue arrest warrants.
When the court rule the act as unconstitutional, the regime used the rubber stamp parliament to enact the Newspaper Amendment Act and the Criminal Code Amendment Act 2006, that today have reduced all the media houses in the country to self censorship because of its repressive nature.
On the Local Government matters, efforts to decentralised local government was seen by the regime as a threat because it leads to some local government authorities into opposition party domination.
The decentralization leading to changes in the Rural Setup let to changes such as: divisional now called Regions and Commissioners now called Governors who are civil servants and become involved in the machination process of the rural folks. They Campaign in APRC party platforms and also intimidate rural folks to vote for APRC as an added description to their job.
The qualification for a District Chief is to become a strong APRC militant and any district chief suspected as opposition supporter or sympathiser is sacked and detained for days.
The case of my former Muslim High School teacher, Pa Sallah Jeng is a clear-cut example. Mr Jeng a well role model and School principle in The Gambia, was elected Mayor of Banjul on independent party tickets.
The gentleman of the highest order in personality becomes a victim of politic of character assassination by element of Banjul APRC sycophancy.
He was not allowed to serve his term in office, charged with corruption, which was thrown in the High Court and after was never even allowed to resume duties after court ruling in his favour.
The removal of Yahya Jammeh is the only way forward to build a sustainable democracy in our country where every citizen will be treated equally.
But the disunity within the opposition has further remote the course for the emancipation.

Their indecisiveness and indifference to the plight of Gambian people and their patriotism is day in day out questionable with the state of prevailing madness.
Jammeh’s rule is so entrenching and now is time for ideas for the way forward. We should act before it is too late!