THE ENTITLED GAMBIAN – THE DISEASE THAT IS KILLING THE GAMBIA

By Baboucarr Mboge

There is a dangerous sickness in this country. It is not malaria. It is ENTITLEMENT.

The moment a Gambian gets a small position, a small title, a small connection, he starts to believe the world owes him everything, and he owes the world nothing.

Let’s talk about how they behave.

1. The Entitled Politician

He thinks being elected is a promotion, not a job. He was a nobody borrowing fuel last year, today he is Honorable. Now he cannot pick his own phone. You must call his PA. You must wait 3 hours outside his office. You must praise him.

The lie he sells: “I am developing Gambia.”
His idea of development: One tarred road in front of his own compound so his V8 doesn’t get dusty, while the whole community behind him is still swimming in sewage. He builds a market and puts his name on it, as if he built it with his father’s money, not taxpayers’ money. He calls a borehole a legacy project.

Service to him means: You serve HIM. Not he serves you.
Gratitude to him means: You must thank him forever for doing the job you paid him to do.

2. The Entitled Civil Servant

He sits in an office with no light, no paper, no computer, but with plenty of attitude. You need a file signed? Come tomorrow. Tomorrow never comes. You want passport? ID card? Land paper? Pay small something.

The lie he sells: “System is slow.”
The truth: He is the system. He is slow because your suffering does not affect his salary. He wants you to beg him, so he feels powerful.

3. The Entitled Citizen

And we, the ordinary people, we are also entitled.

We want government jobs but we don’t want to work. We want clean streets but we throw trash from our car. We want 24-hour electricity but we want to illegally connect and not pay NAWEC. We want development but we want it for free, without tax, without discipline, without sacrifice.

We think gratitude is weakness. When someone helps us, we don’t say thank you, we say “he has more than me, it is his duty.” When someone corrects us, we say “you are insulting me.”

Everyone wants to be a boss. Nobody wants to be a servant.

The youth says: “Government must give me a job.” Not “What skill do I have to offer?” The diaspora sends a barrel and thinks the whole village must bow. The businessman who imported one container thinks he is a philanthropist and the whole country owes him a chieftaincy title.

The Real Definition We Lost:

Development is not a new building. Development is discipline. It is timekeeping. It is maintaining what you already have. A clean gutter is development. A public toilet that works is development.

Service is not a favor. If you are paid by the public, serving the public is not kindness, it is your minimum duty.

Gratitude is not worship. It is simply acknowledging that no one owed you anything, but they did it anyway.

Until we kill this entitlement mentality, Gambia will never move.

We don’t need more money. We don’t need more conferences. We need more humility, more work, and less big-man mentality.

The country will change the day the Minister understands he is the servant, the civil servant understands he is a worker, and the citizen understands that Gambia owes him nothing – he owes Gambia everything.

Walo walo

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