By: Abdoulie Mustapha Dahaba
When leaders face scandal, weak performance, or public disappointment, one of the oldest political habits is to shift or deflect blame elsewhere. In The Gambia, that habit has become increasingly visible under President Adama Barrow, whose government has faced growing questions over accountability, corruption, and the unfinished business of democratic reform. What emerges is a pattern of strategic blame displacement. This is a political style in which responsibility is shifted away from the presidency and toward predecessors, institutions, opponents, or unnamed officials.
This is more than simple denial. It is a deliberate way of managing public anger. Instead of admitting that a policy has failed or that a scandal points upward, the president or his political mouthpieces intentionally shift public attention to those they perceive as their opponents for political gain, rather than acknowledging such administrative lapses or weaknesses. In other words, the presidency presents itself as an observer, a corrector, or a victim of a weak system. The effect is to protect the image of the presidency while keeping the public discussion focused on others. This blame-shifting episode has manifested in Gambia’s political space, creating a opening for manipulation, particularly under the Barrow-led regime. Instead of propagating sound policies to secure a front seat in the political competition, the NPP-led regime tactically extricates itself from ownership of the current predicaments, framing opponents as the primary source of harm on the pretext of defending the public interest.
In The Gambia, this strategy matters because the country’s transition from authoritarian rule created high expectations. After the fall of Yahya Jammeh, many Gambians expected a new era of transparency, accountability, and institutional renewal. The promise was not just a change in leadership, but a change in political culture. Yet as the years have passed, frustration has grown over slow reform, corruption allegations, and the sense that the gap between promise and performance remains wide.
The recent controversy over the sale of assets linked to Jammeh brought this tension into sharp focus. Questions about how those assets were handled quickly turned into a larger debate about responsibility, oversight, and transparency. Barrow’s response leaned heavily on the language of process. He said, in effect, that he had not been fully aware of some of the details until the matter became public, and he pointed to investigations by parliament and other bodies. On the surface, this looks like accountability. In political practice, however, it also serves as a useful shield.
By stressing that the matter is under investigation, the presidency can appear engaged without taking full ownership of the failure. By saying that details only became clear later, the executive office distances itself from any appearance of direct involvement. And by framing the controversy as an institutional issue rather than a presidential one, the burden of blame is moved away from the center of power.
That is why strategic blame displacement is so effective. It does not erase controversy; it reorganizes it. The president remains visible as a national figure, but the mess is made to appear the result of inherited problems, bureaucratic confusion, or errors by lower-level actors. This allows the leader to keep political control while reducing the immediate cost of scandal.
But the technique has consequences. The more often blame is displaced, the more the public begins to suspect that accountability is mostly rhetorical. Citizens may hear repeated promises of investigation, reform, and transparency, yet still see the same patterns of weak oversight and evasive leadership. Over time, that disconnect can erode trust not only in the presidency, but in the democratic system as a whole.
The problem is especially serious in a transitional democracy, The Gambia. In such settings, institutions are still fragile, political loyalties remain personal, and public faith in government is easily shaken. When the executive treats institutions as buffers against blame rather than as mechanisms of accountability, it slows the development of a mature political culture. Instead of building confidence in the state, it encourages the belief that power protects itself first and answers later, if at all.
This helps explain why criticism of the Barrow administration has persisted. Beyond the Jammeh asset controversy, there has been wider unease about governance, public administration, and the pace of democratic consolidation. Critics argue that the promise of reform has too often been matched by political convenience. Supporters may respond that the government inherited a difficult situation, and that no transition away from long-term authoritarian rule can be simple. That is true. But inherited difficulty does not eliminate responsibility. A government can recognize structural constraints without using them as a permanent excuse.
The politics of blame also shape public perception of leadership. A president who consistently appears to be reacting rather than owning outcomes may be seen as cautious, strategic, or even prudent. But the same behavior can also be read as evasive. When citizens sense that responsibility is always moving sideways or downward, they begin to wonder whether anyone at the top is truly accountable. That suspicion is politically dangerous because it narrows the gap between disappointment and disillusionment.
In this sense, strategic blame displacement is not just about a single scandal or a single administration. It is a broader political logic that helps leaders survive difficult moments while avoiding direct costs. In The Gambia, it has become part of the story of post-transition governance, where the language of reform coexists with the practice of deflection.
The challenge for President Barrow is that blame management may work in the short term, but it cannot substitute for legitimacy. Legitimacy grows when leaders speak clearly, accept responsibility, and allow institutions to function independently rather than as shields. It grows when the public sees that mistakes have consequences, not just explanations. And it grows when the presidency stops treating every controversy as a communication problem and starts treating it as a governance problem.
For Gambians, the issue goes beyond one administration’s image. It concerns the kind of political order the country is building. If the post-authoritarian era is to mean anything, it must produce a stronger culture of responsibility. Otherwise, the old habits will survive in new clothing. This might not, perhaps, open the door to dictatorship once again, but to a softer form of power that still avoids full accountability.
Strategic blame displacement may help a presidency stay upright in a storm. But it does not calm the storm itself. In the long run, only honesty, transparency, and real institutional reform can do that.
Written By: Abdoulie Mustapha Dahaba
MA in International Relations and Strategic Thinking
National Research Institute Lobachevsky State University, Russia
