"WE OWE OUR CHILDREN A BETTER

QUALITY OF LIFE THAN WE INHERITED"- Halifa Sallah

The 2007 National Assembly election is now history. NADD put up 5 candidates and developed tactical alliance with many Independent candidates.

Eventually, most of the Independent candidates declined to contest. This confirms the resilience of some of us in the opposition who refused to bow down to any inducement over the years.

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We now reproduce the raw data of the National Assebly Elections as reported by our colleagues at the Foroyaa Newspaper. The elections were held on Thursday, January 25th. 2005.

BANJUL ADMINISTRATIVE AREA

Banjul North

1. Alhagie Sillah             APRC               -           1648

2. Momodou A Sarr        UDP                 -           432

Banjul Central

1. Abdoulie Same                      APRC   -           2298

2. Ebrima A B Pesseh Njie         UDP     -           1213    

Banjul South

1. Aihagie Babucarr Sheikh Nyang  APRC -         1430

2. Aziz Pa Boy Fraser                    UDP -          587

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       By Ebrima G. Sankareh & Mathew K. Jallow

Jammeh Targets Sana B. Sabally & Khalipha Bajinka

In a desperate attempt to silence critics and eliminate all potential witnesses to its numerous human rights abuses or for fear of dissident elements that may destabilize the tyrannical regime of President Yahya Jammeh, The Gambia Echo has been reliably informed of the regime’s efforts to assassinate two former lieutenants, Ex-Vice Chairman Captain Sana B. Sabally and Major Khalipha Bajinka from their save havens in neighboring Senegal.

Interior Secretary, Ousman Sonko

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                  By Plarke M. Caneckouteh, London, U K.

 I just glanced at the list of our newly elected Members of the National Assembly ( NAMs) and something aches my heart. I also browsed at Associate Editor Mathew K. Jallow's analysis to see the proportion of the population that participated in the election. As Jallow rightly puts it, the low election turnout is an indication of the majority's rejection of Jammeh's regime

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Echo Election Analysis

By Mathew K. Jallow, Associate Editor

The presidential elections are history, and the parliamentary elections have just concluded; yet the war for the soul of our country is only just beginning. If we have learnt anything from these two elections, it is that democracy without an educated electorate and a civic-minded population is as good as no democracy at all. Today, like yesterday, Yahya Jammeh is patting himself on the back as his APRC supporters gloat, but like the presidential elections a few short months ago,

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By Plarke M. Caneckouteh, London, UK

   President Jammeh Is Gambia’s HIV Virus

I think any meaningful Gambian, no matter your political persuasions, should be convinced by now that the present regime has reached a state of decadence. Those trying to sustain the regime know it themselves, that the manner the country is being run is not healthy and it is just a matter of time that it will face a total collapse.

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By Plarke M. Caneckouteh, UK

The results from the Parlimentary elections have presented another sad and gloomy picture of Gambian politics. Our hopes are once again dashed and rumbled with uncertainity. We are to live for another five years under Kanila monster's brutal regime. What a pathetic situation?!! But should we all blame it to the idiot?

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By Ebrima G. Sankareh, Editor-in-Chief

Highly placed sources at The Gambia’s all too powerful and most notorious National Intelligence Agency (NIA) reveal that legal efforts were underfoot to charge First Lieutenant Sainey Mendy with interalia “treason and, conspiracy to commit treason through coup d’etat” in the March 21, 2006 abortive coup that has left a human rights scar on the brutal regime of President Yahya Jammeh.

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        By Mathew K. Jallow

The sad wide-eyed little boy stared listless, oblivious

Blue flies clinging to strings of saliva between his baked lips

Wander if he knows, if he notices, if he cares

Tomorrow they will come take him to grandpa beyond that river

To where, he does not know, does not seem to even care

As his broken mother grieving for the husband she will never see again

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                 By Mathew K. Jallow

It was a victory of some sort, though it was a long time a coming. The erstwhile Ethiopian dictator, Mengestu Haile Mariam, the butcher of Addis Ababa, was finally sentenced to a life behind bars. In the courtroom, in rapt attention, stood more than half a dozen of his collaborators; the bloodthirsty rag tag that enabled and enforced Mengestu's reign of terror.

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On the occasion of the Holiday observinng the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Junior, we reproduce below his powerful letter from a Birmingham jail written on paper scaps in a narrow cell. Like his many essays and speeches on racial injustice, freedom and non- violence, we hope this long letter of substance will be of use to some of our readers who were hitherto not privy to this arresting composition.

"My Dear Fellow Clergymen:

While confined here in the Birmingham city jail, I came across your recent statement calling present activities "unwise and untimely." Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas."

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           By Mathew K. Jallow 

   Bureaucracy in Africa

     Jonathan Mayo a student of African bureaucracy subscribes to Max Weber's ideal-type definition of bureaucracy as the superior form of organization. In the African context too, bureaucracy is seen as the rational and most efficient social instrument of formally coordinating purposive human action.

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         By Ebrima G. Sankareh, Editor in-Chief

It was one of those fine days when the Gambian sky was blue, the cumulus clouds form a bedazzling canopy across the horizon and Gambian President Yahya Jammeh was having tea with his guards and friends at State House. As is customary in such occasions, President Jammeh was giving his audience first hand fibs on how his ancestry was able to conquer the heavens and how those magical powers were miraculously bequeathed to him as a young boy.

The mystic powers of a plastic bag

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AN ESSAY FROM AMERICA

By Mathew K. Jallow

    The inspiration to write “An Essay from America” came to me early morning as I lay in bed, awake but still groggy. Like any good idea, it seems too good to pass up.  I had no alternative.  I plunged into it.  That morning as I was shaping my thoughts in my mind, I had a phone call. The voice on the other end, of Ebrima G. Sankareh, alerted me to a story in the Foroyaa Newspaper about a certain Captain Bunja Darboe.

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                           By Bubacarr K. Sowe, FOROYAA

Captain Bunja Darboe, the first accused person in the general court martial on the March 21st Coup Plot on Wednesday 3rd of January told the court that he had gone through severe beatings at the National Intelligence Agency (NIA).

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Below we reproduce the first part of the Research Thesis by our regular contributor, Mathew K Jallow, in fulfillment of his Master of Public Administration degree at The University of Wisconsin. Mr. Jallow feels it necessary to share those parts of the research that touch on the heart of the administrative and political problems and challenges that confront Africa. To do this, Mathew K Jallow has agreed to revise and simplify the relevant parts of the research study in order to adapt it for newspaper publishing. We will serialize Mr. Jallow’s research thesis and provide you with an installation once a week. We hope you will find this study entertaining, but above all, informative and educationally rewarding.Mathew K. Jallow was awarded the Masters Degree recently! 

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                By  Demba A. Jawo, Banjul, The Gambia

It has now become a tradition for President Jammeh to
grant an exclusive interview to the GRTS at the dawn
of every New Year, which he uses to not only castigate
the opposition, but also to make some controversial
comments.

 Dr.Jammeh?

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By Professor Wole Soyinka

Nigeria's famed novelist, dramatist, poet, Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka is not at all happy with his country's state of affairs especially, the many surprises that punctuated the end of 2006 as Africa's big brother prepares for another major political tug of war- the presidential elections. Below we reproduce, Professor Wole Soyinka's essay that was intended for a lecture in March, 2007 but had to be published prematurely given the unthinkable recent events in his native Nigeria. 

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      By Binneh S. Minteh, New York, USA 

Saddam's legacy:An embodiment of brutality & inhumanity or a footnote in the doldrums of world history?

The drumming and and chanting in Baghdad, the dancing around Saddam’s death body and Jubilations in Michigan by Iraqi Americans and thousands of Iraqi victims around the world has left the legacy of a one time fearful and powerful icon on a questionable platform. Was he an embodiment of Brutality and inhumanity? Does this make him already a footnote in the doldrums of world history

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