Sulayman Saidykhan’s Cry For Help
By Lt. Colonel Sheriff Samsudeen Sarr
Dear Editor: It’s my turn to tell Mr. Saul Saidy-Khan my mind regarding his published article in the Freedom journal captioned: “On Sam Sarr, Ethnic Nationalism And The Quest For A Gambian Nation”. I should have written this a little earlier, but I had to take care of unfinished business with Suntou first. I couldn’t in fact wait to come to Mr. Khan’s material. After reading his paper, although I’d felt a little disappointed by whom I think he is, I was nevertheless thrilled to see that almost everything I was trying to discuss but not quite understood by many readers or spun by others in denial or more so nearly being gagged by those who wanted to put a stop to the controversy, was finally brought to light in Mr. Saul Khan’s emotional ramblings. Suntou admirably tried but in the wake of Mr. Khan’s disclosures, his version now looks like a child’s play.
Suntou impressively portrayed himself as a fair minded person by selectively making generalized statements, with few unconscious self betrayals of his collectedness, in what he believes has been wrong with Mandinka-Wolof tribal relationship in The Gambia; Khan on the other hand was frank and direct, compounded by an evocative orthodoxy of a true believer.
In Suntou’s attempt to dispute my observation that the political rift that had plagued the PPP since its inception had a lot to do with Jawara being accused of not being Mandinka enough owing to his government’s policies perceived to favor the Wolofs, he had shrewdly danced around the subject and cautious to only say that “Jawara betrayed the core values of those who elected him in office” and though he added “Mandinkas were not seen to be part of the Banjul clique that formed the UP”. However, perhaps to avoid being seen where Saul Saidykhan has clearly chosen to be, he even had to come up with a more moderate explanation by stating that, “those who voted for Jawara at that time were actually provincial Gambians composed of Mandinkas, Fulas, Wolofs and Sarahulehs.” Suntou even claimed to be born of a Wolof father and Mandinka mother. That assertion made a great sense to me as it adds dimension to a viable historical footnote.
German NAZIS of mixed parentage with distant Jewish blood were more extreme among those who fanatically advocated for the extermination of six million German Jews during the Second World War. In fact, Reinhart Heydrich, also notoriously called Hangman Heydrich who chaired the 1942 Wannsee Conference, which finalized plans for the destruction of all European Jews in what is now called the Holocaust was widely believed to have had Jewish blood in him.
That’s why I am always interested in knowing the person I am debating especially, when it comes to serious matters like this raging debate. The reasonable Mandinkas I know are usually very open minded with many of them not prepared to be associated with extremist statements uttered by the likes of Suntou and Saidykhan. M.L. Jammeh being one of those reasonable Mandinkas was clearly very honest to expose the anti-Wolof rhetoric as baseless abstractions canvassed in their school days by some intellectually insecure Mandinka youth. For the benefit of the reader, it is instructive to borrow a line from Mr. Jammeh’s rejoinder thus: “It might be of interest to Mr. Sarr that some of us (as students at secondary school) used to perceive any one who was a bit affluent and speaks Wolof at school as ‘Suruwa’ hence whose parents was amongst the corrupt elite. As we grew and got ‘enlightened’ we realized the fallacy of it all. We also realized, it was mostly efforts by some academic dwarfs or socially insecure boys trying to create cliques to compensate for their academic shortcomings. We further more realized that such a phenomenon existed even in offices.”
However let’s look at how Mr. Khan with deft sarcasms authenticated my observation in one of his paragraphs: “…had the Banjul Wolof won in 1960, they’d have put their own “qualified people” in most important positions in government; had they won, they’d have created institutions like The Gambia Commercial & Development Bank, Gambian National Trading Corp, Gambia Public Works Department, Gambia Ports Authority, Central Bank of the Gambia; Gambia Cooperative Union, etc, etc. Guess what? The horrible Mandinka tribalist people call the PPP did exactly what Pierre Njie or JC Fye or Garba Jahumpa would have done! All the new institutions were headed by mainly Wolof-speaking Banjul people! Every single one of them!………….Methinks, this is a great deal for any people who lost an election. You got everything else you would have had if you won.”
Then in his last statement he said: “I have no doubt in my mind that this Mandinka hatred has to do with the fact that they’re (Dr. Manneh and Sheriff Dibba) the only people in The Gambia who consistently stand up to Wolof Nationalism.”
In what way can any one else say it better than Saidykhan in what I had summarized as the “PPP not Mandinka enough”? But people still burying their heads in the sand kept on accusing me of starting intertribal misunderstanding in The Gambia where the people enjoy a peaceful co-existence without any cause for possible conflict. Even Suntou added some lip service to that sophistry. On such accounts, without the likes of Saul Khan and to some extent the Suntous, I would’ve probably been bullied into guilty silence.
But just like I said before, in the minds of these anger-driven folks, everybody who commonly spoke Wolof within the Banjul area whether that person was one or not was blacklisted as an indigenous supremacists, especially if that person was a prominent figure. That’s why people like Saul Khan continue harboring and aggressively selling the false notion that the likes of the late Ousainou Njie, Managing Director, Commercial & Development Bank, was Wolof; the late Momodou Musa Njie, his father who was the wealthiest man in Banjul was also Wolf and not the Fula he was; that Kaba Jallow, the Managing Director of GPMB was Wolof too and not a Fula. They continue telling these flawed tales about Gambia’s institutions during the PPP days teeming with unqualified Wolof employees. These zealots, in a deliberate effort to make everything look evil, skillfully choreographed every positive facet of the society showing peaceful co-existence among Gambians or productivity in ventures to improve the lives of the people as decadent. To them, there was no private sector even, rendering less importance to the presence of the active Lebanese, Mauritanian, Guinean, Senegalese and other entrepreneurs who also contributed and conducted most of their affairs around Banjul in the Wolof language. They want everything to perfectly dovetail into their political agenda with facts ignored out of irrationality, ignorance or outright insincerity.
I will repeat this once more. My simple understanding of why some of the PPP pioneers, starting from the late Sheriff Ceesay and later to Sheriff Dibba, broke away from the party and tried to remove Jawara from office was primarily Jawara being classified as not being Mandinka enough. My expectation therefore was merely for someone who knew other reasons different from that to share them with me. But instead what I have been getting is one contributor after another venting their anger for what I said, some agreeing here while others disagreed there until Saul Khan came up with the masterpiece that said it all.
In his uproar Saul Saidykhan after describing my conduct as a Western Artist-style neurotic, self-analytical and narcissistic behavior, went on to say the following as if that was what I had said: “Mandinka people turned against Jawara because they hate Wolof.” No Saul!! I never said so. I meant few ineffective Mandinka politicians campaigning on the false ticket of “Jawara not Mandinka enough”. If the Mandinka people had seriously turned against Jawara because they hated Wolofs, Jawara would have been long gone. The evidence therefore, showed that the majority of the Mandinkas maintained their loyalty to President Jawara up to July 22nd 1994 a reality changed by the coup. And despite what anybody may say about Jawara myself inclusive, his personality was and is still more preferable than anyone’s so far known. Even if one hates Jawara, please give him his due: political maturity, tolerance, respect for human rights, due process and a commitment to have all Gambians as well as foreigners live as equals.
However, Saul then added, “Sheriff Dibba broke away because he hates Wolof”. Once again that was Saul saying what I said differently. I started with Sheriff Ceesay before Sheriff Dibba, the PPP pioneers symbolic of some of those same politicians who tried new parties to remove Jawara on the same reason I gave above. My aim was to exemplify the mindset of those politicians who had in the past tried to once again lure the gullible masses into believing in things that were not necessarily true. Ceesay had to give up and rejoin the PPP after failing. Dibba the last hope of the dreamers held on longer until Jawara was overthrown before he abandoned the certitude and endorsed Jammeh for survivability. Yet Saul firmly believes that it’s the Wolofs alone kissing up to Jammeh now. Sheriff Dibba in fact together with Dr. Manneh, the warriors he credited for standing up against Wolof Nationalism, would never be accountable for kissing up to Jammeh despite both of them throwing all their weight behind Jammeh’s power after the massacre of the students, “an order transmitted by Isatou Njie Saidy”. I apologize to Saul for my proposal about Isatou Njie Saidy if he understands what I mean.
I will though agree to few indisputable issues about the Wolof-speaking inhabitants of Banjul these days. They are now breathing a sigh of relief from some of those zealots constantly pestering them about their unwillingness to speak Mandinka in what they used to remind them to be a Mandinka country. They also do not run into Jola partisans complaining about why their language was not commonly spoken by the Banjulians when Brother Yaya, the President is a Jola. If that means kissing up to Jammeh, then I don’t know why not.
I think we all need a mind-refreshing exercise on Jammeh’s political record to see who have been kissing up to him most. Where was Saul when Singhateh a terrible Mandinka, pulled out Lt. Basiru Barrow a very good man; a defenseless Mandinka out of a line up of coup suspects in 1994 and shot and killed him in cold blood at Fajara Barracks? It was the first killing by the regime after the coup, initiating a pattern that has been consistent since. Where was Saul Saidykhan when the same Singhatehs- Edward and Peter, bad Mandinkas, lured unsuspecting Ousman Koro Ceesay a very good Mandinka into Yankuba Touray’s residence and bludgeon the man before putting a 9mm bullet in his head and incinerating his body in his official car? Where was Saul Saidykhan when Alagie Kanyi the butcher of Yundum Barracks, a Mandinka was chopping off limbs, torsos of summarily executed Mandinka, Wolof and Fula soldiers suspected of coup plots to force-fit their remains in an over-crammed mass grave? Where was Saul Saidykhan when Kausu Camara a homicidal Mandinka with his gang of thugs and killers chased corporal Dumbuya another defenseless Mandinka into Albert Market in Banjul and shot and killed him in broad daylight? I could go on and on to remind Saul Saidykhan a lot more of these atrocities committed by such men all to keep Jammeh in office. Nonetheless in Saul’s overtly parochial perception, it’s the Wolofs kissing up to Jammeh to prevent Mandinkas taking over again. The naked truth is Singhateh and Kanyi have killed and kissed up than all the Wollofs, Fulas, Jolas combined.
He anyway ended his harangue with “they don’t speak Wolof because they hate Wolof people”. No Saul that was not the issue. It was Suntou’s idea supported by few others who dogmatically believe that Wolofs who can’t speak Mandinka have everything to do with their unwillingness to do so. And that Mandinkas in a proportionally larger number speaking Wolof signify the former being more tribally accommodating than the latter. That’s what it was all about Saul. Crafting it differently to suit his agenda had at best forewarned me about the character I was dealing with, and at worst, painted the perfect picture of a very dangerous, parochially tormented cynic.
In the climax of his excitement, Saul Saidykhan shamelessly came up with another divisive statement frequently made by his type to undermine those great families built on inter tribal marriages. For him to say that for the “last forty years the two groups of people who cannot stay away from each other in The Gambia are Mandinka men and Wolof women” reminded me of those political misfits who relentlessly campaign against a cardinal unifying factor among polarized ethnic groups. What these people cannot fathom is that Banjul is still a predominantly Wolof speaking surrounding where not everybody who speaks the language is automatically a member of the Wolof tribe. The other undeniable reality is that the migration of rural Gambians into Banjul tends to affect the males far more than the females. And except for those who loathe the socialization process, (thanks to the divisive politicians), by resisting everything that would make them blend better, many of these men who pursue their education or careers eventually end up finding homes, wives, friends and neighbors in an unavoidable Banjul environment. Even those who resist the natural evolutionary process leading to a good relationship with a loving Wolof lady in fear of running into the likes of Saul Khan, marry women whose urban upbringing make them difficult to distinguish from every woman around; these women in particular are found among Mandinkas, Jolas and Fulas born and raised around the Banjul area who may not even be able to speak their own mother tongues; and if they could, blend it with perfect Wolof like everybody else. I think that was the same kind of Mandinka couple Suntou ran into at a christening ceremony in England and had the shock of his life to find Mandinkas who couldn’t speak the language or vice versa.
I have no doubt in my mind that if the migrations of rural Gambians into Banjul had affected more or equal number of Mandinka women than men, the results would have been staggeringly different. It would have doubtlessly, resulted to those women being more attracted to spouses within the locality speaking Wolof comfortably.
Take for instance those male immigrants from other countries like Guinea, Mali, and Mauritania etc to The Gambia in search of “greener pastures”. The majority who end up settling around the Banjul area tend to marry and raise families according to what their new homes dictate. In these instances, most of these outsiders marry from their new communities and may even spend the rest of their lives there.
I could remember Banjul young men pursuing their careers to Basse falling in love with beautiful Fula girls resulting in many of them marrying, settling and virtually severing their links with their families back home. Though for those who wouldn’t appreciate the power of love and environmental influence on human development, their rationale stops at blaming it to “N’yarm Jodoh” –(Fula for eat and settle) a seductive meal believed to be in that locality laced with supernatural ingredients.
However, if I started arguing against that nonsense to make it a commonsense matter some bimbo will soon descend from the blue accusing me of insulting the core values of the Fulas and their women.
But hey, Suntou Touray said his father is Wolof and mother Mandinka. How would Saul Saidykhan reconcile that with his venomous contention about male-Mandinkas and female-Wolofs not being able to stay away from one another?
He quoted former Agriculture Minister Omar Amadou Jallow (OJ) in an incident where he said that the Serrekunda East politician had said something to the effect of reducing the importance of the Wolofs in The Gambia because of their insignificant numbers. I was born and grew up in the same neighborhood with OJ and certainly have my doubts over him making such statements when he comes from a Wolof-speaking-Fula family in Serekunda and for over forty years was married to one of the most beautiful and respected Wolof ladies there. He was however a politician and I therefore, wouldn’t outright say that he didn’t utter the remarks. But, knowing what I now know, if I were a politician wanting to make Saul Khan happy, I would feed him with tales of horrors concerning Wolof bigotry and their imminent doom. However, knowing OJ very well, I will leave the allegation at that until later.
Just imagine after decades of laudable intermarriages despite the likes of Saul SaidyKhan futilely trying to make it unacceptable among Gambian Mandinkas and Wolofs, a genuine reality and success that affected my own family, he tells us that it is nothing but Wolof women not being able to stay away from Mandinka men or vice versa. He cannot credit the phenomenon to love that transcends racial, tribal, and religious or any kind of prejudice. Mandinkas in love with Wolofs have enjoyed wonderful honest relationships that involved raising families of outstanding success and happiness with their cognition of the fact that together they were better off with each other than any relationship they would have tried including those with members of their own tribes.
You see Saul Saidykhan has brought us an entirely new package of tribal beliefs that are in their narrowness capable of driving a wedge of hate within the most accomplished families. And I think pessimists like him should be discouraged in whatever way possible.
This is the same mentality that had prevailed in Liberia, Rwanda and now Kenya. The ordinary families who, otherwise, would tribally lived together peacefully, enjoying their home-made stability and promoting an atmosphere of admirable civility suddenly being turned against each other by dangerous politicians and their adherents in search of votes or cheap popularity. And to think that what happened in those other African countries will never happen in The Gambia because of our better style of hiding our difference in peacetime, borders on naivety. All it takes is a lapse in the security fabric of a country-failed coup d’etat or elections going wrong could do exactly that- and the marauders falling under the influence of dangerous elements start attacking homes of bi-tribal families and forcing husbands to hack their wives to death because their union was not politically supposed to be.
But I only hope that Khan is in tuned with the realities of modern Gambian times. In the past, the tribal dilemma was restrictively two dimensional but with Jammeh running a government that is now widely viewed to be politically tribal, the whole ball game becomes Tri-dimensional. It’s no longer that kind of tug of war in Saul’s mind with the Mandinkas at one end of the rope and the Wolofs at the other but with another rope firmly affixed in the center and of course being pulled by the Jolas with equal force. And I don’t think that they are eventually going to let things go back to what they used to be.
Yes Saul I have in the past recommended a negotiation with Jammeh to see how he could be convinced to step down in exchange for immunity from future prosecution in which I thought an Interim Government led by Isatou Njie Saidy could be explored to win his confidence. This same idea was elaborately discussed in my book Coup D’etat By The Gambia National Army, with references to how it was similarly attained in Ghana with Jerry Rawlins for a more enduring democracy. It’s also an idea I seriously believe might have worked if pursued sincerely especially, after knowing that there lesser alternatives and reliable ways to get Jammeh out of office. However, in view of the feedback from Gambians I discussed it with, Mandinkas, Wolofs, Fulas and so who strongly oppose his government, the response more or less reflected reluctance to even consider the idea. Jammeh’s administration they think epitomizes tribal bias in favor of his Jola tribe; hence making his people culpable and deserve serious punishment after his much prayed for downfall.
Anyway, I think Jammeh is fully aware of the possibility of an indiscriminate persecution of his kinsmen in The Gambia if the tables had unceremoniously turned against his favor. With therefore his abundance of wealth, position and influence, I don’t think he would be that stupid to compromise his security and that of the Jolas and place them at the mercy of any vigilantes tomorrow. This might be the reason behind his possible endeavor to raise a private army derived from seasoned combatants of the MFDC, fighters robust enough to take on the GNA in any firefights. Besides, the GNA is insulated in such a way that those serving would rather settle for Jammeh as long as he wants to be there than support any effort by any group within to topple the regime for an unknown successor.
And I think objective Gambians willing to face the truth are fully aware of the impossibility of the opposition political parties trying to get him out of office through the ballot box to do so. Their records speak for them loudly and clearly.
Jammeh has anyway vowed to rule The Gambia for another forty years which makes it ever more necessary to negotiate with him, nail him or settle for neither. Neither means leaving nature to take its own course until his time is up with nobody worrying about when that would be. Nailing him in my judgment might only be possible if the Senegalese government was convinced to play a vital role in an externally orchestrated coup. Ten chances to one Senegal will not encourage such subversive activities except if Cassamance rebels start launching destructive attacks from Gambia into Senegal.
Jammeh we understand has been stock piling unknown number and brand of weapons in Kanilai for reasons not at all disclosed in his secret strategies.
Senegalese Armed Forces are however taking less heat from the MFDC now than when Jammeh was less involved in their affairs. His full involvement with the Cassamance rebel group started when Guinea Bissau flushed them out of their bases two years ago. All those rebels were monitored in their movement from Guinea Bissau across Cassamance into to The Gambia. What they have been doing since is anyone’s guess. But they have not been too active at all.
However for Senegal to get involved in any kind of operation for a regime change in The Gambia, their terms and conditions will definitely include factoring in their national interest thereafter. But I think they fully well know that some difficult Gambians are as apprehensive in collaborating with Banjul Wolofs as they are with Senegalese if not more. Make no mistake about it, the Senegalese government reads all the major Gambian papers and what we write here is treated very seriously over there. In order words there are Gambians who would rather jump off the George Washington Bridge than to live in a Gambia with Wolofs being recognized as part of the administrative mechanism let alone having to service Senegal’s participatory taxes.
But without Senegal’s involvement or an internal coup, which by all the above indications seem improbable, Gambians in opposition to Jammeh should start finding out how the APRC government could be changed. Election? Wishful thinking! Coup? Unlikely with unpredictable consequences! Another soldier, perhaps from another ethnic group, never considered among the future prospects just like Jammeh the Jola never was might take the center stage next time. That could be the four dimensional development anyway.
I had to bring this up to awaken people like Saul SaidyKhan to stop looking at things from one side only. It might hurt him to hear this. But we might as well brace up for the possibility of Pierre Sarr Njie and Dawda Kairaba Jawara being the last Heads of state in The Gambia to come from the Wolof and Mandinka tribes respectively.
I wouldn’t waste anymore time trying to let Saul understand that my writing in the past as Ebou Colly was not a deliberate effort to hide my identity like those he has been comparing me with. That’s what disappointed me in his paper. When I first wrote about murdered soldiers buried at Yundum Barracks pit latrines, when I disputed Vice President Isatou Njie Saidy’s erroneous remarks about Gambian security forces using rubber bullets in the April 2001 student massacre, it was folks like him who openly encouraged me to continue educating the public about what the APRC was doing wrong, especially, when some of my critics accused me of revealing classified state secrets to obtain political asylum in the USA. I am sure he knew who I was.
However, including the topic of Sean Hanity and Rush Limbaugh, conservative talk show radio/ TV hosts in tribal politics in Africa, was by me, way off the subject. It will be another waste of time trying to let Khan know that whatever he could say about Rush or Sean’s conservative political views one could say the same about Allan Combs and Bill Maher’s liberal views. But that doesn’t mean that they face the risk of chasing each other in the streets with guns like the Kikuyus and Lous are doing because of their political disagreement.
But what really baffled me was Khan’s reference to what he said were Sanjali Bojang and Pa Keita’s revelation of how Mandinkas who died in Banjul were not given adequate help for burial. The first time I read it, I found the allegation irresponsible and very repulsive. But after thinking twice I saw some possibilities in that happening. That brings back the initial point I was trying to make from day one. Roosevelt described Banjul as recently as 1943 as a hellhole because of the deplorable conditions the settlers had overseen the living conditions of the inhabitants. In the first place I think it would be of great help for us to imagine what those conditions looked like under which the Wolofs were brought to Banjul after the Napoleonic War. Did the British force them or was it on voluntary basis? Whatever way it was, it appears as the British treated them as virtual slaves for over a century. And without doubt up to 1965, everything that happened in the British Colony emanated from British administrators including the infamous disenfranchisement of the provincial people.
The same British officials must have planned and approved the order in which the cemeteries were apportioned in Banjul. Only the whites had their cemeteries in Banjul. Further down, about quarter of a mile away they had the Christian/ Aku cemeteries with the Muslims, mainly Wolofs pushed way about two miles away. If the Wolofs were really in charge, I don’t think they would have allowed their cemeteries to be located that far from their dwellings when there were no vehicles to transport the dead in those days.
Now consider a dead person being physically carried from, let’s say, the Half-Die area all the way to the Muslim cemeteries those days and then back and tell me what could be easy about it. I can’t say it for certain, but the way I think the Banjul residents those days handled their dead, especially the way they carried the corpses from any location in town to the graveyards must have been a nightmare to all. Compared to the easy accessibility of cemeteries outside Banjul with the dead in many villages quickly and easily buried within few hours after death, going through what Banjulians used to endure must have been definitely harrowing to those visitors Bojang and Keita tried to use as examples of Wolof brutality towards Mandinkas. Let’s once more imagine a burial ceremony those days on a very rainy night when there were no umbrellas and no vehicles but physical manpower to move a dead body from for example Hardington Street where the entire area was believed to be inhabited by witches to the cemeteries. I don’t think it would be strange under those circumstances not to find any helpers other than the immediate family members of the deceased to do the burial. Evidently the Hellhole President Roosevelt described as the way of life in Banjul those days must have been hellish to everyone living there, let alone those strangers who used to come there looking poorer than them.
As kids in Serekunda, the most despised and feared strangers were those farmers specialized in herbal medicines. I think they used to come from Mali known as “Boroboro”. Everybody thought out of ignorance that those men who used to dress alike and always carried leather bags under their arm pits were engaged in killing children and taking certain body parts from them. They were feared and avoided wherever they appeared and sometimes heckled by naughty boys to go back home.
That was what came in my mind when I read Khan’s reflections, about Banjulians heckling Mandinkas in their streets calling them all bad names such as killers, rapists, etc. That was nothing compared to what I said was the entire Banjulians living at Hardington Street enduring the nightmare of being termed witches for decades. If the British didn’t have an effective police force to enforce law and order those days, Hardington residents would have frequently been a target of mob-justice because of nothing but poverty and ignorance.
Banjul was not even like Serrekunda, Sukuta or other villages where hungry families could hunt for bush meat in nearby forests; rice, maize, coos and all kinds of grains and tubers were cultivatable for the sustenance of families for a whole year. Wild trees bearing fruits in abundance-mangoes, oranges, guava and the like-were there free for anybody who had the energy and appetite to consume them. For Banjulians to eat, they depended primarily on seafood and the rice supplies distributed insufficiently by the British to working families. For Banjulians to eat mango fruits, the youth had to walk seven miles to Serrekunda and walk back with only about a dozen or two to take home.
Khan in his angry mood has at least acknowledged the abject poverty in Banjul with all the good buildings belonging to the Creoles and Europeans although he still argued that the Wolofs denied the Mandinkas the jobs they monopolized. What jobs were they, if there were none to afford them with decent housing to sleep in?
The slogan of “Suruwal may tang kang”, I believe should have been “Toubabolu may tang kang”. But the politicians have made it look like the Wolofs alone owned Banjul, and in the period they were in charge until the Mandinkas rebelled against them in the 60’s, they had only lived on the sweat and blood of other ethnic groups.
What is true, I’ll repeat, is that Banjul had belonged to the British (Crown Colony) and until after independence on February, 18th, 1965, everything that took place in the political, social, administrative, judicial, and legislative functions of the colony plus of course its security were planned and executed from the Governor’s mansion at No.1 Marina Parade. Even the Akus or the Creoles who were closest to the British had minimal influence in the decisions taken by the Governor (Banjul Mansa).
However, as the times changed with Gambians becoming more attracted to European Education, lifestyles and goods, Banjul despite its small size became the first source of that taste of Western civilization. The British, not the Wolofs, brought the first power generators there, electrified the streets, paved and tarred them, built the first schools, public parks, playgrounds, public standpipes, and all what not according to their budgets and feelings. This included the technology that set the benchmark for the improvement of communication, transportation, construction and other modern facilities that eventually changed the lives of every Gambian.
However after independence, Banjul remains the same in many ways. The government still ran the country from the Island; it is predominantly inhabited by Wolof-speaking families making Wolof the most spoken language there; the rural urban migration index continue to grow and foreigners coming into the country for investment, trade, business or in search of simple jobs all focus their attention in Banjul. That’s another reason why any government formed in the country whether through a democratic process or by coup d’ tat, will have no choice but to work with the Banjulians who now come from all tribes but with perhaps most of them being very fluent in the Wolof language.
Those Wolof speaking Banjulians who over the past decades or even century had struggled to adjust to the most difficult times and are now coping with what they got in Jammeh may be behind what Khan interpreted as “ the Wolofs kissing up to Jammeh”.
Khan needs to read my book before making any judgment of who has been kissing up to Jammeh since 1994. The way I see it, all ethnic groups in the Gambia have had some of their members identified as active players in the Jammeh regime. So please let’s stop that crap.
It’s the same fallacy in the past about the army hiring more Wolof officers than members of other tribes. My book again has all names of the officers commissioned by the British Army Training Team that was directly in charge of the hiring process.
But Khan has made an important comment about how Turo Jawneh, considered to be a close relative to President Jawara became his Guards Commander instead of anybody else. That was absolutely true. Jawneh used to be known as President Jawara’s nephew before the coup. On the day of the coup, July 22nd, 1994, he was in charge of Fajara Barracks, the only unit that could have put up a resistance against the Army. Khan should take his time to find out what Jawneh did that day to resist the Platoon led by Lieutenants Sana Bairo Sabally and Sadibou Hydara that overran the unit in record time. It will also be refreshing to Khan to know that before Jawneh was released from detention in Mile II in 1995, he had totally renounced his biological ties with President Jawara. In fact, he had in few occasions at Mile Two angrily warned those who called him Jawara’s nephew not to ever say that to him again. In your investigations, please find out who stood at State House later that fateful Friday afternoon, denounced Jawara and the PPP and said “this coup is long over due!!” Please investigate!
I will conclude by going back to my first paper where I think many readers misunderstood me when I wrote about Mandinka girls calling Wolof girls “Solimas” in their verbal altercations. Of course I brought that up to compare it with how trivial it meant among Gambians and how in Kenya, Kikuyu politicians were using it to chastise Lou candidates. That was before their elections, which I was following closely, and sensing the potential crisis brewed by irresponsible politicians looking for votes.
In fact, most of my biological sisters were initiated (circumcised) in the tradition and we all lived together in the same home without problem. I am also convinced that in Kenya, Lous not being circumcised didn’t mean much. But when the politicians use it as a tactic of dividing the people, it became lethal.
I had even said that with international campaigns aggressively waged against the practice because of its health risks, most families have stopped doing it. And to add to that, there was a recent publication in The Gambia Echo Newspaper from Senegal reporting thousands of women from ethnic groups that practiced it before now showing their willingness to stop it. Thousands of women from Africa and the Arab world have sought asylum in the Western world to escape the traditional practice. Several thousands of families have also used the opportunity to file for political asylum by convincing US Immigration that were they to return home, their US born daughters would be circumcised. It’s true that the practice is popular among some Arab countries especially in Syria and Egypt; nevertheless I also know that serious efforts are being made by medical experts to discourage it. If by saying that means I am tribally prejudiced, then I am sorry for saying so.
But as my last word for Mr. Saul Saidykhan, I seriously recommend that he reads my book for a better understanding of who I am. Does Khan know that where he had quoted Sanjali Bojang’s remarks in a Foroyaa interview, the demised Lion of Nyanibere Uncle Sanjali Bojang, had also said in that same interview that in those days, PPP militants in the provinces, severely beat up people who were not in support of their party? They had fierce fighters who used sticks to beat up people to join the PPP he told Foroyaa. How come you filtered that part of the story?
Till next week,
Sheriff Samsudeen Sarr.