Is Yahya Jammeh The Gambia?

 

By Mathew K. Jallow, Associate Editor

 

Yahya Jammeh, Gambian Head of State 

Sarjo Bayang’s editorial in Allgambian.net asks a sobering question that needs to be answered. Who owns The Gambia? It sounds like a very silly question to ask, yet it is as serious as it can get, for ours is a country taken possession of by an individual who is doing whatever he likes, whenever he likes, and, how ever he likes. In all his frequent public outbursts, tirades and diatribes, Yahya Jammeh has often evoked the first person “I” when he refers to The Gambia, and I for one, can never ever bring myself to accept this. Does Yahya Jammeh equal The Gambia? I think not, yet Jammeh himself sees it differently, because he has usurped so much Constitutional power that the line of reality separating Jammeh the person, and The Gambia our country, is totally blurred in his own mind. But, the hijacking of our country is not only limited to what he says; it apparently extends to what he does as well. Early last week, Yahya Jammeh gave nearly two dozen school buses to the Kombo and St. Mary’s Area schools, while making it clear that the buses were a gift to his Jammeh Foundation. The implication of his speech was that the students should be grateful to him for providing a service that his regime should have been providing in the first place. Now, the question to be asked is from where do the Yahya Jammeh and The Jammeh Foundation derive the power and all the resources so readily available to give away? From the school buses to police motor-bicycles; from farmers’ tractors to hospital bicycles, and from Taiwanese rice to wads of bank notes; Yahya Jammeh’s supply of these resources knows no limit. To a frustrated and observant public, there is a simple explanation to Jammeh’s actions. Yahya Jammeh has clearly adopted an unacceptable motto, which explicitly declares; “what is mine is mine, and what is The Gambia’s is mine as well.” In the past one year alone, Yahya Jammeh made numerous gifts in his and The Jammeh Foundation’s name, and below is a short list, which will provide the drift of a trend that is raising more questions than providing answers. Yahya Jammeh and his Jammeh Foundation have taken over the duties of our government bureaucracy, and a partial look at the gifts made by Yahya Jammeh and The Jammeh Foundation over the past year and half will explain why. Since the beginning 2007, The Daily Observer newspaper, the Jammeh regime’s mouthpiece has splashed extravagant headlines alluding to Jammeh’s benevolence in stories forever frozen on its pages as follows:

Jammeh Foundation gives 20 buses to schools

Jammeh gives 3 bulls to the Banjul mosque

Jammeh gives scholarships to 800 Foni area schoolgirls

Jammeh gives motor-bicycles to police force

Jammeh gives 3 trucks to the military

Jammeh sponsors students to Taiwan

Jammeh send students to Venezuela

Jammeh gives 150,000 dalasis to a praise singer

Jammeh gives 350,000 dalasis to University of Gambia

Jammeh gives 200, 300, or 500 bags of rice to…

Jammeh gives Mercedes Benzes to Chief Justice and others

Jammeh gives 100,000, 50,000, 30,000, 20,000, 10,000 dalasis to schools

Jammeh allocates land to Football players

Jammeh gives 200,000 dalasis to 8 American girls for a Hawaii vacation

But, not everything Jammeh is doing is worth printing as far as The Daily Observer is concerned. We know for a fact that all the assets seized by The Asset Management and Recovery Commission are placed directly in Jammeh’s hands for him to sell and allocate to whomever he pleases. The Palace built by former Central Bank’s Lang Conteh, who is now in exile in Senegal, is, according to a recent returnee from Gambia, allocated a Jola military contingent. Other AMRC properties are said to be allocated to senior military and security force personnel, or in some cases to dubious characters not known to Gambians, but believed to be Casamance rebel leaders close to Jammeh. Other eyebrow raising activities of Yahya Jammeh includes but are not limited to Lang Tombong’s promotion twice within a single year, and the three mass promotions of police and military also within a year. This begs the question, what is Jammeh afraid of? Does he think that this kind of bribery of senior officers will save his skin when the rank and file military who do all the dirty work are struggling to put food on the tables for their families? We know the military boys are on the streets and the traffic where they have virtually taken over the duties of the civilian police, because this is the only way they can make extra dalasis from drivers, shopkeepers, and criminals in order to feed their families. But, bribing the senior military has not worked in Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast and I bet it will not work in The Gambia as well. We call on all junior military officers to rededicate them-selves to serving The Gambian people and not this one individual called Yahya Jammeh, who is destroying our beloved country and tearing us apart more every single day. But, we will get you Yahya Dictator Jammeh. So be afraid, be very afraid.

In other news, an answer to the sudden disappearance of a State House cook, Jammeh and his NIA thugs must provide Ebou Jarjou of Kombo Darsilami. Why should our fellow countrymen just disappear like that and no one is raising any voice about it? Is this The Gambia we want to live in? Hasn’t anyone got the guts to do or say something about this because Yahya Jammeh has emasculated our whole country? Like everyone else who went missing since 1994, we as a country owe it to the family of Ebou Jarjou to never stop asking the hard question until we can find justice for him too.

A while ago there was so much buzz in the papers about SOS Fatim Badgie, the freshly minted replacement of Nene Macdouall at Information and Communications. While Ms. Badjie may not have the qualification to man such a complex interplay of personalities, nor does she has the intellectual maturity to help her form objective judgments based not on emotions or other subjective external or internal percepts, I would nonetheless say to her, “go girl, and take the job, even though you are not ready for it yet.” After all, every-one forgot that Jammeh is not looking for management qualification. He has his own criteria for qualifying and the lady meets that; her last name. As long as it sounds like a Jola name, that is all what matters to Yahya Jammeh. Ms. Fatim Badgie is a thoroughly Wolofnised Jola, but it is the Badjie that counts as far as Jammeh is concerned. Today, almost everyone walking the streets of Banjul has either been a Permanent Secretary, a Cabinet Minister,  a Department Manager or an Ambassador to some country in Yahya Jammeh’s regime. The Justice Department alone has had 15 Attorneys Generals in 13 years. Every other senior post has had the same ill fate. Even at the military they are retired the moment they made Jammeh feel uncomfortable.

The other day, Jammeh’s warning to farmers to not sell their produce across the border in Senegal amused me. Amused, because it is too little too late and secondly no farmer is obliged to sell to Gambian authorities. In the free market, one is free to sell wherever one can maximize their profit, and patriotism can go to hell. In the first place if Jammeh were serious, he would do something about himself as the most corrupt public official that The Gambia has ever seen and then he can do something about Suku Singhateh who still has 8.4 million dalasis worth of groundnuts belonging to the farmers and 8.4 million dalasis cash belonging to Action Aid.

In a rare admission, a letter from the Vice-President’s office lamented the condition of the youth in the country. This young man’s letter published in The Daily Observer admitted that the “vast majority of the youth are unemployed” and later admitted that “there are few opportunities” for them. Yes that is right. Jammeh has employed only Cassamance Jolas in all “supposed farms and business interests, but our fellow Gambians have to work for free for him.

With regard to the price of meat for which Jammeh was complaining last week, the blame rests on him. Jammeh has a battalion of middlemen who buys most of the cattle coming from the provinces. He has more cattle than any Gainako (Fula for shepherd) in the country, and this is a mystery considering that only ten years ago, he has not a single head of cattle to his name. But, his wealth in livestock does not include his goats and sheep. Because he buys the livestock, there are a fewer for slaughter, and in the supply and demand of market forces, the prices are bound to go up. Similarly, Jammeh also buys the fish he needs to feed the zoo animals in Kanilai leaving little for the population most of who depend on fish for their daily protein supply. Whatever Jammeh does, seems to affect Gambians in a negative way.

Now that the harvests are in, how much did Jammeh make in his harvest of all the six farms that were cultivated for him this past rainy season? He had a farm in M.I. Division supervised by Gangi Touray, one in North Bank (Kerewan) area, another in Siffoe, one in Niumi, and two or more in the Fonis including the one in Kanilai. Can anyone be as greedy as the monster Yahya Jammeh? He has the money, our money, he has the cattle, he has the sheep and goats, he has the farms, he has every government property in his hands, he owns everything that is given to us as a country, the tractors, vehicles, motor-bicycles, cycles; everything belongs to Yahya Jammeh. The A.U. villas built for the Heads of State now also belong to Jammeh. And this brings me back to Sarjo Bayang’s question; who owns The Gambia? For now the answer is simple. The Gambia belongs to Yahya Jammeh for he is The Gambia and The Gambia is him. When will God deliver us from this monster?

Finally, Jammeh is giving away Medals of Honor again. Like years past, he has cheapened this prized trophy that it is meaningless now. Two years ago, recipients included Asombi Bojang, Jammeh’s mother who has done nothing for our country and a Jola musician from the jungles of Cassamance. Before too long, every bana bana in the Serekunda market will also get one from Jammeh. Like our diplomatic passports that are given to every white man who sets foot in State House, this is a form of prostitution and Jammeh is the pimp. He is pimping our country left, right and center. Lord have Mercy.