Mesquite Letter Writer Calls Ex-Banjul Major’s Trial “Malicious & Deceptive”
Dear Editor:
On his recently concluded, “Dialogue with the People Tour”, President Yahya Jammeh told people in Banjul that he was happy they elected a Mayor from his APRC party adding that the previous Mayor they elected on an Independent ticket did not do anything except selling of a public toilet.
Ex-Banjul Mayor Pa Sallah Jeng
May be we should start by reminding the public this issue was long resolved by the Courts. The Mayor of Banjul, His Lordship Pa Sallah Jeng was acquitted and vindicated by the High Court of The Republic of The Gambia. It was a charge concocted out of malice and deception orchestrated by a Head of State who wants to micro-manage every facet of Gambian society. There has been no proof of sales on this matter. There was development contract similar to the one entered into by the Mayor and the Jammeh Foundation on the children playground on McCarthy Square. Besides, there can’t be any sales transaction on land without proper documentation. The City by virtue of open spaces within its confines owns the public toilets of the City of Banjul. None of them have any title deeds or proper documentation.
I wish Yahya Jammeh would address the lingering land controversy of the proposed Campama Estate Market, which was sold to Comium Cell phone Company by Pa Sanneh, the husband of the deputy Mayor and later appointed Mayor when the Mayoral office was hijacked by a clique of bandits and in a mafia style set up. The competent Court also decided this matter, but the Jammeh government true to its criminalcharacter kept it on a low profile because the culprit was once the ruling APRC’s Youth Mobiliser and remains an active player. The Court found him guilty beyond all shadows of doubt and ordered him to pay the money back to Comium.
Mayor Jeng in his time, registered more development for Banjul than all-previous Mayors before him put together. Was it not the late wife to slain civil rights leader Malcolm X’s widow, Betty Shabazz who said, “Find good and praise it”? This remains a difficult task for negative minded people. Besides, dishonest leaders would do anything to conceal the truth just to keep people blind and powerless; this is how they continue to enrich themselves or control more powers. So, they will continue to enjoy that slave-master relation, a dubious way of having people under their wings.
The Gambian people should by now know the difference between what is real and fake. They only pretend not to know, because they are deprived of life, freedom, justice, equality, and the pursuit of happiness, knowledge, wisdom, understanding, love, peace, brotherhood and unity.
Naturally, we have different views, opinions, beliefs, and political affiliations; but these differences should not be perceived as deficient or inability to work with one another. When Yahya Jammeh said he was happy that Banjul elected a new Mayor from his party
he was effectively sending clear signals of politicizing local government authority. On the other hand, he was still trying to find justification of how he, Jammeh mistreated and finally, ejected Mayor Jeng from elected office.
One would have expected the president to address high unemployment among the youth in Banjul, conditions of the environment, improve sewage systems, substandard houses, slum and ghetto-like dwellings in the capital, improvement of the drainage system, open up the canals and water ways, the street light cables and poles which are mostly on 45o erection and ready to collapse, and especially, the dilapidated feeder roads. This is what is expected of a mature leader and not the infantile ranting evident in almost all of Yahya Jammeh’s boring speeches.
Mr. Editor thank you for the space and God bless.
Sincerely,
Ansumana Sambou,
Parklake Ave.
Mesquite, TX 68501