Afang "Ebilis" with the Holy Quran, issues threats to bury his enemies

The experiences of the last dozen years under the weight of Yahya Jammeh’s brutal reign ought to make every right thinking Gambian pause and think. Yet, despite the suffering of our fellow citizens stemming from Jammeh’s rabidly brutal and incompetent regime, the emerging tsunami this is engendering still does not seem to register in the minds of many Gambians. As a result, we are gradually inclining on the precipice of social and political instability, and nothing Jammeh can do at this moment, will mitigate this impending disaster. Whenever the balance of power suffers from artificial dislocation as a result of political activity, the natural tendency to realign power equitably by the use of force will become an overarching objective. But, at this stage of the history of Yahya Jammeh’s nefarious regime, there is no impetus for him to change, because his regime’s existence is predicated on a preface that presupposes that the employment of fear, brutality, and intimidation is a necessary evil in pursuant to the accomplishment of his infatuation with entrenching his hold on power. As an example, Jammeh’s signature threats, directed towards butchers, as evidenced by his recent remarks at Yundum Airport, though seemingly benign, should nonetheless be taken seriously. Our historical experience under his regime, suggests that the carnage he has committed over the years, has provided the impulse to support the juxtaposing of his words against past evidence in order to help us forestall the malleable complacency that has paralyzed our countrymen for far too long. Under the threats of losing jobs, going to jail, tortures and death, we have been forced to defer to Yahya Jammeh’s regime, even in cases involving clear evidence of murder and torture of fellow citizens. We cannot continue this unbridled deference to Jammeh and the eclectic mob of greedy and power hungry slime surrounding him. The lack of moral fortitude and the pervasive intellectual dishonesty by many of the educated elite in Jammeh’s camp are destroying our democratic experiment and turning our institutions into appendages that are enabling the perpetuation of Jammeh’s gutless and spineless dictatorship. There is anecdotal evidence supporting the contention that many of our citizens are in denial, and that the self serving rationalization offered by some senior public servants regarding their service under the murderer Jammeh, is doing much to tamp down the potentials for mass popular dissent. This is what is precipitating and perpetuating the slave mentality that is corroding our values, pride and our dignity at every level of our tribal, social and economic categorization.

     Today, there is no doubt that for far too many of our fellow citizens who are working in the regime, greed and the enigma of power and its influence on the perception of self worth, is motivating otherwise decent Gambians into turning their backs on the value systems that have informed how we shape the tapestry of our nation. The cruel story of Jammeh’s regime and the irredeemable rancor it epitomizes is causing us to fearfully submit to his regime’s predacious power grab. And recently, when the Secretary of State of Communications, Mrs. Badjie-Janneh admonished a delegation of WAJA journalists against disseminating news that has the potential to sow the seeds of discontent, she could not be more right. By the same token, she ought to have addressed the culture of political patronage from which she has benefited by virtue of being of Jola extraction. More than anything else, the tribal biases that have excluded other citizens from the benefit of accessing equal opportunities in their countries of origin, is primarily responsible for all the “backwardness, destruction and retrogression” in “Rwanda, Darfur, Liberia and Sierra Leone,” all countries that Mrs. Badjie-Janneh so eloquently referenced in her speech. Similarly, Jammeh’s Jolanization of our country’s Civil Service, the never ending hiring and firing, the arrests and detention without cause, the disappearances and murders plaguing our country, and Mrs. Fatim Badjie-Janneh’s own absolute lack of qualification for the position she is handling, are the kinds of examples that cause people to rise up in rebellion against their governments. The Gambia is already on the path to backwardness, but when we reach the stage of destruction and retrogression, Mrs. Badjie-Janneh, will have only one person to blame, and that person is Yahya Jammeh. Jammeh obviously has all rights to as tribalist as he wants, but it does not give him the right to steer our collective national resources towards his fellow Jola tribesmen at the exclusion of tribes. This is what will give members of the other tribes a compelling reason to want to rise up and overthrow Jammeh’s supercilious and divisive regime. Today, there is no doubt that a vast majority of our people are stridently opposed to a dictatorship that has created a wedge between Jolas and the rest of our citizens. But, we cannot blame the entire Jola population for Jammeh’s narrow-mindedness. The distrust emerging from Jammeh’s tribal sentiments are not generated by hatred of Jolas, but on a natural reaction of people who are deprived and treated unfairly. The mischaracterization of the values of our Jolas compatriots; a people we all know so well, a people we love, lived with, and shared the good and the bad, the best and the worst moments of our lives is inadvertently being engineered by Jammeh through his guiltless commitment and wanton promotion of tribalism in our country.

    After the last general elections, Yahya Jammeh promised to pay the people of Western Division for their overwhelming support of his candidacy. Now, by steering two major development projects to that region of our country, he appears to be living up to that promise. Last week, a new agricultural project worth $12.7 million and another road construction project worth $7.5 million were approved for the Western Division. Jammeh has a history of diverting development funds to his native Western Division, and it is a deliberate discrimination of other parts of our country. This is unacceptable for many obvious reasons, not the least that many deserving citizens and farmers in other parts of our country are deprived of what they are rightfully entitled to. Development loans made to the regime are paid for not only by any particular region, but by all tax paying farmers throughout our country, irrespective of whether they benefited or not. And as far as the failure of Jammeh’s regime is concerned, it was disconcerting to read about The National Assembly debate relating to this year’s Trade Season. By this time each year throughout President Jawara’s thirty year reign, his government would have already announced a date for the beginning of the Trade Season. It is unconceivable that up to this moment, the regime has not announced the beginning of this year’s groundnut buying season, but in addition, judging from The National Assembly debate, it would appear that the regime has not even provided marketing outlets for our farmers’ harvest. Yahya Jammeh is demonstrating that his regime is not equipped to deal with the range of development issues and challenges facing our country, and he is focusing on the never ending prosecution of innocent Gambians for ridiculous, frivolous and trumped up charges. The ongoing prosecution of three individuals for the attempted purchases of “charms” for personal protection is ridiculous at best and down right stupid at worst. It is unimaginable that the issue of “charms” can be written into our laws given that nearly eighty percent of our citizens believe in them to the extent that they seek out animist and Islamic charm gurus for their personal and family protections from evil spirits and imagined enemies.

Clearly, our country is crying loud for sober and informed leadership, and we have a responsibility to provide that for the benefit of all our people. In short, Yahya Jammeh’s overthrow is long overdue. Far too many of our fellow citizens have died; far too many are hungry and suffering needlessly in our prisons and jails. It is time for this madness to end. It is time to get of the tribalist murderer Yahya Jammeh.