By Ebrima G. Sankareh, Editor-in-Chief

Barely two weeks ago, The Gambia’s veiled Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Mrs. Marie Saine-Firdaus told the West African state’s National Assembly that contrary to allegations that her government was holding missing Gambian journalist, Chief Ebrima Manneh, the regime was neither holding nor knew the whereabouts of the missing journalist. In Attorney General Saine-Firdaus’ rather bedazzling utterances before Parliament, she also blamed the Manneh family and the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) for dragging The Gambia Government before the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice, which found the Jammeh government highly complicitous. She vowed to fight the ruling of that Court which The Gambia is a signatory to.

Reacting to the Justice Minister’s allegations during an exclusive interview with The Gambia Echo, Lamin Babai Manneh, the biological elder brother to the missing journalist says “I refute Attorney General Marie Saine’s allegations in their entirety, I am shocked and very much disappointed in this lady who appears to be God-fearing in outlook.” “Today, I can tell you that Marie Saine Firdaus is the biggest liar ever to hold public office in The Gambia; I can tell you that Marie Saine is a shameless liar who worships Jammeh the dictator and not God as I had always mistakenly thought of her.”

According to Lamin, himself a victim of the Jammeh regime having spent ten painful years at The Gambia’s notorious Mile II Prisons (1994-2004) following court martial conviction that he wanted to seize power in November, 1994 with the late Lieutenant Basirou Barrow, his brother, Chief Ebrima Manneh was arrested by agents of the Jammeh government and they must therefore, account for him, regardless of Attorney General Marie Saine’s shameless disclaimer.

Genesis of The Chief Manneh Saga

In a highly emotional and sombre tone, Lamin Manneh recalls that fateful afternoon at his native Kombo Lamin in the summer of July 2006, when he returned home and called his younger brother, Sunkary Manneh to get him water to bathe only to be told that a lady had earlier called from the Daily Observer offices instructing that Sunkary picks Chief Manneh’s bag from the office because Chief was allegedly in a mission and would be late to return from work. “I immediately suspected foul play and ran to my room,” recalls Lamin. “I rang up Chief’s mobile phone numerous times but no one picked it,” he recalled. No sooner had he placed his last phone call than a friend (name withheld) called and informed him to run to the Bakau Police Station where Chief was reportedly detained by agents of The Gambia’s most predacious National Intelligence Agency (NIA). Recalls Lamin, “at the time, I had only 10 Gambian Dalasis (less than 1US$) and quickly took a taxi to Bakau but before I arrived, I thought about going to the Daily Observer offices first to talk to Dr. Sarja Taal who was Chief 's boss at the time.”

Lamin Manneh’s Encounter with Dr. Sarja Taal

According to Lamin Manneh, he arrived at the Daily Observer offices around 4pm and checked in with the receptionist who after taking his particulars seated him while she called Dr. Taal’s attention to the visitor whose mission was Chief Ebrima Manneh’s whereabouts. “Soon after the receptionist informed Dr. Taal of my presence in the office, he began to raise his voice that he had no time for such matters, that he was a busy editor with a lot of responsibility to handle and was in fact, attending a meeting” reveals Manneh. According to Manneh, “the receptionist returned with a humane face and I could notice the degree of sympathy in the lady’s face as she relayed Dr. Taal’s feigned excuse that he was busy attending a meeting.” Lamin Manneh however persevered and waited for Dr. Taal’s meeting that never was and after a while, reveals Manneh, Dr. Taal rose from his desk and started yelling at the staff who had all formed a circle around the visitor sympathizing with him. “Don’t you people have a job to do, I am not going to tolerate this…anymore’ he quoted Taal as allegedly threatening his reporters. Recalls Manneh, “Dr. Taal then turned to the receptionist and furiously enquired ‘and where is that person asking for me’, and as she pointed at me, I quickly rose and greeted Dr.Taal but before I could explain, he had began ranting.” According to Manneh, Dr. Taal immediately told him that if he was looking for his brother, the Daily Observer was not the right place to look for missing persons, that he was not his brother’s keeper, that he had continuously warned Chief Manneh but the reporter never heeded and that after calling the NIA, there was nothing that could convince him to undo what has already been done. “I have done what I have done, I called the NIA to come for him and I cannot undo it” Lamin Manneh allegedly quotes Dr. Taal as saying on that fateful July day, 2006 in the presence of the Daily Observer’s staff reporters. According to Lamin, he was forced to ask, “Is this really Dr. Sarja Taal, the so-called Gambian intellectual?” Reveals Manneh, Dr. Taal threateningly walked to his office asking me to leave or else the NIAs will pick me too and as he picked his phone, the staff who knew my history with the regime, advised that I exit the building immediately lest I too, disappear like my brother; and so I ran helter-skelter to the Bakau Police Station.” 

A Visit to the Bakau Police Station

Arriving at the Bakau Station around 6pm that fateful day, Lamin Manneh was fully anxious to trace his missing brother and all indications were that Chief Manneh was detained at the station. As a former military officer who had spent ten years at Mile II Prisons, Lamin Manneh knew some old tricks that he used to get his questions answered and when the attending officer enquired how he could help him, he did exactly that. “My cousin was allegedly arrested this afternoon after officers found him with drugs and I was trying to see if I could grant him bail” he lied to the officer. According to Lamin, since the station is usually inundated with such petty criminals, the officers asked him to come in while they investigate that said culprit’s file. Reveals Lamin, within minutes, I was able for the first time to establish without any shadow of doubt, that indeed my brother Chief Ebrima Manneh was detained at the Bakau station by NIA agents but that they had proceeded to the notorious agency’s ill-fated headquarters at Marena Parade in Banjul. One officer who was really shocked pulled out his wallet and gave me D50 as I proceeded on my search.

Visit to the Most Dreaded National Intelligence Agency     

According to Lamin Manneh, he arrived at the most dreaded NIA offices when the sun was setting and as he walked to the front desk, he noticed a huge table littered with mobile phones and hand bags and during registration with the receptionist, he recognised his missing brother’s mobile phone pouch inscribed with the initials: CEBM meaning, Chief Ebrima Babadinding Manneh. “Once I saw that pouch, I knew Chief was with the NIA and I quickly became very nervous” he told The Gambia Echo. Continuing his painful narration, Lamin told The Echo that the humane officer on duty confided in him that Chief Manneh was inside with the investigators but he was very hopeful that he will be released without incident.” However, to further convince the NIA officer that he knew that his brother was in their custody, Lamin Manneh used his mobile phone and rang up his missing brother’s phone and according to him, the phone on the elaborate NIA table bearing the initials CEBM began to vibrate. Says Manneh, “I was still determined to know the exact circumstance of my brother’s arrest and when would be released and so I requested to see the Late Bamba Manneh then NIA Operation’s Director and incidentally, hailed from the same village with our mother, Kossemar in The Gambia’s Upper River Region. Reveals Lamin, the late Bamba Manneh quickly came to the front desk and invited him in and while inside his office, Director Manneh confessed, “Chief was arrested by his agents who were busy conducting their interrogations but once completed, they would let him go.” “Manneh also said ‘I will try my best to make sure Chief is free’,” he quoted the late Operations Director who would later die of very mysterious stomach complications stemming from alleged severe torture at Mile II Prisons after failure to either arrest or kill Major Khalifa Bajinka, the erstwhile State House Guard Commander now living in the United States.

Wild Goose Chase, Press Campaign, State Denials, Legal Action

 Leaving the NIA offices satisfied that he knew his brother’s exact whereabouts but still nervous over the uncertainty of his plight especially, if juxtaposed against Dr. Taal’s alleged irksome echoes and chilling statements earlier in the evening, Lamin Manneh ran to the Point Newspaper offices with a heavy heart hoping to relate his ordeal with any journalist who could expose the apparent injustice. At The Point Manneh recalled meeting Editor Pap Saine who took notes as he narrated his story and soon after his narration, Saine picked the phone and rang up Dr. Sarja Taal to hear his side of the developing story about a Managing Editor allegedly asking the NIAs to arrest a junior journalist. Says Lamin, “as Saine was interviewing Taal, I took leave of him and headed to the Foroyaa newspaper offices at Churchill’s Town arriving there pretty late, but Editor Samuel Sarr assured me that they would investigate. I returned home and found my old father anxiously waiting for a positive answer and after I told him everything, he bluntly replied, ‘I am not satisfied and have no hope’.” “In the following days, both The Point and Foroyaa newspapers reported the matter and in my pursuit for justice for my missing brother, I had visited every nook and crony of The Gambia but my brother is still under the custody of The Gambia Government”. Over the past three years, Chief Manneh was detained at various police stations across the country among them, Kartong police station, Sibanor police station, Sare Ngai police station, and Fatoto police station. In fact, following a tip off, a human rights investigator, Yahya Dampha found him at Fatoto police station while an officer was serving him food and when Police Public Relations Officer, Azziz Tamba was confronted with this withering indictment of police complicity, he was dumb-founded because he knew damn well that they had always been in shameful denial. The Jammeh regime’s lies were further assailed when in 2007, a relative ran into Chief Manneh at the Royal Victoria Teaching Hospital where he was checked in for medical attention. In that encounter Chief is quoted as saying “I’ve done nothing wrong, God ordained this and there is nothing one can do.”   

Laments Lamin, “I had contacted several Gambian lawyers but none was willing to take up the matter because of the failed assassination attempt on Lawyer Ousman Sillah who represented Baba Jobe; a once powerful lieutenant who ran afoul of the Gambian dictator and serving a nine-year false conviction sentence at the Mile II Prisons”.

In further reaction to Attorney General Marie Saine’s allegations, that the Manneh family did not exhaust legal remedies locally available to them, Lamin Manneh argues that it was not his distraught family’s intention to take The Gambia Government to the ECOWAS Court of Justice, that the Court became a last resort after numerous appeals by international human rights organizations, press watch dogs and rights groups for the Jammeh regime to release my brother. Says Manneh, the Jammeh government would not even reply to letters sent to them by our lawyers from the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA) and after numerous such letters, the MFWA under the stewardship of eminent Ghanaian academic, Professor Kwame Karikari sued the contumacious Jammeh regime and the Court found him liable. Several witnesses testified against The Gambia government and true to its character, it did not even bother. “I am therefore, deeply disappointed over Marie Saine’s orchestrated ploy to shamelessly lie before the National Assembly only to please Yahya Jammeh when my old parents are in tears for the past three years”, he said.

Attempted Assassination and The Flight Into Exile

After spending ten torturous years at The Gambia’s Mile Two Prisons, Lamin Manneh walked out reeling from a hostile chapter in his youthful life, still thankful to God that unlike Lt. Basirou Barrow, Lt. Dot Faal, Lt. Saye, Sgt. Fafa Nyang and several other officers, he was not murdered by the Armed Forces Provisional Ruling Council, the murderous military junta that propelled Jammeh to the pinnacle of political power on July, 22, 1994. “I went to Mile Two in my early twenties and left in my mid-thirties, waking up to the Internet world and numerous other advances that Jammeh had denied me and my fallen comrades” he told The Gambia Echo in a sombre tone. By a cruel twist of concomitant irony, Lamin Manneh would only spend a year with his affable brother, Chief Ebrima Manneh before he too, would disappear in the hands of the same brutal dictator and when the regime was dragged before the ECOWAS Court it began plotting and thanks to good human intelligence, Lamin Manneh would flee The Gambia to Senegal following the damning verdict that the Jammeh government detained his brother. Fleeing to Dakar and awaiting his papers at the United Nations Bureau, Manneh had to be smuggled to a West African country after compelling evidence that the assassins were within striking distance and the rest is a story to be written at a later date in an Echo exclusive. We thank God that Lamin is safely within the shores of these United States of America.