Echo Editorial
Jammeh the rascal vs. the good for nothing Generals
By Ebrima G. Sankareh, Editor-In-Chief
Bizarre beasts and mad men was how I characterised the recent visit of Gambian leader Yahya Jammeh with a delegation of diplomatic nincompoops to the just concluded United Nations General Assembly session in New York. For who in his right mind will walk into someone’s living room in a sweltering summer afternoon in the south Bronx, claiming to be on a mission to combat Yahya Jammeh’s enemies? Unless if you had an unusual epiphany, the likely reply to the question is that the idling idiots most be among the bizarre beasts and mad men in the company of Gambian dictator, Yahya Jammeh, who because of their cluelessness of how the real world operates, think that the south Bronx could be an extension of Yahya Jammeh’s metastasizing psychosis.
Afang Iblis comes to town
By a concomitant twist of cruel irony, a quarter century before America’s independence in 1776, a bizarre character named Rip Van Winkle went up the mountains on the Hudson River and proceeded to sleep for twenty-five years. When poor Rip finally woke up and decided to return home, he had a rude awakening that the greatest liability of history was to sleep through periods of profound change. When Rip trekked the mountains with his dog, America was a colony of Great Britain and upon his descend from the mountains, the Union jack (British flag) was no longer fluttering. Instead, at the foot of the mountain was the American flag with its beautiful stripes and stars. Also, instead of the photo of King George the imperialist King of England, to his utter bewilderment, Rip the snoring old man saw images of General George Washington, America’s first President. Rip also noticed that his friends and fellow citizens were using vocabulary that appeared alien-democracy, elections, freedom, liberty, human rights, Constitution, rule of law, equality, justice and human dignity. Yes, a bizarre character walking the streets has happened in New York and that it could recur in today’s New York when a black man is America’s president, is quite instructive, but in Yahya Jammeh and his roaming political operatives, I see a reincarnation of Rip Van Winkle. In sum, Yahya Jammeh and his government are way behind History’s schedule and their childish behaviour will continue to fascinate the casual observer.
Crucially, a sharp contrast to both Yahya Jammeh and his literary twin, Rip Van Winkle is South Africa’s great statesman, Nelson Mandela. Unlike Rip, Mandela spent 27 years on Ruben Island as a political prisoner and walked out of that dungeon a much better human being who could appreciate the inherent good in democracy, rule of law, liberty, and freedom and developed a more expansive attitude towards reconciliation and forgiveness. Surprisingly, Nelson Mandela is old enough to be Yahya Jammeh’s grandfather, has spent over a quarter century in a jail comparable to Mile II Prisons, yet his appreciation of humanity much more profound than a man who was never tortured, never jailed, never discriminated against. That man is Jammeh the rascal!
Significantly, talking about Jammeh the rascal carries with it powerful images, metaphors and invocations of his good for nothing Generals who, besides the façade of the shiny uniforms, the hoopla, the hoo-ha, the razzle-dazzle of the impressive ceremonial regalia are quite frankly, a big joke. If Yahya Jammeh can manoeuvre his way into Yundum’s ill-fated army barracks and talk to General Tamba and his cadre of military officials in his characteristic rudeness, then The Gambia really, needs help- Seriously! What was more pathetic was the fact that Jammeh had the audacity to invite Gambian TV crew to take footage of the beddings of the soldiers and then for days, this filth was news for the Gambian public as if the journalists had no better jobs than exposing dirty military laundry. Who really gives a damn about soldiers stealing building materials, roofs and cement bags when their Minister and Commander In-Chief, Yahya Jammeh has been stealing millions of US dollars? Oh! Mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, Momodou Sanyang runs that Department and he too was hired Director of TV only because of ethnic affiliation with President Jammeh coupled with strong support from the now sacked, General Lang Tombong Tamba.
Be that as it is, Guinea Conakry is by far richer than The Gambia and recently, through its commissions of enquiry into alleged corrupt practices during the Lansana Conté regime, unearthed evidence that Yahya Jammeh gave Conté, half a million US dollars ($500,000.00). This full disclosure by Guinea’s former Finance Minister speaks volumes about Yahya Jammeh’s sheer hypocrisy and political meddling in the sub-region. Why would Jammeh who was still a schoolboy when Conté became president in Guinea be so rich that he can be giving out such amounts of foreign cash to Conté? Or was it drug money? I dare ask in view of all the shady characters that he surrounds himself with.
How about the four million, four hundred and eighty thousand, six hundred and thirty four dollars and thirty four cents ($4,480,634.87) that Yahya Jammeh transferred to his diplomatic hand in Washington DC, Lamin Sabi Sanyang to buy him cars and give some to American college girls for expensive vacations to Hawaii? Subsequent to our damning revelations in this paper a year ago, Sanyang was lured into Banjul and then detained incommunicado. Sanyang was subsequently charged with multiple felonies and or embezzlement related only to have the allegations quashed a little later. Today, the same Lamin Sabi Sanyang has returned to the Washington Embassy, doing what he does best, running Jammeh’s errands, hosting marabouts from Cassamance as if they own the world. Who said that marabouts can stop us from writing? Did General Tamba not know that the same Yahya Jammeh accusing him and his colleagues of impropriety was more corrupt or was Tamba really feigning ignorance like the proverbial ostrich that buries its heads pretending not to see reality? The greatest of all ironies is, instead of telling Gambians how he uses their money, Jammeh tells them about roofs, cement bags and deals with contractors. Truth be told, who in his right mind really gives a button hole about stolen bags of cement when Yahya Jammeh is siphoning millions of dollars to Washington DC, to give to college girls, buying them round-trip airfares to Banjul when Gambian girls are dying of malaria?
How about the thousands of United States dollars that he dishes out to his so-called supporters during his last trip here when, the poor Gambians in the provinces cannot still afford to buy medicine from local pharmacies or rebuild their fragile roofs that fly off every rainy season? How about the groundnuts that his government has woefully failed to buy from poor farmers he claims to represent?
Key to the nexus is the fact that Yahya Jammeh who came to power promising to fix corruption and bridge the gap between the haves and have-not’s, has become the greatest swindler of our resources, transforming his native Kanilai into a modern city with ill-gotten wealth. Today, Yahya Jammeh is the wealthiest Gambian farmer, the richest fisherman, the richest baker, the richest trucker, the richest contractor, the richest diamond dealer, the richest hotelier, the richest banker with Nigerian banks mushrooming all over the horizon. No wonder, all the attendant social vices such as prostitution, drug peddling, graft and corruption are worsening progressively and as long as Yahya Jammeh and his corrupt cronies remain at the helm, our nation is doomed. Lest we forget, this was the malnourished young Lieutenant, seriously lacking in charisma, an utterly unknown political quantity that rose to the pinnacle on a trinity of: transparency, accountability and probity. In all honesty, one is compelled to argue that Yahya Jammeh had no clue what these powerful words really mean.
Juxtaposed against this madness is the fact that Yahya Jammeh treats The Gambia as his personal fiefdom and all these good for nothing Generals as toys. When did Yahya come to the realization that he cannot allow his soldiers to sleep in a bed that he would not allow his son, Mohammed Yahya Jammeh to sit on? Jammeh better tells that to the marines because we know damn well that given the chance, Jammeh wants his son to succeed him just as his mentor, the late Omar Bongo had his son, Ali Ben Bongo succeed him and Gambians better take this allegation very seriously.
That said, every soldier in The Gambia National Army (GNA) must now come to the rude awakening that Yahya Jammeh has no respect for them. He sees and treats all of them as a bunch of idiots that can be used, abused, manipulated and then either be murdered or sacked with utter disdain and humiliation. There is evidence aplenty that Yahya Jammeh has effectively used almost all the best and the brightest in the army to carry out the most heinous crimes and then either jails, kills or sacks them. Certainly, there are exceptions to each case but even those that refused to be used for lack of a better phrase are jettisoned. Where is Musa Jammeh? Where is Momodou Tumbul Tamba? Where is Lt. Almamo Manneh? Where is Captain Sadibou Haidara? Where is Daba Marena? Where is Abdoulie Kujabie? Where is James Kujabie? Where is Pierre Mendy? Where is Lt. Sanneh? Where is Sgt. Manlafi Corr? Where is Sgt. Alpha Bah? Where is Captain Edward David Singhateh? Where is Colonel Peter Singhateh? Where is Yankuba Kabineh Touray, the most loquacious griot of the Jammeh government? Where is Colonel Ndure Cham? Where is Alagie Kanteh? Where is Captain Sana Sabally, once the power dynamo of the AFPRC? Where is Baboucarr Jatta? Where is my good friend, Lt. Colonel Samsudeen Sarr? Where is Major Kalifa Bajinka? Where is Lang Tombong Tamba, the celebrity-like General, vice president of The Gambia…, vice president of the …, President of the…, President of the Gambia …?
My friends, my good countrymen, the list is long, the details are sombre but more crucially, at this very hour, our country is bleeding and needs a Thomas Sankara to stop the carnage, and a Nelson Mandela to heal the wounds and bring all of us together in a spirit of hope, dialogue and reconciliation. Precisely, Jammeh must go, and must go now!