Gen. Tamba, Gen. O. B. Mbaye, Deputy IGP Gaye, 2 others arrested, at Mile II

By Ebrima G. Sankareh, Editor-In-Chief

Highly authoritative and unimpeachable military sources say Gambia’s famous military officer; General Lang Tombong Tamba has been arrested and sent to the country’s infamous Mile II Prisons late last night. Also arrested with General Tamba were, General Omar B. Mbaye, Deputy Inspector General of police Modou Gaye and two others; presumably from the country’s most predacious National Intelligence Agency (NIA).

News of Tamba’s alleged arrest hit our newsroom last Saturday morning but after intense investigations that kept this reporter awake until the wee hours of Monday morning, we were able to establish that General Tamba was safe and home. Today however, The Gambia Echo reports with a high degree of certainty that Tamba has been arrested and is in jail at Mile II Prisons along with four others.

It can be recalled that General Lang Tombong Tamba, General Mbaye and three other senior officers were sacked barely a month ago following President Jammeh’s abrupt visit to Yundum and Bakau Military Barracks amid devastating allegations of financial impropriety of up to twelve million dollars ($12,000,000.00). These damning allegations by Commander-In-Chief Yahya Jammeh were televised live on Gambian TV. Ever since the high profile sacking of General Tamba as Chief of Defence Staff and his comrades, there has a been a combustible combination of rumours and innuendoes that beneath the façade of corruption allegations, President Jammeh was increasingly fearful of the disgraced General’s popularity across the spectrum. “It had more to do with security and dictator Jammeh’s own paranoia than financial impropriety” some analysts conjectured at the time.

Crucially, barely a week after the sackings, Gibril Bojang who was promoted to the rank of colonel the day Tamba and others were axed, was also sacked, demoted to the rank of private, arrested and detained at Mile II Prisons following withering allegations of pilfering millions meant for logistics at the presidential palace. Barely two weeks ago, the disgraced former Presidential Guards’ Commander, Colonel Gibril Bojang received the speediest criminal trial in Gambian history and is now serving a concurrent two-year jail term at Mile II Prisons.

Colonel Bojang during the good days

While it is difficult to specifically say why Generals Tamba, Mbaye, IGP Gaye and the two others were arrested last night, by extrapolation, one can infer that that their arrest may be based on Jammeh’s withering allegations of financial misappropriations among the military’s top brass.

Until his sacking last month, Major Omar B. Mbaye was head of the military’s Quartermaster Department tasked with welfare and logistical matters and whether or not he too swindle money meant for the military remains to be seen.

For now though, Tamba and comrades have been consigned to Mile II awaiting their fate from The Gambia’s ungrateful tyrant, Yahya Jammeh.

Significantly, it is instructive to remember that it was General Lang Tombong Tamba who, together with Colonel Saikou Seckan from Essau village, North Bank Region, skillfully foiled Colonel Ndure Cham’s coup in March, 2006 while Jammeh was visiting Mauritania. As Colonel Cham fled to Senegal, Tamba was hailed as a patriotic national hero paraded before Gambian radio and television. Paradoxically, as Jammeh and Tamba were celebrating the crushing of the coup, a wholesale destruction of human life followed as numerous military personnel and civilians among them occult consultants were arrested and tortured. Some disappeared and never to be seen again while others were prosecuted before kangaroo tribunals and most sentenced to life imprisonment.

To date, the erstwhile Director General of the NIA, Daba Marenah, Lieutenant Alieu Badara Ceesay, Lieutenant Ebou Lowe, Sgt. Major Alpha Bah and Sgt. Manlafi Corr remain unaccounted for following the cruelest hoax by Jammeh’s regime that the five security detainees fled during a prisoner transfer. Many Gambians believe and are convinced that these people were severely tortured, chillingly liquidated and then buried in isolated areas to bury the evidence.      

The Dictator Vs. The General.