Commentary

 There will

  be hell to 

 pay being a

  privileged

  member of 

  Jammeh’s

 inner clique

.

By Mathew K Jallow, Associate Editor

 

The long drawn out courtroom arguments are over. The fiery exchanges have ended. The acrimonious proceedings have been reduced to one solitary word; guilty. Lang Tombong Tamba and co's. attorneys did their best to save their lives, but in the end, it was not nearly enough against the onslaught of a predetermined verdict. Even by Gambia's standards, the verdict was unexpected. It was unbelievable. Yet nothing in The Gambia will surprise us anymore. This is an all too familiar territory. We have seen this movie play out before; not once, not twice; but again, who the hell is counting anymore? The blogs are on fire; blaming the victims for their predicament, but the critics are not reveling in their demise. This guilty verdict is overwhelmingly emotional for many, and in spite of the animus we hold towards some of the victims, this inglorious saga seems far too much to come to terms with. Yet in reality, there will always be hell to pay for being a privileged member of Yahya Jammeh’s inner clique. Only that day came way too early for some of the seven victims; who, riding on their laurels, did not have a care in the world about the abuses that are happening to fellow citizens languishing in Mile 2 Prison and other jails and detention centers situated strategically around our country. From the outset, the case was riddled with maniacal inconstancies, questionable testimony, and a prejudiced display of legal gymnastics. What outcome did we expect after all? The mercenary judges are an essential embodiments of Jammeh’s reign of terror; subscribing to his spurious idea of resorting to the courts as the panacea for his political misfortunes. And this came together so glaringly when the verdict was read in court.

                           

                      Yahya Jammeh: The face of evil

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The interaction between the civilian population and our military and security forces on the one side, and the judiciary system on the other, has given us a panoramic view of Jammeh’s blighted rule. It shows an interface fraught with strident manipulation of the law, landing us in a human rights abuse conundrum and bellicose diplomatic maneuvering. The jarring abuses of the law and the comical legal proceedings are behind us. The judge and the prosecutor, working in tandem, and carrying heft for Yahya Jammeh, successfully weaved a heap of infernal legal nothingness into an onerous guilty verdict. What is next? Will they live, or die? That answer is succinctly and graphically articulated in another excellent Fatou Jaw-Manneh article lampooning Lang Tombong Tamba’s popularity. She cleverly captures the essence of this drama orchestrated by Yahya Jammeh, and predicts the trajectory this vituperative saga will take after the parades of the elderly and religious delegations return from State House, after the praise singers end their toady ignominy; the poems recited with childish gusto, and the wailings and sobbing of hapless family members stop. And I agree with her insight. This picture is a familiar act, yet it is blatantly selective, otherwise Daba Marena and co. would be alive today; probably still bowing to Jammeh; still enduring abuses from him. True, Jammeh’s obsession with power has transformed him into the serial violator of our Constitution and the law, and the judiciary has morphed into the echo-chamber he uses for the relentless and snarky assault on Gambians’ liberty. With so much power invested in an individual notorious for his insatiable hunger for it, Yahya Jammeh recognizes no boundaries, and there is no limit to what he can do and what he will do.

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             Lang Tombong Tamba & co: Victims of injustice  

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But Jammeh’s defiance of the law is not an element of his machismo or gutsiness as he wants to make us believe; rather, it belies an individual trying desperately to escape the consequences of his megalomania by entrenching his rule in a futile effort to delaying eventuality. In so doing, he is prolonging the nightmare of our country. But will it work? He gave us a clear clue recently when he boldly and without reservation broadcasted the subliminal message heard around the world in a campaign tirade in which he assured us that he will rule with or without the consent of the people, until he decides to relinquish power to a person of his choice. I am guessing Mohammed Jammeh! But seriously, was he bragging? He was. Is he right? With the way things are going, you bet he is; but there isn’t a darn thing we can do about it. What Jammeh did, was talk down to us, as if he has the power to compel us to vote him. His strange stage act, which occurred during his recent tour of the country, is a stunning display of braggadocio, punctuated with an exaggerated sense of the source of his power. Jammeh is not tempered by civility or restrained by his intellectual stodginess, and this attitude has given rise to his legendary devaluation of our collective worth. Importantly, the transcendent issue for him, is not the collective interest of Gambians, but how to stubbornly stretch his onerous reign, which Gambians have rejected categorically and overwhelmingly in two successive election cycles. After the post guilty verdict lull ends, and Jammeh emerges from the clouds, his acolytes in their characteristic servility, will submit to his divine redemption. Then it would not take long before his godly magnanimity will metastasize into his victims' rehabilitation. By now, we all know the sequence of events that will follow. Lang Tombong Tamba and co., will go back to what they have always excelled at; like battered wives, return to Yahya Jammeh’s den, dance kumbaya once again, chase after the ladies, and worship their demi-god Yahya Jammeh. 

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                 DPP Chenge: Face of injustice

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To date, none of the recycled and recycled again Jammeh lackeys has learnt from the lesson of history, but worst, if they get out, Lang Tombong Tamba and co. will forget the inordinate injustice those they left behind in Mile 2 Prison will continue to endure. But frankly, many of us have long given up hope for our country, where mediocrity and human paradoxes are woven into the psyche of a defeated people. For ours is a country where the adult generation, our country’s richest assets, seem to have evaporated from the face of the earth, disappeared into obscurity, melted away into invisibility with their education and rich experience. Ours is a land where the primordial role models of the younger generation has fallen silent and their irreplacable knowledge lost to our heritage to the detriment of our country’s struggle to develop. But hopefully, Lang Tombong Tamba and co. will soon enjoy a new renaissance and walk free once again; that is, if Jammeh does not ultimately decide to commit them to lifetimes behind bars as he did to Sana Sabally, to Baba Jobe and so many more. And if they eventually return to ground zero, inside Yahya Jammeh’s den, to support him again, without giving thought to what they have endured, and still oblivious of the dangerous trap Jammeh will set for them, we would have come full circle one more time. Many who returned Jammeh’s deleterious kiss-and-make up have not lived to retell it. For it was their kiss of death. However, soon the Lang Tombong Tamba and co. story will be knocked off the front pages, back into the dark recesses of our memories, and we will go back to the same old story; only this time, there will be new victims from Jammeh’s new inner circle, and history will repeat itself. This is our sad story, the curse of our people, the agony of our nation, and our undoing. For as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, this too will come to pass. Take this to the bank.