Obama White House refutes Observer hoax

--Grandiose Awards that never were! Yahya Jammeh a liar!

By Ebrima G. Sankareh, Editor-In-Chief

Ever since the Gambian Daily Observer newspaper, better yet, the Gambian national stenographer (excuse my sarcasm) that documents every shameless act as well as President Jammeh’s sickening tomfoolery came bragging with a bogus headline on Friday September 17, 2010, buried in the irksome and monotonous English cliche' “BAGS,” almost all genuine Gambians caught cold, scratching their heads, some even asked if President Barack Obama was gripped with some belated idiocy or simply stupidity to confer awards on Africa’s most brutal simpleton, Yahya Jammeh, an empty barrel who relishes controversy and triumphs on drugs, prostitution, money laundering, witchcraft and blood diamonds.

Predictably, as the story captioned, “President Jammeh Bags 4 Awards” continued to elicit a combustible combination of doubt and disdain especially, among the Gambian community in the United States, the New York based press freedom watchdog, Committee to Protect Journalists-CPJ, came with the withering indictment, that alas, the much-talked about awards were utterly false- a heap of lies; lies that are all too familiar since the pathological idiot rose to the pinnacle of political power on July 22,1994 promising miracles. What is most shameful in the saga is that even in Yahya Jammeh’s willy-nilly madness to be recognized by Barack Obama, his newspaper could not spell President Obama’s first name-BARACK. They became victims of what linguists call addition errors-Bar®ack instead of Barack with a single “r.” While this may sound very simplistic and petty, the absolute reality is that, it is most significant from the point of view of establishing truth per President Jammeh’s account of events. Simply put, had President Obama actually awarded this dubious certificate to the Gambian tyrant, the spelling would have been accurate, a compelling argument why a shrewd investigator will certainly take into account crucial tips like this one.      

Consistent with journalistic ethics, the CPJ ran a counter claim to the Daily Observer hoax quoting a senior official of the White House National Security Council, spokesman Bob Jensen, and copied to The Gambia Echo among several other concerned media groups. In pertinent part, the CPJ report reveals:

“The claims are false. Regarding "your query asking for confirmation of Gambian reporting on the Gambian president receiving awards and a letter from President Obama," White House National Security Council spokesman Bob Jensen wrote in an e-mail to CPJ: "Those reports are incorrect. The Gambian president did not receive what the media reports are claiming."

In a damning commentary cataloging atrocious events since Jammeh seized power, the CPJ proceeds to portray the Gambian leader as a tyrant with a blatant disregard for press freedom and democratic values, who presides over a mini-state like his personal fiefdom and wields absolute power like Uganda’s late dictator, Idi Amin Dada. This I found to be an apt metaphor and doubtlessly, a fitting recapitulation of the dilemma that Yahya Jammeh has created in The Gambia. To appreciate the Idi Amin comparison better, I would suggest that you read a text I read during my formative years, Henry Kyemba’s 1977 book, State Of Blood and see how this former Cabinet Minister unravels the brutal barbarity of Idi Amin Dada and the chilling finality of over 300,000 Ugandans that he murdered in a fashion reminiscent of Pol Pot’s Cambodia where millions of innocent citizens were systematically liquidated as their countrymen sat idly by.

Amazingly, by a cruel twist of concomitant irony, this pattern is being replicated in the Gambian political scene where citizens are routinely arrested, disappeared, slammed with barrages of bogus criminal charges and then consigned to either Mile II Prisons or to other detention centers across the countryside and then, brutally butchered like farm animals. The Idi Amin metaphor is crucial to Gambia’s political dynamics precisely because on seizing power, then Lieutenant Jammeh nicknamed some of his security guards names from Idi Amin’s most vicious henchmen like Maliya Mungu. That brutal character, Musa Jammeh, like many before him have faded into oblivion leaving behind a shameful and painful chapter of Gambian history- the systematic destruction of Gambian lives.

Significantly, part of the Gambian dilemma is the pathetic inertia of Gambian intellectuals; a group of so-called highbrow scholars who live in an imaginary ivory tower world, from which they peep through, take notes, draw parallels and then make conclusions that have all too often, been misplaced and fatally flawed. Some members of this group are so arrogant that they pretend to come from some distant planet yet to be explored by mankind. To this breed of beings, the world is about titles and grandiose academic regalia that cast them as some miraculous beings to be worshipped. With the exception of only a few, majority of this so-called sophisticated class, ironically some of them cannot even digest the situation at hand, pretend total indifference to our pitiful political plight, yet towards elections, some of them sneak, chip in a few dollars with the hopeful anticipation, that once Jammeh is defeated at the polls, they will be appointed Cabinet Ministers. Truth be told, Gambians do not need this category of intellectuals. What we need is a calibre of the Senegalese type, a class that is always engaged and alive to the realities at home. The days of speech-writer, arm-chair intellectuals are gone and what we want now is a new breed; those that will be involved in the daily activities of our people, those that will harness the creative potentials of our people and blend it with their university training to change The Gambia for the better. In this direction, I will suggest the creation of think-tanks say, A Camaraderie of Oppressed Gambians where some of these so-called egg-heads will come up with practicable solutions and prosaic ideas for the betterment of our people under the thumb of a brutal dictator.

After all, what is a university degree that cannot help you appreciate the plight of your own people? Yes, driving a fancy car is good, marrying a beautiful wife is fantastic, but loving your country is a duty too, and a sacred duty at that.

Love for one’s country entails a great deal of sacrifice, one like the sacrifice that cost Deyda Hydara his precious life (may his soul rest in eternal peace). Sacrifice like the one that sent Femi Peters to Mile II Prisons; a modest Gambian citizen who insists that no idiot will sanction his constitutional right to free speech, sacrifice like the one that landed veteran Gambian journalist, Pap Baboucarr Saine a prestigious award for press freedom heroism, sacrifice like the one that led to a dozen Gambian students to be liquidated on April 10-1I, 2000, because they saw wrong and had the audacity to challenge and bring a callous dictator and his spineless lieutenants to their knees.

As we search for a way forward, I call on all Gambians especially, Gambian intellectuals-be they Ivy-league professors or not, world class economists, lawyers, engineers, medical doctors, architects, computer scientists, philologists, and what have, to come to grips with reality, diagnose  the Gambian political beast, surgically perform an autopsy and clean the mess. I have said this elsewhere and I will risk the monotony of repeating it here, that had all the Gambian intellectuals in the United States alone been united, Yahya Jammeh’s government would have long been history.