By Mathew K. Jallow, Associate Editor

 

 

It is absolutely normal for two individuals to have different accounts of the same events, and Omar Saidy-Khan’s rejection of some of my perceptions is one clear example. Mr. Saidy-Khan’s piece articulated an interesting, if not, consuming analysis of past events, and while we understand, or better still, interpret some events differently, we generally agree on the substance. To me, that is what matters the most, yet for correction, I would like to remind him that in the mid sixties I was still in high school, but I did eventually go to college in the late sixties: the 1968-1969 academic year to be more precise.

 

Secondly, Mr. Saidy-Khan brought up the massive fleecing of our farmers by groundnut buyers, which is a pertinent issue, but I will remind him that the Banjul ndongos got a bad rap here, but the real perpetrators, as a matter of fact, were mostly Lebanese and Aku traders who were contracted each year by CFAO, UAC and S. Madi and Sons and others to purchase groundnuts from our farmers. During those days, I sometimes accompanied my father to sell his groundnut harvest to one of his two “tubakos,” Gibril Betts, who traded in Pakaliba, Jarra, or Mr. Nachief, the father of Cherbel Nachief, who traded in Jarra Jappine. My dad sold his peanuts to the one who offered the highest price per tonnage in any given year, and I remember positioning myself near the weigh scales hoping to send a message to the trader that I was watching him, and that he better not try to cheat my father. In reality, I had no idea how to read the scales, but as long as my father felt that I was protecting our interest I felt good about my delusional role. The cheating of farmers on such a massive scale during those years did certainly bring wealth to many families in Banjul, but by the 1980s, it was the sons of the farmers, who under the Cooperative Union, were fleecing the farmers on a scale that dwarfed anything the Lebanese and Aku traders had ever done in the 50s, 60s and early 70s.

 

Third, with regard to the Terri Kaffo, I have been made aware of the origin of the organization, and its linkage to M.I. Jallow and Kekoto Manneh among others. The reality is that many of us provincials who are not Mandinka, attached this Terri Kaffo name to the group of Mandinkas who were not necessarily formally organized as the M.I Jallow’s group, but who, nonetheless, believed that the Mandinkas alone had the right to occupy every major position in the government, and worked hard to make that a reality. With B.B. Darboe as Vice-President, and Saikou Sabally as Finance Minister, these two and many others of the same mindset, ensured Mandinkas were placed in every government Ministry and Department. Even recommendations from brothers Fabala and Banna Kanute to Darboe, Sabally, Mbemba Jatta, Momodou Manneh, and Kiti Jabang and others were enough to land a job to a Mandinka job seeker. Banna and Fabala, and other Mandinkas of similar social and political statutes, thus became powerful lobbyists and one-man employment agencies for the Mandinkas. In those roles, they were taking a page right out of the Banjul Wollof book on how to run a government of patronage. But, members of this Terri Kaffo met evenings at Ataya Vous on Street corners from Banjul to Brikama. They made government policy, discussed hiring, and cut business deals and awarded contracts, all as they drank Ataya on a street corner in Banjul, Serekunda, Brikama, Lamin and elsewhere. These Vous attracted very powerful Cabinet Ministers, Permanent Secretaries, Managing Directors, businessmen, drivers, messengers and job seeking Mandinka youth, and the only thing they all had in common was the fact that they were all from the same tribe. So as one can see, it appears now that the name Terri Kaffo was inadvertently given to the wrong group of people, and guess what, for better or for worse, it has stuck, just as the name Banjul Mafia, was given to a group of people from Banjul who corrupted the system on a massive scale.

 

Fourth, it is true that in 1970s when most of the Permanent Secretaries were Banjulians, most provincial born could not compete for any position with a Banjulian of a lesser academic qualification. But, unlike this Terri Kaffo, however, the Banjul Mafia was not an exclusive club; otherwise people like Omar Sey, M.C.Cham and Saihou S. Ceesay, who were not Banjulians or Wollofs for that matter, would not have been accepted into that fraternity. Of course, what the Terri Kaffo did paled in comparison to the activities of the Banjul Mafia. Nonetheless, before the coup, walking inside any government office felt like being at the Bantaba of a Mandinka village, because Mandinka rather than English became the language of business, and people spoke it at the top of their voices. The Mandinkas who make up 40 % of the population, had 65% of the ministerial positions, 80% of the government drivers and other junior employees, and they were on the way to color the entire Civil Service Mandinka. That is a fact. Do you remember Junkung Bayo/Clarke Bajo as Central Bank Governors, Ismaila Ceesay at GPTC, Bakary Njie at Gamtel, Amadou Sanneh at LMB, Sankung Fatty at GFMB, Kawsu Darboe at GNIC, Kebba Ceesay at the NSS, now NIA, Jenung Manneh at The Gambia College, Sariang Ceesay at Customs and David Jawara at GUC, not to mention the much larger second layer of upcoming middle level managers, and how overseas scholarships were awarded. Mr. Saidy-Khan, there is ample anecdotal evidence to show that our Civil Service was on the way to being totally Mandinkanized, and would have been by now, had it not been for this coup. Everyone knows that the Mandinkas are the majority tribe, and it is not a secret that Mandinkas are self-conscious of this and many actually see this as a bragging right. This poses a serious danger, as it could easily lead to a “tyranny of the majority”, something no less hurtful and brutal than a dictatorship.

 

Fifth, Mr. Saidy-Khan also made reference to the psychological impact that Banjul culture had on many provincials. Several months ago I wrote about this, and I do agree there was and continues to be a real impact on the psyche of men from our rural areas. When we first came to school in Banjul, we were mocked and told that we were bush people. Naturally as kids, this affected the way many of us thought and felt about ourselves, and where we come from. For many educated provincials, Mandinkas in particular, this meant marrying into the Wollof culture as a way to fit in as well as elevate their social status. There is no denying the fact that Banjulians made many provincials feel bad about themselves, and to this day many adults from the provinces who never socialized with Banjulians as kids carry that stigma of inferiority complex with them. But we most never lose sight of the fact that what we call Banjulian or Wollof is actually a patchwork of all the Gambian tribes inter-marrying to form this indefinable phenomenon we now call Wollof. The reality now is that the meaning of Wollof in the Gambian, references more about a culture and a way of life than to a tribe in the anthropological context. Mr. Saidy-Khan does not think there was any conflict between the Banjul Mafia and the Terri Kaffo. There was, and it was intense, but it was subtle. A paradox, isn’t it? As more and more Wollofs were being pushed out of the Civil Service, they turned to business, and this is where many remain to this day; a foot in the business sector and another in government. When Sheriff Dibba was in government, he opened the banks to his Baddibunka constituents, and today they are the wealthiest group after the Serahules. There is no doubt that together, the Banjulians and the Mandinkas brought about the collapse of The Gambia Commercial and Development Bank. To this day, there are people from these groups who owe the Bank and by extension the Gambian people, hundreds, thousands and millions of Dalasis to marry new wives, build homes and buy vehicles; all monies that we as a country can never recover.

 

Finally, I hope the existence of this regime over the past decade will teach us all a lesson that no single tribe owns our country, and there can be no progress as long as that kind of mentality exists in the minds of any one of us. I personally think it is a good thing that we are discussing these things now, because in order to make progress, we must first understand the mistakes of the past, so we will never repeat them again. There is a great need for attitudinal change in all of us, because even as we intermarry amongst ourselves, tribe based divisions remain that can hinder any effort at homogenizing our society. When we get back our country, we will devise common sense ways and institute laws to prevent the reoccurrence of what existed in the pre-coup years. Among ways to educate our people is hold live discussions on issues about tribalism on national television, and how it gave rise to the coup, which brought us the most brutal government in our history. If there is one positive thing we have learnt from this murderous regime, it is that it has had a sobering effect on anyone who thought and believed in the domination of one tribe. No one in a million years thought we will ever have a Jola as our head of government, but guess what, the Jolas beat the odds. That is a lesson for us all. Hope we learn something from this very bitter and brutal experience under Yahya Jammeh.