By Ebrima G. Sankareh Editor- in- Chief

Predictably, Gambia’s controversial Inspector General of Police Mr. Ousman Sonko; a convicted rapist has been appointed as that beleaguered West African nation’s Secretary of State for the Interior. He replaces

Rtd. Colonel Babucarr Jatta, Gambia’s former army chief and Ambassador to communist Cuba for a brief spell. Jatta, perhaps the lesser of two evils depending on whom you talk to, presided over the massacre of over a dozen students on April, 10-11 2000 while they were exercising their constitutional right to protest some of the excesses of the monstrous regime of President Yahya Jammeh who by a twist of irony, was visiting Castro at the time.

      Jammeh addresses his fragile Cabinet

Like Vice President Isatou Njie Saidy, Edward Singhateh, Yankuba Touray and Fatou Jahumpa Ceesay, Jatta was a prominent political pipe piper who knows when and how to blow his flute. It remains to be seen though what happened to the pipe or the piper’s mouth meriting this most dastardly appointment of Ousman Sonko the subject of some very serious revelations here in this paper two months ago.

      In a related development, Gambian Ambassador to the Kingdom of Morocco and my former English teacher at Nusrat Mawdoh Touray is the new Permanent Secretary at Foreign Affairs. He replaces Mr. Willy Joof. Touray holds a Teachers’ diploma from the defunct Yundum College, a Higher Teacher’s Diploma from Milton Margai Teachers’ College, University of Sierra Leone and a Master’s degree in French from France. He was a schoolteacher for most of his adult life before he became a rat (“run away teacher!”). From 1994 to 1996 he was President Jammeh's Chief of Protocol. In 1997 Touray was The Gambia’s Permanent Representative to the UN Mission in New York. He is from the old school and blends well with any group of people. He is a man of high caliber and phenomenally urbane.

      In another surprising twist, Mammbanyick Njie; a hitherto unknown quantity until weeks to the September presidential election has been appointed Deputy Permanent Secretary at Youth and Sports. Sheikh Omar Faye Youth & Sports Minister

Njie, 31 hails from Barra in the Lower Nuimi District in Gambia’s North Bank and is a graduate of the Gambia high school (Form Five). A chap with a facile disposition, Njie has been trying his hand at journalism and may have left an indelible impression in the minds of lesser audience. The irony though, is that my good brother was never a clerk in the civil service and therefore, comes to this big post with no experience. This is one appointment that I still cannot just understand. May be it is politics as usual. He replaced Mr. Tamsier Manga a career civil servant.

         As we went to press, the appointment as Director General of the all too powerful agency the NIA of Mr. Pa Jallow has been announced. A man with vast experience, Jallow was a Divisional Commissioner at Kerewan in the late 1980s and later transferred to the President’s Office in the pre-coup years. He was among the brains that formulated the birth of the NSS a forerunner to what may now, be fittingly called Gambia’s intelligence Frankenstein, the NIA. It remains to be seen if he too, will not be a candidate for Mile Two Central Prisons where all his predecessors have either graduated from or are taking classes in torture and similar human rights abuses. Mr. Abdoulie Kujabi who was once regarded as an untouchable man in The Gambia is now wheelchair bound thanks to the grueling nature of his arrest and detention. Until last week, Mr. Harry Sambou who was the NIA’s Director General is also at Mile Two.

      Finally, Mr. Musa M’boob is new Inspector General of Police. Until his appointment, he was the Immigration Director General and was also arrested and questioned in the wake of the March coup pandemonium. The Immigration Department now has a Director General-

protempore in the person of Sako Drammeh.