By Mathew K. Jallow, Associate Editor

My plans for last week were to write a story based exclusively on the fates of our two missing compatriots: journalist Chief Ebrima Manneh and schoolteacher Tamba Fofana. Unfortunately, a series of articles posted by some contributors torpedoed my plans, mainly because these contributions are crying out loud for a sober response. This does not in any way diminish the urgency and the seriousness of the case surrounding our missing fellow citizens. Next week, we will cry out their names from the mountaintops until the echoes from the valleys below reverberate around the world. But, for now, I would like to address some postings, which in my estimation are disingenuous, vitriolic and hypocritical.

Sana Sabally:

I find it amazing that Ebrima Chongan, Binneh Minteh, and Samsudeen Sarr are type casting Sana Sabally as the poster boy for everything that is wrong with this criminal organization: APRC. It is even more fascination how Chongan and Sarr are conveniently declining to say anything about Yahya Jammeh and his thugs, who have been engaged in systematic murders, tortures, arrests and detention, looting, favoritism, tribalism and government of patronage. For eleven and half years, Jammeh has had his way with our people, while Sana Sabally was languishing in prison or on exile. Why aren’t Chongan and Sarr concerned about that rule of terror? Has the fear of Jammeh paralyzed their sensibilities and perhaps emasculated them? It is a common knowledge that before the coup in 1994, we had a Civil Service that was accountable to no one. Government employees had no sense of civic duty and responsibility to the nation; instead everyone was preoccupied with how much money they would manage to steal at the end of each working day. Sana Sabally came along and was determined to end all that once and for all. He was determined to eliminate corruption, tardiness and irresponsibility and restore credibility in government. He made it clear that if you work for the government, everyone must get to work on time, do his or her work with patriotic zeal and leave work when it was time. Anyone who was found wanting in this area, must go find another job. That is what we needed to bring the senseless Civil Service to their senses. Sana Sabally made frequent calls to government offices unannounced to make sure that everyone was where they should be: at work and really working. He made many enemies in the process of doing this, but that was exactly the right thing to do, and if that struck terror in people, so be it. Deal with it. No uuhhs, no aahhs, no nothing.

Secondly, much has been made of Sana Sabally’s encounter with drivers on the streets. I do not want to sound as an apologist for Sana, but we all know what type of crazy drivers we had on our streets. The streets are lawless terrifying anarchy and the chaos calls for the restoration of some order. If what ever Sana Sabally was said to do was what it took to put sense in the skulls of these drivers, then we are all for it, rather than a dead victim of a vehicular crash from a careless vehicle operator. A country must have laws to live by otherwise we will be inviting chaos and anarchy. So far, I am yet to hear anyone pin any heinous crime to Sana Sabally, but this is not to say that he has not made some mistakes himself. Chongan and Sarr might have their failures too, in particular the arrogance of power and economic crimes that every senior member of the military suffered from. Some of these military officers stopped taxi drivers, harassed and sometimes terrorized them at Denton Bridge, and more often than not, made them pay ridiculous amounts of money to secure the release of their vehicles or sometimes their driving licenses. These senior military officers preyed on innocent Gambians using guns strapped to their belts as weapons of intimidation. There is no problem in criticizing Mr. Sabally, but please don’t be disingenuous. It is only fair to self criticize first before landing punches on someone else. It is also mean and heartless to criticize Sabally for quoting verses from The Quran. If he has found God during his moments of crisis, the least we can do is to encourage it and help him develop that further, but not to trivialize it a meaningless exercise. After all, God enters people’s consciences in different ways. One thing I know for sure, if Sana Sabally was still in government, there is no way, that Yahya Jammeh could get away with such an atrocious reign of terror on our people. Finally, I hope Chongan and Sarr would be men enough to criticize this murderous and incompetent government of Yahya Jammeh, rather than expending their energy on someone who is laying a role in helping us get rid of this government.

Finally, I want to join others to express my disgust and incredulity at the article posted by Sankanu recently in response to an article I wrote castigating Jammeh for his practices of tribalism. That is the trashiest piece of journalism I have seen in a long time. Sankanu’s ideas justifying Jammeh hiring of Jolas to fill every government job is bizarre and lacks clear thinking. In my judgment, he is trying to put himself on Jammeh’s good books, and he is willing to sacrifice his conscience if that will help him. There is a word for that and it is called selfish. That Sankanu can find any justification for Jammeh’s divisive tribalism is beyond comprehension. No one in his or her right mind(s) would agree that what Jammeh is doing, creating a potential tribal crisis, is the right thing to do.