Vice President B.B. Dabo Breaks Silence

 

By Ebrima G. Sankareh, Editor-in-Chief

 

Ever since Vice President Bakary Bunja Dabo left his native Gambia that was reeling in the aftermath of a brutally suppressed military coup on November 11^th. 1994, he has virtually maintained monastic silence except for the notable reflections he shared, back in 1995, with West Africa Magazine’s legendary editor, Kaye Whietman, in which he warned of the looming crises and uncertainty in our country.

 

            Back tracking his political days as Vice President and Education Minister and his subsequent portfolio as Finance and Economic Affairs Minister in the prelude to the July 22, 1994 coup that deposed the PPP government and ended a three decade culture of democratic multi-party politics, one sees an impressive trail of public service, a career that also undoubtedly, punctuates the vicissitudes of one’s life. BB, or Demba as his constituents affectionately called him, was a career public servant, who after University training as bilingual (French & English) became a banker, Divisional Commissioner at age 24, and subsequently a diplomat as Ambassador to Senegal until the bloody abortive coup of July 31, 1981, which by a concomitant twist of irony, may have been B.B’s political epiphany. For in the negotiations to restore order in the face of Kukoi Samba Sanyang’s bloody rebellion, Bakary Dabo was the diplomat in place who played the critical role in relation to the Senegalese intervention and Jawara’s return. Subsequent to Jawara’s return, Bakary was recalled back to the country. His next assignment as Minister of Information and Tourism marked the start of his meteoric rise in national leadership and politics. To paraphrase the English novelist Charles Dickens’ often quoted opening of A Tale of Two Cities, Dabo has seen the best of times and worst of times in The Gambia. Once the poster boy for the P.P.P’s intellectual powerhouse and a model for honesty, Bakary Dabo was the only minister to return and work for the junta that ousted his government, a political honeymoon that ended abruptly and he lives to tell us the twisted saga of the marriage.

As promised in this exclusive three-hour long telephone interview from Asmara, Eritrea where he serves on a team of UN negotiators seeking to resolve the border dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea, Bakary Dabo retells his humble beginnings in Dumbutto, his political ascendancy, the July 1994 coup and thereafter. Read on , It is An Echo Exclusive!!!

 

 

Ebrima G. Sankareh, Echo Editor

 

Echo: Your Excellency, Mr. Vice President Dabo, who is the man in Bakary Bunja Dabo?

 

BBD: I am only a very ordinary Gambian in terms of my origin, my up bringing and the circumstances that impacted my life. Born in rural Gambia (in Dumbutto, LRD, to be precise), some 60 years ago, I went to school, worked and lived in The Gambia until 1994, (except for several periods of time I spent studying in other countries). My work career in The Gambia was exclusively with the public service.  It was for public service that I had real passion. Since November 1994, I am based in the UK; I pursue diverse interests. On occasions, I draw on my experience, skills and abilities to take different work assignments as an independent consultant. I am reasonably happy; more importantly, I am contented.

 

Echo:  At the time of the coup and even now, speculations are that you may have masterminded the coup because Vice President Saikou Sabally and yourself were strange political bedfellows to put it politely. How true are these allegations and in general, your recollections of the 22 July 1994 coup?

 

BBD: There is not a scintilla of truth in such allegations. I knew absolutely nothing about the coup plot. I am a committed democrat and believe that political power is derived from the people; otherwise it is illegitimate and not worth the trouble. As regards my relations at the time with Sabally, I would most certainly not characterize them as  “strange political bedfellows”.  There was no need for that. I can imagine some people thinking that in the wake of the Cabinet line-up announced in 1992, there might have been bad blood between the two of us. Those who think that way do not understand me.  The prerogative of deciding the line-up was exclusively Sir Dawda’s, as President. It would be absurd, and unfair, of me to hold Sabally responsible for anything in that regard. In any case, my own motivation in politics was the desire to serve; the position I held in the 1992 cabinet offered me sufficient scope to do that.

But even if you assume that Sabally and I were “strange political bedfellows”, I fail to see, in logic how that could have justified my masterminding a military coup against the democratic system I believed in.  

Look, when we hear idle gossip we should have no difficulty recognizing it.

My recollections of the day of 22 July 1994?  Like most Gambians I was taken by total surprise. I was about to leave home for work when I first learnt of soldiers on the move from Yundum in the direction of the capital, Banjul. At that stage not much more was known about their mission. There was strong suggestion that I should not go to office, but I felt I knew better than that. I had important discussions scheduled for that same morning with a visiting Chinese (PRC) economic delegation. Besides, I considered that even in the worst scenario of some sinister plan being hatched, my duty was to make myself available for contributing to the management of the situation that might arise. I therefore went to office, passing on the way the deployment of police units along the road into Banjul.

I was naturally anxious to get some sense of what might be afoot, so upon arrival in my office, I sought to speak with those handling security responsibilities at the time. Alhaji Lamin Jabang, Minister of the Interior could not be contacted at office or at home; it was later revealed that he had by then made his way to the Cassamance (southern Senegal) by some back roads. Similarly, Sabally, Vice President and Minister of Defence was not taking calls either at home or in his office. Likewise Sir Dawda, the President. I did know that the substantive Army Commander was not in the country at the time, so the only security chief I could reach was IGP Press Jagne. He confirmed to me the story of the movements, and mentioned the precautionary steps he had taken. We agreed to remain in touch, and I proceeded to hold my meeting with the visitors.

By the time I saw off my visitors around noon, tension was palpable within the Quadrangle where my offices were located. Most units had closed down. When I checked with IGP Jagne on the situation, he had even more alarming news. His precautionary steps, designed to halt any march on Banjul, had collapsed because unit commanders posted in the field had abandoned their positions on one excuse or the other. Under the circumstances, he thought it was advisable that the Ministers regroup in one location to hold themselves as what remained of the executive authority of the state in case any discussions became necessary. He suggested The Gambia navy boat at the time moored at the wharf as a suitable location. In terms of Ministers at the time in their offices, I knew of only Tourism Minister James Alkali Gaye and the Attorney General Alhaji Hassan Jallow.

Hassan B. Jallow, EX-Atty.General Now Chief Genocide Prosecutor, Rwanda 

 I tasked Jagne to contact them, and then released my staff, by then the only ones left in the Quadrangle, and drove down Hagan Street to the rendezvous point.

Within the port precincts, there was near pandemonium and I could not get any direction to the navy boat I was to join. A kind official, contacted by my driver, pointed at the direction where he had earlier seen some Ministers headed. We followed his direction and found ourselves, upon making a right turn, in front of Sir Dawda’s retinue (riders, drivers, Chief of Protocol, Ebou Ndure and Comptroller of Household, Alhaji Demba Sanyang) stationed at the foot of the gangway leading into the visiting US Navy ship, the USS La Moure County.

The whole situation was utterly confusing, and before I make sense out of things I was taken to join the President and his family in one of the cabins.  Before we could properly brief each other on the strange happenings, IGP Jagne turned amidst commotion as the US marines took him for a potential threat given his military uniforms and all. When the situation calmed down, he stated that he had come over because the insurgents were at The Gambia High School and insisted on the State House guards laying down their arms, something for which he needed clearance from the President. In any case, there was no need to give him an answer as at that very moment we realized the navy ship had started to move away from the wharf. It took the US Ambassador (Andrew Winter) who turned up coming down from the ship’s bridge, accompanied by VP Sabally, to help explain that the movement was part of the ship’s standard operational procedure in a potentially dangerous situation.

We moved from the harbour to a point near the estuary and dropped anchor to monitor developments. We were keen to know exactly what the insurgents wanted and spent the next twenty-four or more hours while some intermediaries sought to arrange the contact. When it materialized, it simply confirmed what had by then already been announced on the radio. Apart from the indication that the coup leaders wanted Sir Dawda to come ashore and go into retirement, no new element was revealed. Power, given by the will of the people, had been confiscated by force. The next day we docked at the port of Dakar; the ship continued on its journey. 

 

 

Echo: Bakary Dabo and the AFPRC Regime- how come? Quite frankly many people, your admirers inclusive, were worried that you, a man of your calibre would work in an illegal enterprise. Did it not occur to you? 

 

BBD: The decision to accept going back to work with the new government was not, as you might expect, an easy one for me to reach. I came under strong conflicting pressures, and in my own mind, I knew there was no easy option. To cut a long story short, I reflected a lot and consulted widely, but in the final analysis I took the decision that I should accept. The dogma was, and still is, that a coup d’etat was a grave illegal act; I also knew within myself that the action was unjustified, and that military rule was already a huge setback and could spell even further problems for our people.

 

But above all, I was only acutely aware that, like it or not, we had a real situation on our hand, which no condemnation, from the standpoint of constitutional correctness, would change.  By my values, one could not bury your head in the sand and wish the situation disappeared. It cried for effort to find a solution before it became too late to do so. My overriding preoccupation being the rescue of the country from the extremely dangerous situation it was placed in, I felt my duty, once an opportunity had been extended to me,  was to go in with the sole objective of using what influence I could muster to steer things in the direction of the lesser evil. Without any pretence of having the answers, I felt in my conscience that I should, in the particular situation we were in, place problem solving above dogma. In the situation in which I found myself, [which was not my making because I did not approach the junta directly or indirectly], the real crime against my country would have been for me to turn my back on it, to have refused to try to help in handling the situation. Others hold different values, and would perhaps acted differently if they were placed in my situation, but that is all right because we are all different in our beliefs and perceptions of the same situations.  But the simple plain truth is that I had no other motivation for taking on the challenge when invited than answering what I heard as a distress call in respect of our country and people. Despite all what some commentators might suggest, there was no deal talked about or contemplated. I never asked for any guarantees for my personal safety or for any other advantage whatsoever. 

Once in position within the new set-up, I determined that my agenda was to limit the damage already done or threatened. I argued hard to minimize the disruption of arrangements in place and against rash reversal of well thought policies, especially in the area of economic management. The elected government had been overthrown, but I wanted to save what still remained of democratic governance and other institutional achievements of our people. I advocated to have the elected locals in the country maintained in place, provincial administration to be left in the hands of trained civil administrators deployed as Commissioners, and diplomatic work, at home and overseas to stay in the hands of career and other diplomats.  Most importantly, I pressed for a commitment to return the country to constitutional rule within the shortest possible time.

This last point was in fact, my core agenda item; I stretched every nerve to see to it that the commitment extracted, after much effort, did not hang there as empty rhetoric. Supported by some of the non-military members of the Cabinet, I insisted and obtained agreement for the commitment to be expressed in a binding programme that needed to be elaborated to define the rectification measures the military junta needed to carry out to justify the coup, with the duration of such a programme, objectively determined, to be used to, in turn determine the time-table to end military rule.

In all these, there was frequent show of bad faith on the part of the junta. On many occasions, promises given were broken on flimsy excuses. Instances of rash and unwarranted actions were also frequent. Arrests of military officers were routine occurrences. So was the arbitrary detention of former Government Ministers and other senior officials, as well as the harassment of citizens. Senior civil servants were daily being humiliated unnecessarily; their vehicles snatched from them in the streets. I lived through all that with a sense of outrage.  I tried to deal with the situation by protesting each case brought to my attention. But in the scheme of things, I saw these as relatively minor irritants; I knew I needed to remain focused on the bigger issue of pinning the junta down to a timetable, supported in this by all our development partners. In the process, I met much resentment, even very thinly veiled hostility, on the part of the junta Chairman and key members but I could not be bothered. I persisted until the draft “rectification” programme drawn up by an informal Committee of all non-military Ministers plus senior civil service managers, was put on the junta’s table for study and, hopefully, adoption. It defined concrete meaningful corrective actions and determined that it needed no more than 17 months to be implemented after which the country would return to civil rule.

Another major issue I pursued with the junta was the return of Sir Dawda to The Gambia to live his retirement in peace with immunity from harassment or persecution. It was necessary to agree on terms that would guarantee that objective and to also work out arrangements for his personal security, pension and such benefits as befit his position as former Head of State. In fairness to the junta, they made many concessions and a deal was almost within our grasp, when Sir Dawda left for London, on what was said to be a short private visit. His subsequent decision to remain in the UK put the project on a hold. The rest is history.

For me, the ultimate test, the acid test, of the junta’s sincerity and good faith was the draft “Rectification Programme” put to them. When they rejected it, in the most cavalier manner, and on the flimsiest of grounds, I drew my conclusion. On 10 October 1994, exactly 70 days after I returned from Dakar to join the Government, I handed in my resignation. I accepted that there was no intention to respect given commitments, and that the junta was hell-bent on inflicting themselves on our people by coercion if need be. I felt sad that I could not save our country from the prospect, but I was determined to be no part of such roguery.

Once I left, what had been civilized resentment of me became open hostility. My decision to resign was perceived as unacceptable act of defiance. Immediate reprisal measures were taken. My resignation was put out on the media as the junta’s decision to drop me from Cabinet; all manner of spurious accusations were thrown in to misinform and mislead the public. I came in for more harassment in the days and weeks that followed. The privacy of my home was recklessly violated and I was taken into arbitrary detention for three or days in company with all former PPP Ministers.  

Even though I had left the Government and had many good reasons for wanting to go abroad, I at first chose to stay because at the very first mention of issuing commissions of inquiry to probe public officers, as part of the proposed rectification programme, I had volunteered in writing to be the first person to go before the first commission to be set up. As such, I felt honour-bound to stay in the country to wait to have my name cleared. The mounting campaign of harassment, however, made me to rethink the need and wisdom of staying around. Seeing that the junta took special delight in spiting its perceived enemies, and subjecting them to unnecessary persecution, without any regard whatsoever for legality or morality, I reckoned that I was left under no duty any longer to hang around and give my tormentors the pleasure of coming after me each time it took their fancy. Then occurred the 11 November 1994 dastardly events, with their shameful baggage of senseless brutality, naked lies and manipulation, instilling fear and a feeling of great uncertainty in the country. In terms of the sequence of events that development provided the last straw. I knew there was better use I could make of my time and energies than to sit down idle and helpless, or to indulge in pointless self-pity, as the nightmare, which I tried and failed to thwart, unfurl before my eyes. Simple pragmatism, if you like to call it. I always believed that, where the situation warranted it, one should run with the determination to return another day to fight, when you could do so meaningfully. 

On a quiet Saturday afternoon, I used a borrowed car to travel down the south bank road and branched off to enter Cassamance en route to Dakar.  A lot of fanciful stories were again fabricated about why and how I traveled to Senegal. In fact there was no drama. I took the main road and must have gone through some six or seven police and military check points before I reached Brumen; at each of them the personnel fully recognized me and extended courtesies, just as it had been with the guards placed in charge of us when we were detained a week or so earlier in the headquarters of what has since become the ruling regime’s political police. It showed me that, as at that point in time, the rank and file of the security forces did not necessarily share the malice the junta harbored towards me. I took a flight from Dakar to UK where I based myself.

 

Echo: Mr.Darobe we’ll revisit your relations with the junta later on. For now though, please tell us your feelings about the PPP Administration, and your own record of service to The Gambia.

 

BBD: Naturally, I can only offer a personal perspective based on what I knew and experienced; it can be argued that others are better placed to give an objective assessment.

 President D. K. Jawara

 

That point having been made, I assert with confidence, and with all the force I can muster, that for close to 30 years, the PPP provided for The Gambia and her people a leadership which was responsible, enlightened, caring and reasonably effective. I hasten to explain, talking about the “PPP administration”, that I make a distinction between the political direction of the affairs of the country (which fell to the political leaders that were ministers and parliamentarians), and the day-to-day management of the central civil service and para-statal bodies in conformity, supposedly, with the political line or policies determined by the political leadership. The focus of the answer I give to your question will be the political leadership and the direction it provided.

It was the leadership in whose hands were placed the destiny of our little fragile country at independence from colonial rule and protection in 1965. That leadership remained throughout very conscious of its onerous but historic responsibility to make the independence meaningful for our people. It was that awareness that shaped the sense of mission, which guided the policies, and other measures we adopted while in office. In that regard, the leadership saw it as its primary and overriding concern to safeguard national unity and harmony by fostering a sense of oneness and by working tirelessly for turning the country into a progressively modern state run on a foundation of the observance of the rule of law and due processes, on one hand, and on the other the development of vibrant state institutions such as an independent judiciary, a non-partisan independently managed public service and an unfettered exercise of the citizens’ freedom of expression. Most people will agree that for building a state from modest beginnings, as is still the case for The Gambia, these are the truly fundamental issues, and the PPP’s record of stewardship fully deserves the wide acknowledgement it continues to receive for its track record.

When we come to the area of the delivery of socio-economic development, and the extent to which the PPP administration satisfied the aspirations of our people, there is naturally a wide room for divergence of views, depending on how realistic those aspirations were, how much is known about the available resources and what constraints might have come into play at the operational level, notwithstanding the essential soundness of the policies. It is natural that people argue, agree or disagree in their assessments. What I know for a fact is that the PPP provided a caring leadership which believed in telling our people only the truth about the country’s circumstances, rather than sending them to sleep with illusions of the sky the next day. We consistently advocated Te Sito or sustained effort all around, and on occasions we reminded our people that by way of natural resources, our country’s endowment was in groundnuts, not diamonds, not petroleum, and that fact should be reflected in our comportment as well as in our strategies for promoting durable development. We adopted and maintained that line because we respected our people, they are our flesh and blood, and we refused to exploit their relative inexperience by leading them down a cul-de-sac. We maintained that line because we remained alive to our historic responsibility and kept faith with our sense of mission as leaders.

If you ask for my feelings about the record of service of the PPP administration, and more specifically, the political leadership this is what I knew as the whole truth, the demonstrable truth. My own modest contribution was as member of that collective leadership (minister and MP) for some fourteen years. It was a great privilege for me, and I will always remain profoundly grateful to my fellow citizens who in their large numbers up and down the country accorded me trust, support and encouragement.  I will not claim perfection; I must have made mistakes. I hope when others come to judge my record of service; and myself they will do so dispassionately and fairly.

 

Echo: Any Mistakes by the P.P.P Administration? What could have been done differently?

Mistakes must have been committed; it’s natural. Or at least one can, especially with the benefit of hindsight, talk of doing certain things differently. For instance, some otherwise sound policies failed to yield intended outcomes because of deficiencies at the operational level. In most cases this was due to capacity and other objective constraints, but I suspect that there might also have been instances of breach of trust and/or abuse of delegated authority down the line. A different approach by the political leadership, in such cases, might have been more successful.

The area of state security, especially the armed forces, is an example I can cite. Today, some people argue that we should never have created an army. I can understand their frustration, but I hold a different view. I believe that the challenge was to raise a small dependable army, disciplined, professional, non-sectarian, national in character and in outlook, and equal to its mission of ensuring the security of our people against outside threats, within the context of a democratic set-up; in one word we needed a quality state security institution which would be the pride of the nation. As political leadership, once we adopted the policy, put the enabling legislation in place and created budgetary provisions, we trustingly passed the file onto the functionaries {Permanent Secretary, Commanders etc] to operationalize the project through judicious recruitment, direction, training and maintenance of discipline etc. etc., with minimal oversight or interference from the political leadership.  Now, history still has to make a final pronouncement on what went wrong, but many Gambians will agree with me that, for all the good intentions and best efforts of the political leadership, the outcome has not been that dream army our country and people deserve. The facts, before and since 1994, speak for themselves; the countless instances of indiscipline, coups, attempted coups and horrendous mistreatment of defenseless civilians up and down the country can only be the actions of misfits, not true professional soldiers. Yes, one can talk of mistake, but I believe that at the level of the political leadership, our mistake was to have trusted too much. Things could have been done differently.  

In the area of public information, it is my opinion that we were too often timid in the manner we communicated the achievements of the Government, and their significance, to the populace. We unduly shied away from what were healthy public relations out of fear of being accused of spinning; in the process we denied ourselves a lot of deserved credit.

And there are other examples of things that could have been done differently. But that does not detract from the fact that the political leadership provided a general direction, which was responsible, sensible, and appropriate. It generally fostered good governance, and laid and nurtured the foundation of a modern state, through the building of credible institutions, and the pursuit of policies that fostered national unity, guaranteed justice and fairness as well as promoted a model of development which was people-focused, sound and sustainable. We did not believe in demagogy because we were aware that we were acting on behalf of, and dealing with, our own people, flesh and blood. They deserved better than to be exploited in their simple-mindedness, manipulated and deceived. 

 

Echo: How about the allegation that President Jawara might have over-stayed; could stepping down have averted the coup?

Well, in terms of the law strictly, there was no infringement of the Constitution. Sir Dawda regularly sought mandate from the country, as stipulated in the Constitution.  In my view it should be difficult to make out a case of over stay.

There is however, a sense in which I can understand the agitation in certain quarters that there might have been an over stay. The trend increasingly in well-established democracies is to frown on extended stay in power by the same person or team. This is what underpins the notion of term limits enshrined in Constitutions, or pressure from public opinion as in the on-going case of Blair in the UK. But whether the objective situation of The Gambia in 1994 could afford the luxury of casting away an otherwise effective leader is a question open to debate. My personal opinion on the point has always been that the fuss was, at the time, uncalled for.

As for the situation accounting for the 1994 coup (or its success), I do not share that view. Gambians should face plain fact: unscrupulous people with an inordinate lust for power for personal gain, with vicious grudge against their more successful fellow citizens, hijacked what was essentially a malaise within the lower ranks of the army, and exploited loopholes in security arrangements in place and moved to steal power and inflict themselves on an unwilling populace. It would have made little difference whether Sir Dawda had been around for only two months! Moral or lesson from the experience: when placed in responsibility for the state, you cannot afford to leve its security on unsound footing. The late President Senghor used to warn: no pointless cruelty, but no culpable weakness either. 

 

Echo: There were charges of Corruption, journalist Sana Manneh accused your Cabinet colleagues: VP Saikou Sabally and the late Dr. Lamin Nafa Saho of corruption, you remember the Torch Newspaper libel case in 1989, don’t you? Others allege Mandinkanisation and finger the Teri Kafo.  What do you say to that?

 

BBD: Yes, there used to be allegations, often in the form of Vous gossip, of corrupt practices, and sometimes-political leaders were accused. But, for most part these were allegations without facts to back up things. When in the early 1980ies we set up the Assets Evaluation Commission, at tremendous cost, with a mission to receive and investigate such allegations, the project flopped, largely because the requirement to substantiate allegations proved too much for most accusers. I recall the only political leader dragged before the Commission was Justice Minister Fafa M’bai, the rest were civil servants. The Commission folded up. Let’s face it our society has its own flaws. It takes an effective Government (hopefully honest too) and a conscious determined citizenry, not one that is given more to idle gossip than coming forward to denounce wrong doing on the basis of facts, to sustain steady progress in a country.

In all cases of accusations leveled against individual political leaders, the PPP Government’s attitude was to always observe due circumspection. The right of the accusers was always respected (nobody was ever taken to the NIA or in any way molested), but the right of the accused Minister or MP to defend his/her name, including by court action, was equally respected. Fair is fair. For the rest we over time progressively tightened the law against malpractices, and left it to the police, the Public Prosecutors and the courts to handle reports when made. In sum, to do their job.

The “Sana Manneh” case referred to followed that same pattern. The court determined, if I remember rightly, that his allegations were unfounded, even if the judge felt troubled by certain things that came to light.  Sana appealed but I believe he subsequently withdrew or at least did not pursue the case. Instead, rumour spread that he left to pursue studies in Malaysia on the basis of a private arrangement involving one of the Ministers he had accused.  Only Sana knew why he did what he did; it is unfair to assume under hand acts by the Government or individual Ministers; for all I know Sana might have felt unsure of his facts.

The Teri Kafo, I was a keen member from its inception as a social club of friends around 1972 until it folded up around 1980. I remain proud of my association. I tell you something: most of the negative press recently about the Teri Kafo, despite all its pomposity, is mere hot air. The plain facts are that the Teri Kafo was just a social club whose members were drawn across ethnic regional divide; it constituted no political force, had no political or sectarian agenda, had no need for that. Had no relationship of rivalry with any other group whether “Banjul Mafia” or other; there was no basis for such rivalry. It lived its life and when it ran out of steam, like it happens with all clubs, it died. These are all demonstrable facts, with most of the actors as well as many witnesses alive and around. Unless one wants to be a detractor out to drag innocent people and their hard-earned reputation in the mud, it should be very easy to verify them.

By the time I joined the Cabinet, and the political leadership in the country, the Teri Kaffo was no longer in existence. And I was the only Cabinet member who had been a Teri Kaffo member. Saihou Sabally was never a member. No other PPP Minister or MP had been a member.

Why then all these strange representations about the Teri Kaffo, you can be forgiven for asking. My answer in one word is: “dirty politics”.  Given the nature of the beast, with lax rules, no central umpire and with petty in-fights unfortunately only too normal, unscrupulous people find politics to be fertile ground for dastardly acts of treachery and back-stabbing. Any thing goes, we used to say in The Gambia. Any weapon in the arsenal is good to hurl at the “enemy”.  All what is needed is his head. Thus, long after its physical death, the Teri Kaffo is from time to time resuscitated in the form of some bogeyman (“intellectual wing of the NCP”, according to some, “god-fathers of Mandinkanisation” according to others). Either way, it mattered little as long as it   could make Bakary Dabo, or some other, look bad. It’s all very pathetic.                             “Mandinkanisation of the Civil Service”? I suppose that means unduly favoring Mandinkas, at the expense of non-Mandinkas in the Civil Service. Firstly, I recalled earlier the sense of mission that guided the political leadership in the PPP administration. It is no less than an insult to suggest that we could compromise such a mission, such trust, through the pursuit of a narrow sectarian agenda. In any case, the system in place until 1994, underpinned by the principle of a non-political civil service, managed on behalf of Government by the PSC, PMO and a civil servant Head of Service, left no room for politicians to have any hand in recruitment, promotion or discipline matters. So, if there was Mandinkanisation, put the blame at the doorstep of successive PSC Chairmen, the late and respected H. R. Monday Sr., A. J. Senghore, Harry Lloyd Evans and latterly M. B. Wada. Or at the doorstep of successive Heads of Service, E. H. Christensen, F.A.J. Mboge, J. A. Langley, Abdou Janha. If they were weak and spineless (which I know they were not) enough to allow Ministers to use them as instruments of Mandinkanisation, they should in that case be made to wear the crown. 

In one of the commentaries, resort was made to sheer deception to dress up this ludicrous allegation. It listed names of individuals (Clarke Bajo as Central Bank Governor, Bakary Njie as Gamtel MD, Jenung Manneh as College Principal, my nephew Kawsu as GNIC MD, etc etc etc) plus 80% of Government drivers as perfect proof of “systematic and aggressive” Mandinkanisation of the service by the PPP. But the PPP Government did not appoint Bajo Governor. Kawsu Darbo was never appointed MD of GNIC by the PPP; it was the company’s new owners well after the outfit was sold, in a privatization move that picked on him. If Bakary Njie moved from being Director of Government Telecoms Dept. to head the newly created GamTel para-statal for telecom services, it was because he was the candidate that at the time presented the best profile. It had been like that when the old Marine Dept was transformed into the GPA; Capt B M Sallah, Director of Marine, presented the best profile for MD for the newly created GPA. Same with the late Chris Dawodou, and Lie Jagne, respectively of the erstwhile Government Water Works and Electricity Departments; when the two services were merged in creating the GUC, they were seen as the most suitable candidates as Water and Electricity Managers. Likewise Mr. Arthur Carrol with the GPTC, etc.  I cannot say whether, Cpt. Sallah, Mr. Jagne Chris Dawodu and Arthur Carrol were/are all Mandinka or not, but I know for a fact that that point was immaterial in their choice for the positions they were given. Exactly the same goes for Bakary Njie.  As for the claim that under the PPP, 80% of Government drivers were Mandinkas, I can see no evidence to support it. But even if it is true, that would still constitute a very meager outcome from a supposedly “systematic and aggressive” Mandinkanisation agenda. I think we need to be serious and stop this mischief-making; with the predicament of our country, it is almost criminal to engage in such distractions founded on the back of sheer falsehood, with the potential of dividing our people and exacerbating their miserable situation.

 

Echo: Before we began the interview you had briefly talked about your own ancestry to demonstrate the oneness or Gambianity in almost all Gambian families. Could you shed light on this? How relevant is ethnicity to you after all?

 

BBD: Yes, by accident, like it is a matter of accident with all births, I was born to parents who were Manding, at least in culture terms. They spoke to me in Manding and during my early childhood, spent in Kiang, I was more exposed to Manding traditions and customs than any other. That point having been made, I should put things in perspective: My late mother was, by blood, of Fula stock, her grand parents having migrated into what became The Gambia from Northern Senegal, Matam to be precise. I am the great grand son of Mama Yero Khan of Matam, he was a nomad and legend has it that he in fact, came to The Gambia in search of a better life and greener pasture for his cattle. He originally settled in the Jarras but moved to Kiang later on. Also, my own education was in cosmopolitan Banjul and other places. This means that along the way I have come under other influences, and I am not your thoroughbred Manding, culturally or otherwise. This brings me to the second leg of your question: one is born Manding or Fula or Wollof by pure accident, in the formation of the character; it is of no determining influence. Similarly, it is not the card I like to see put forward in my relations with other people too. In the way our nascent nation states were put together, thanks to colonial boundaries more than anything else, differences in terms of ethnic origin are one thing we have to live with and to handle sensibly, and fairly too. Fortunately for we Gambians the great leveling influence of Islam has helped to considerably blur feelings of being different as a result of this situation. Christian values also make a contribution in that same direction. As a result ethnicity is no big issue in The Gambia, except in one area. This is the competition for scarce opportunities in the modern public sector: Government scholarships, training opportunities, recruitment and promotion in the civil service. Historically, under the PPP, part of the problem most likely was people placed in position of trust failing, in allocating such scarce resources, to demonstrate the requisite level of fairness, even-handed-ness. There could have been cases of breach of trust, where people placed narrow group sentiment above national interest. Yes, cronyism was beginning to rare its ugly head in civil service appointments and promotions. A World Bank study in 1993 warned me as Minister of Finance at the time. But the malpractice was still not widespread and the situation nowhere near getting out of hand. The larger part of the problem is, in my opinion one of perception, not reality. Many Gambians are bad losers, in a situation where opportunities were not enough to around. Those failing to make it in fair competition were too often prone to believe or at least claim that they only lost because they were from the wrong tribe, religion, family or some other grouping. Hence, the need for commentators and other opinion shapers to be circumspect in their judgment. We need to maintain the right perspective and a healthy sense of proportions. We should especially avoid recklessly vehicling unfounded incendiary reports that can only excite animosity between our different ethnic or religious communities.

 

Echo: But one of the Commissions of Inquiry set up to probe past financial malpractices found that you misused your office and were involved in corrupt practices. How credible are these reports and more significantly, is Bakary Bunja Dabo corrupt?

 

BBD: I have not seen the Commission’s report, but yes, the Government’s white paper claimed that a certain number of adverse findings had been made against me.  I strongly disagree. It is some four years since I started court action to challenge the Government for the measures taken against, purportedly on the basis of the Commission’s findings. I need not say much the matter is sub judice. Let me merely add that the latest I learnt about the case is that the courts have declared incompetent to hear the matter in light of the decree passed by the junta their jurisdiction in such matters. But I do not accept that as the final word on the matter. I have to weigh my options; I owe it to myself to clear my name however long that takes. And I have to recover all my rights wrongfully and unjustly confiscated.

 

Echo: How do you see the situation in The Gambia today?

My long absence from the country, together with other constraints, suggest some restraint and caution in passing judgment on the situation in the country. All the same, from indications I continue to get, I do not consider that the situation is as rosy as official rhetoric would like us believe.

Take the economy for example. Official figures of recent past, as well as projected, growth talk in terms of 5% and higher. On the surface, that sounds as a decent performance. But could we believe the figures when we remember that the IMF a few years ago reportedly rejected official figures from the same Government as cooked. And we learnt that some mystery still surrounds the outcome of the external audit recently carried out at the Central Bank, which had in the past many years been hit, by major fraud reports and scandals. I am not making any allegations of my own; I just state the difficulty many have in believing the Government’s figures of the economy’s health and growth. In any case, the bottom line is the well being of the populace; indications suggesting increasing pauperization of the people is in itself sufficiently telling.

Take the political process next. In a sad departure from our fine tradition of lively and peaceful politics, the political process in the country today appears, from indications, to have been corrupted and debased beyond recognition. Its hallmarks are violence (verbal and physical), unending harassment and illegal detention of opponents of the Government and independent media journalists, divisive rhetoric that only goes to undermine national unity, demographic manipulation and other electoral (voter registration inclusive) malpractices. In those circumstances it should be very difficult, if not impossible, to have an outcome that could be said reflect the true expression of popular will, the only true source of legitimacy.

On the front of stability, the picture is clouded with ever recurring reports of coup plots with all the uncertainty and tension they generate. How you reassure honest serious prospective investors is an open question.

On the governance and human rights situation, reports of alleged torture of accused coup plotters and other detainees, of endless economic crimes trials and of financial shenanigans at the Kanilai Farm crowd out all other news in the local papers these days. You cannot help feeling concerned about the direction of things. Remember the indictment contained in the decision of Millennium Challenge Account? So, that I am not on the spot and can only talk in terms of my reading of indications reaching me; on that basis alone, I am more concerned than happy about the situation in the country.

 

Echo: You were obviously a political heavy weight in the first Republic and until today, despite all the intimidation tactics and threats by the authoritarian regime of Yahya Jammeh, your seat in Kiang remains an opposition strong hold. One would expect that you would have a message for your constituents and Gambians in general. Don’t you think so?

BBD: It may sound pretentious of me to send a message to your readers and Gambians as a whole. Allow me to just express my continued strong attachment to my country and faith in its people. I add the belief which subscribes to and which holds that in the struggle between truth and falsehood, however titanic its dimensions, ultimate triumph belongs to the former. May God continue to give us the faith and the fortitude to stick to our convictions.

Echo: Finally your Excellency, we thank you very much for the time taken and confidence you have in The Gambia Echo without which this interview may not have been possible and we hope that this candid exchange will help galvanize greater support for the crusade to restore genuine democratic governance in The Gambia.

BBD: My pleasure, I am impressed and continue the good work!

Editor's Note: Apart from Hon. Dabo's Linguistic credentials, he also read Law in the first two years of his stay in the UK and was called to the Bar of England & Wales in 1998 as a fully fledged Barrister. "Mr. Sankareh, I had always wanted to read law" he told me. "I have a passion for justice hence my long time desire to read law , not necessarily to practice, but to be trained in it." He remains grateful to his family for the encouragement throughout the years.

 That said, we are appealing to all our readers to maintain the Gambian culture of discipline and to refrain from any attempts at character assassination in their reactions. As usual, we will not publish any articles, concerns or comments that have the slightest indication of calculated malice. We thank you all and hope that one fine day, all of us will be reading this paper and all the others within our homeland.

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