By Ebrima G. Sankareh, Editor-in-Chief

“Your Excellency, why elect a Chairman (of AU or ECOWAS) who is not welcomed in the White House, No.10 Downing Street or the Elysée Palace. No one takes your boss seriously.” Candid and embarrassing as that statement sounds, it was how a Head of State felt about President Yahya Jammeh when he met a Gambian diplomat in the prelude to the Banjul summit of the African Union in 2006, reveals our most competent State House official who has vowed to reveal a lot in the coming months.

 

 According to our source who wants no money, no credit but only the truth, as pressure was mounting on the regime due largely to the corpus of documented human rights abuses, extra-judicial executions and Jammeh’s own bellicosity which created a dark cloud over Banjul and left people asking if, Jammeh was qualified to host the AU Summit, he decided to perform the Umrah presumably, to seek divine deliverance. Reveals our source, President Yahya Jammeh was denied visa to Saudi Arabia en route to the 9th Special Session of the Governing Council of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) which was held in Dubai, UAE from the 7-9 February 2006. The Saudi Authorities refused him visa to visit Saudi Arabia to or from the UNEP meeting. According to our source, the Saudi Embassy staff in Dakar cannot issue visas to Heads of State without the prior approval of Riyadh and it was Riyadh that flatly denied President Yahya Jammeh a visa. Asked what may have caused this embarrassment to the self-proclaimed guardian of the Islamic faith in The Gambia, our source says, “the Saudis claimed that Jammeh was late.” However, there is enough room for conjecture given President Jammeh’s own dubious faith, he is neither Muslim nor animist. In a related development reveals our source, the Saudis again denied Jammeh a visa when he wanted to perform the Umrah. Significantly, however, diplomats at Foreign Affairs were happy that the whole trip was canceled because Jammeh would have been the only Head of State at the UNEP session. The meeting was at Ministerial level. Observes our highly placed informer “those days (pre-coup of March 06) are gone when Jammeh jumps at the slightest opportunity to travel because he trusted his army and he had limited countries that would invite him for a State visit.  In my next revelation, we will revisit how Jammeh lost the Chairmanship of ECOWAS and how the AU rules were changed mid stream on the eve of hosting the AU Summit in Banjul to prevent Jammeh from ever becoming Chairman of the AU.  I have a lot in me.  So let us end here for now.  And back to the story...”

 

In a related development, our correspondent who apparently has nose for news, picks up the recent Canadian visa saga and comments on the Daily observer’s coverage of the development viz:

 

“Two interesting and related news items in the Daily Observer of 11 July 2007 caught my eye:  an opinion piece by Nanama Keita entitled ‘Canadian visa Saga–Untold Story’ and another entitled ‘Bonu Johnson’s House attacked’.  The stories are illustrative of how Yahya Jammeh’s rule has impacted negatively, changing our national character for the worse in the process.

 

Indiscipline, dishonesty, violence, lack of respect for authority and total disregard for rules and regulations are the norm in Yahya’s Gambia.  While our Gambian footballers are in Canada representing their country, hoodlums of the APRC are on the rampage, threatening to burn down the home of the Gambian coach Bonu Johnson.  They did not only stop at Mr. Johnson’s house, they reportedly attacked the home of goalkeeper Joseph Gomez and threatened his mother with physical violence.  In Yahya Jammeh’s Gambia this type of behavior is more of the norm than the exception.  Gambians see the military and security personnel behave violently everyday with impunity and in total disregard for the law which they are sworn to uphold.  It is therefore, not surprising that the youthful civilian population, some of whom are empowered by affiliation with the APRC, behave violently as was the case of the recent stabbing to death of Sheriff Minteh in Serre-Kunda by one Dodou, who has since been identified as a Para-military officer who was part of the joint patrol that police the neighborhood.

 

If you will recall, the Canadian Embassy in Accra were heavily criticized to the extent of being accused of racism by the very same Daily Observer that now places the blame on the ‘improper procession of visa application process late submission and the exclusion of the Gambia Football Association as some of the likely reasons for the unforgettable setback’. (The head of the Armed Forces is an official of the GFA.  I will let the readership connect the dots).

 

 You may also recall that eyebrows were raised when we were told that the visa applications were submitted to the Canadian Embassy in Accra instead of Dakar. The reasons given then was that the Canadian Embassy in Dakar lacked the capacity to process 250-odd visas and were therefore, directed by Dakar to submit their requests to Accra.  We now know that the reason for bypassing Dakar was, realizing that they could not meet the deadline for submission and cannot get all the applicants to Dakar, decided to unilaterally submit their application to the Canadian Embassy in Accra when they were informed in Dakar, that they do not issue visas in absentia.  In Yahya’s Gambia, there is total disregard for rules and procedures and State House where I work, continuous to be the number one violator of rules and procedures. As president, Yahya has convinced himself that rules and regulations do not apply to him.  His Secretaries of State, the military and security forces, adopt this same attitude.  It is therefore, not surprising that when the Department of Youth, Sports and Religious Affairs could not meet the Dakar deadline for the submission of the visa application, they conveniently side-stepped Dakar thinking erroneously that Accra will grant them exemption.  The blame game has commenced.  Unfortunately, it will cost the wrong people their jobs. 

Yahya is the cause of the delay. He failed to conclude his contract with the aircraft leasing company on time and therefore, the type, configuration of the aircraft and the total number of supporters were unknown until very late.  Instead of owning up to his responsibilities, true to form, Jammeh will be looking for others to victimize. Copyright © 2007. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this article or any other article or image, or portions thereof, in any form or context without the expressed permission of The Gambia Echo Newspaper.

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