When dictatorship and intimidation collide, some pundits or opportunists driven by cowardice or a desire to be co-opted into the corrupt machinery of the status quo will credit anyone whom they believe wields power and authority over them. This situation more than anything else, encapsulates the senseless so-called development and better governance praises being attributed to Gambian dictator Yaya Jammeh. The Senegambia Community based in the United Kingdom is a party to such cheap propaganda only to please the dictator. In Raleigh, North Carolina, a disingenuous fortune seeker who claims that none of us (cyber journalists) is competent to fill in Ambassador Dodou Bammy Jange’s position (a High School product like Yahya Jammeh, Singhateh, Touray, Kabba Bajo etc) has joined the fray, ostensibly to be employed by the Jammeh regime. Granted, Bammy Jagne has enough experience, but to suggest that none of those who run these cyber papers can man a position in Jammeh’s disastrous administration is simply, preposterous. That revealing melancholic character once a member of our fraternity will be dealt with in a separate piece; for those who start a fight must be willing to fight to the end. For now, it is the Senegambian Community in the UK that I write about.

The Senegambia Community based in the United Kingdom on or about June 9^th. 2007 awarded President Yaya Jammeh a prize praising him for development and good leadership. Waka J. Promotion a premier Senegambian promotion outfit in the UK reportedly hosted the award. It is a pity that the Senegambian Community in the UK, a nation reputed for its democracy has failed to realize the looming economic crises and worrisome human rights violations in The Gambia. The daily human rights abuses in the country, the rampant intimidations of journalists and in most recent cases killings of innocent civilians including non-Gambian nationals as in the case of the 44 Ghanaians, are a case in point.

In terms of good leadership, one would rather award the prize to civil society and other active private citizens with merit than President Yaya Jammeh given his appalling human rights record. Some of us who knew Yahya Jammeh from The Gambia High School remember a ragtag mediocre who later enlisted in the Gendarmerie, seized power and looted enough to declare that not even his grandchildren will ever be poor. Is this the thief, the fellow in Raleigh NC is clamoring to please? Go ahead! Your political eulogy is being written as your appointment is being simultaneously debated.  

In my opinion, Yaya Jammeh is no different from Adolph Hitler. Like Hitler, Jammeh is hateful and can exterminate or butcher our nation’s best and able just for political supremacy. How dare our compatriots in the UK award a merit to someone who continues to torture his countrymen either out of fear and to a wider sense for his long lasting political survival. Haven’t The Senegambia Community members learnt about the bloody murder of Finance Minister Ousman Koro Ceesay whose remains were set ablaze in his official vehicle after being murdered by what many Gambians now know was an assassination plot by the government of Yaya Jammeh.

Journalist Omar Barrow's widow vists grave of murdered husband.

 Haven’t they heard about the cold blood assassination of journalists Deyda Hydra and Omar Barrow or the killing of soldiers in the wake of the alleged March, 2006 coup?  Or didn’t they hear about the British citizen who almost died of beriberi at Mile II Central Prisons on visa fraud charges? This is one of the most heart breaking moves made by the Senegambian Community in UK. My message to the Senegambian Community in UK is simple. If you had just wanted to award President Yaya Jammeh a merit to demonstrate your love for him as a person, that could haven been excused. Otherwise, it is an absolute misnomer and a blatant disregard for our people to create a merit in the name of every Gambian and present it to Yahya Jammeh on grounds of successful governance and good leadership with all the human rights abuses in the country. I, therefore, as a Gambian citizen, urge the Senegambian Community to erase my name from that merit awarded to the President.  That will certainly satisfy the love ones of those killed by the government of Yaya Jammeh or as a result of his government.

     Whoever believes that the government of Yaya Jammeh has created rapid development and growth for the country either needs to go back to college or look into the World Bank programmes to see how much money was credited to The Gambia or compare that with the pace of development. If after careful economic analyses these so-called pundits remain convince that there is economic growth and or development in The Gambia, then I recommend psychiatric evaluation. The members of the Senegambian Community in the UK may live in good and perhaps luxurious lives, some with high income earning jobs just as equal as to the life some of us live here in America. But have members of this community critically examined the poverty surrounding The Gambia and Yahya Jammeh’s flamboyant government? The UK based Senegambian Community will never be forgiven by the thousands of Gambians living in abject poverty due to the failure of a government that claims progress in the face of misery. In The Gambia today civil servants live in total fear of the current regime. It is a government that employs and fires people by the week. So the Senegambia Community must apologize for rewarding President Yaya Jammeh on behalf of the nation.

   When the son of Haiti’s voodoo physician, Jean-Claude Duvalier, “Baby Dock” showed interest in GAMTEL, The Gambia’s only link to the world through communication, we protested against that deal and thank God, that deal did not go through. Recently some Lebanese nationals have also started to add more wounds to the already decaying one. The Lebanese that are interested in buying the nation’s only communication facility will probably have the lion share of the deal. As a Gambian national I want every Gambian to reject this Plan even if it will cost them their jobs. We are a peaceful nation and we do not want anyone from Hezbollah or members of its organization to interfere with our national facility. Am therefore, appealing to the new world Bank chief to freeze any amount of money offered by any organization or group of individuals from Lebanon in an attempt to the buying and selling of the Gambia's GAMTEL, the nation’s only hearing device to the outside world. How come that The Senegambia Community in the UK is well aware of all these national disasters and yet still, continues to support President Yaya Jammeh?