By Ebrima G. Sankareh Editor-in-Chief

When Gambian business tycoon Amadou Samba jetted to England five years ago and sealed an amnesty deal for deposed Gambian President Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara to return home, numerous exiled politicians, family members and supporters of the ex-President were outraged and continued to raise eyebrows over the amnesty deal with errant Head of State Jammeh who had seized power in July, 1994, banned the Republican Constitution, named a four-man junta and decreed Martial Law promising to fix corruption.

Gambian President Yahya Jammeh

            Predictably, those concerns now seemed justifiable especially, in the wake of recent moves by President Jammeh to grab five miles of estate belonging to the Ex-President’s family at his native Barajalley in the MacCarthy Island Division. Family members of the Ex-President who spoke to The Gambia Echo on strict conditions of anonymity, revealed that about five weeks ago, President Jammeh had sent a delegation to Sir Dawda K. Jawara requesting that the Ex- President as the eldest surviving member of the Jawara family, prevail on his siblings to allocate to him the five mile long estate for a garden. “Before approaching Sir Dawda, President Jammeh had brought in a team of agricultural experts from Venezuela who met the village community of Barajalley and were given a community land for their pilot project” revealed our sources. “The entire village community voluntarily gave this huge piece of communal land with the hopeful anticipation that it was a programme geared towards the development of our community,” they said. “Lamentably”, say our sources, “in less than one week, Yahya Jammeh sent in a delegation to Sir Dawda requesting that he wants our family estate for his own garden.” “According to the President, he is a farmer and has identified Barajalley as a place he would want to invest in and that was why he wanted our five mile long estate for his own farm” revealed our very angry sources. Asked how much money Yahya Jammeh has offered, our sources ranted “not a damn butut!”  Asked if Jammeh’s demands have been met, our sources said “absolutely yes, because we know that Yahya Jammeh has no respect for law or elders as amply demonstrated by his bellicose public statements and after a family conclave, the five mile land was transferred to his name at no cost.” Asked to educate us on how Sir Dawda responded to Jammeh’s bizarre request our most competent sources said, “he summoned an emergency family meeting and as you can imagine, his siblings: Alagie Jawara who is himself a China trained agriculturist, Tasili Jawara and  Abdoulie Jawara all responded and after a very sobering reflection, the entire family agreed that he can take it.” Our distraught sources lamented, “for the past six years, we have planted varied cashew species and the cashew plantation was very impressive but all of a sudden we have to forfeit all that to Yahya Jammeh and at no cost.” Asked what they hope to achieve with this revelation the family sources argued, “Mr. Sankareh we want to communicate through your respected medium that this latest move to literally seize our family land through presidential delegations is a flagrant violation of the amnesty deal the government of The Gambia had with our father, uncle and grandfather, Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara and we protest in the highest degree ever.” According to these sources ever since the ex-President’s return, “he has maintained a passive political disposition making less public statements and where inevitable, very cautious and mature statements befitting his political stature.”

            In a related development, President Yahya Jammeh has extended his Oliver Twist tentacles (“Sir, I want more”) to Barra in the North Bank. In his typical Dickensical character, Jammeh has taken the famous Coconut Plantation en route to Ginnack of the late Alhaji Kebba Ndure. According to unassailable sources from the Kerewan Area Council, Jammeh had sent a delegation to Serign Ndure, Kumba Ndure, Alhaji Ndure and Seedy Narr Ndure with 500,000 Dalasis requesting that they transfer the property in his name. Like the Jawara family, they too had to comply leaving behind a family feud among the late business tycoon’s numerous siblings. Estimates from the Department of State for Justice that was collecting taxes on the property since the late Alhaji Kebba Ndure’s death, put its worth at D10, 000000 (ten millions). According to my sources, Yahya Jammeh has drawn a sharp dagger of hatred among the Ndure siblings.

            In the villages of Siffoe and Brufut in the Western Division, there is evidence aplenty of a similar pattern of land grabbing by a President who came to power promising to fix corruption, promote democracy and equality among citizens. For me, the greatest moral dilemma that I continue to struggle with is, how come some so-called super-duper Gambian intellectuals, so they claim, continue to promote Yahya Jammeh as a great savior of our country? In recent days, our on line publications have been saturated with superfluous editorials, a combustible combination of pathetic innuendo and false statements accusing us interalia, of excessive animosity towards Yahya Jammeh’s government. The truth of the matter is that there is no hatred because as Dr. King told the racists segregationists, “there cannot be hatred where there is love.” To echo the great Roman statesman Cicero’s utterance, “civis Romanus sum”, we too are citizens and strive to inform and educate our countrymen on the excesses of Jammeh’s rule.  What we want for our country is not only a democracy, but also an informed democracy where every citizen can say and determine how he wants to live.

 From our vantage point therefore, we have questions viz: if you were Deyda Hydara’s son how would you have felt about Yahya Jammeh and his regime?  If you were Ousman Koro Ceesay’s father or mother how would you have felt about Yahya Jammeh and Edward Singhateh? If you were Sgt. Fafa Nyang’s son, how would you have felt about Yahya Jammeh? If you were Lt. Basirou Barrow’s son, Lt. Saye’s daughter, Omar Barrow’s daughter how would you have felt about Yahya Jammeh? If you were the father or mother or brother or sister to the numerous school children slaughtered on April 10-11, 2000 how would you have felt about Yahya Jammeh? If you were layer Ousman Sillah’s son or daughter how would you have felt about Yahya Jammeh’s regime? If you were Daba Marena’s son, Alpha Bah’s son, Ebou Lowe’s son, Manlafi Corr’s son how would you have felt about Yahya Jammeh? If you were…? For us at The Gambia Echo, these are great injustices that we feel should be the fireworks for change and if writing about our fellow citizens who were executed like animals means animosity towards Yahya Jammeh’s regime then, so be it! On a more chilling note however, we were shocked at the efforts of a scurrilous commentator, who accused us of tarnishing The Gambia’s image. To him we say, never forget Deyda Hydara. My brother, when you left The Gambia you know as I do and Pap Saine remembers vividly that the late Deyda Hydara, true to his generous character gave you substantial pocket money and advised that you to read well. Now that you have graduated, congratulations and please use your talents so that Deyda Hydara’s legacy will not be buried. While you have a constitutional right to return home and contribute your quota, please remember that there were the Dr. Amadou S. Jannehs, the Manlafi Jarjus, the Dr. Seedat Jobes, the Sarjo Jallows men of timber and calibre who defied Physics and joined the regime. Today, all these good Gambians have been jettisoned like unwanted cargo.

To the quasi-sarcasm that we write good English (thanks for the rumour) but lack objectivity, we want to assure our readers, that lest we partake in jingo journalism we cannot afford to publish scurrilous and defamatory material by writers with dubious identities. If you have to write about Lamin Waa Juwara, Pa Nderry Mbaye and Mathew K. Jallow in the strongest language of disdain possible, you must be willing to come forward with a worthy id so that when these parties drag us to court, we can have some evidence to cling on to. If failure to satisfy these conditions has led a writer to conclude that we lack objectivity, as was the case, then thank God we do. As an extension, we are glad that our critic has quoted a foremost British writer Thomas Carlyle in punctuating his understanding of the press as the Forth Estate. As students of Literature, History and Political Science we too, are aufait with Carlyle’s writings and one famous quote we may wish to share with you from him reads, “In the multitudes of education, education is forgotten.” We hope that you remain conscious of this immortal literary admonition especially, at a crucial time in our chequered history when we are in constant struggle to differentiate between standards and levels, between error and mistake; between education and schooling; between our country and my property and between leadership and villainy. As citizens, we must always live to expectations for the betterment of our people at whatever cost. In the end, the question takes a more paradigmatic approach to literary analysis thus: who really knows lack of objectivity that lack of objectivity only knows? Otherwise, phenomenally feeble characters with facile dispositions that only engage in pedantic demagoguery cannot really move us, no, never, ever!