Reflections: From “The Jammeh Dream to The Jammeh Nightmare” Through The Eyes of A 14Yr.Old Now 27

I was born in 1980 so that by 1994, when the news of Jammeh’s military coup came, I was just 14. However through 13years of Jammeh’s political metamorphosis from the military to paramilitary to pseudo-military regime, I grew from a teen, to an adult to now a parent. I am now able to see the 1994 overthrow in different colors of the night.

Friday 1994 when the news came of the coup, I was probably playing as any ordinary 14year old. Then many words from the regime were new to me; the dictionary became a friend and words such as accountability, probity, transparency, corruption and later referendum added to my vocabulary! Thus my love for the regime was in their loud words musical to the ears of a child. But perhaps the Jammeh Junta made the mistake of repeating these words so often that we remembered every one of them. Then Jammeh adopted the perfect phrase: “to the Gambian students, the sky is the limit.”

Other events such as the butchery in gallant style on November 11th, 1994, also were heard.

September 1996- I was 16years and when the elections came I was constitutionally barred from voting and today I am glad I was too young then to vote. Things move very fast, I was growing too, the regime too, The Gambia too. My dreams of a happy end became a terrible nightmare, the difference being that this mare was a living one, a nightmare in which you wake up from sleep! A new era of the Jammeh terror regime started, characterized by all those things that 14year olds see only in movies.

The sky is the limit changed to schools without teachers, failures and academic decadence!! I started understanding Jammeh and what he meant. Graduating from Senior Secondary School in 1991, I came to the rude yet sobering realization that’s how far Jammeh went, and I realize I also can rule The Gambia, I had the same qualifications as Jammeh, but alas I was only 19!!!

I matriculated to College soon afterwards in 2000, listening to whatever Jammeh said, analyzing! If I had had any respect for Jammeh and his hypnotical ways, everything disappeared on April 10th 2001. I was a witness to the brutality on the students, I was there when they came, I saw them at the mortuary and I was a student too. Then the sky was the limit meant something else.

Early 2002 I entered University and 5yrs later and now at 27 it’s apt to give thorough analyses of Jammeh’s Terror.

Jammeh had betrayed everyone who trusted him, from his friends of the AFPRC/APRC, the Gambian students he claims to protect, but most importantly to the Gambians who voted for him. Jammeh killed, is capable of killing and does not care who gets killed. In these times of the Jammeh Terror, with tragedy striking on a daily basis, the on-line Gambian newspaper must keep the hopes of the Gambians alive. Hope back home is the key word to survival. When you have a driver of state as myopic as Jammeh, hope that we will dock safely must be kept high.

Jammeh is a hypocrite. Alas, if he is not, then why is it taking him such a long time to get a university built, if he meant well for the Gambian students why aren't there school buses anymore? We have seen the Department of state for Higher Education and a corresponding demise of our institution of higher education. That thing call the brain, where is Jammeh's? In fact, if you still want to see the Jammeh’s blatant hypocrisy, you don't have to search long, if you remember his full name, there it is, representing two extremes at the sometime, he happily merry at the beach while young Gambians are forbidden to, he says he expresses his right to freedom of speech, so when he asks I'll just say am doing the same!!!

Today Jammeh talks about The Silicon Valley Dream and Fiction 2020 (not Vision). He is growing older but less wise... (First part of the recollections of a 14yr old)