OPINION: The Gambia: A nation tranformed into a country of liars, griots and self-serving megalomeniacs

By Mathew K Jallow

Outgoing U.S Ambassador, Pamela White, was diplomatic and gracious in her unambiguous assessment of the Gambia's predicament under Yahya Jammeh, but she did not mince words in her verdict of the country's sickening political culture and embarrassing governance system. Her contemptuous disregard for Yahya Jammeh was unmistakable and her parting words summed up the mess into which Yahya Jammeh has put the Gambia. It does not take a rocket scientist to realize that beneath the surface tranquility, the Gambia is a country in turmoil. Just two weeks ago, eight former senior government officials, three of them holding doctoral degrees and the rest possessing university degrees in various fields, were remanded in Mile 2 Prisons. At the same time, in faraway Abuja, Nigeria, Gambia's five-member permanent parliamentary delegation to ECOWAS, led by Paul Mendy, was meeting ECOWAS officials to discuss the Gambia's human rights crisis. But, unlike the eight former agricultural officials who were remanded in Mile 2 Prisons, none of the Gambia's ECOWAS parliamentarians has a high school education, not to speak of a university degree. The five Gambian permanent ECOWAS parliamentarians created a public outcry when one of them, Lamin Jadama, declared in Abuja, Nigeria that there were no human rights abuses in the Gambia. The five ECOWAS representatives, it turned out, are a microcosm of the broader Gambian National Assembly, where most of the National Assembly delegates have never seen the inside of a high school classroom.

Over the past decade and half, the Gambia has succeeded in creating the only society in West Africa where mediocrity and amateurism trumps professionalism and excellence; a country that values ignorance and timidity over intellectual curiosity and creativity. Lamin Jadama is a reflection of what the Gambia has become, and that fact that he courted the eerie of a segment of the Gambia’s population after his bold-faced lies to an ECOWAS committee probing into Gambia's worsening human rights violations, is a natural reaction to cultural decadence that has taken root in our country. His denial of human rights violations was particularly perplexing since Lamin Jadama knows the murdered Sgt. Illo Jallow, as his village Katamina and Illo Jallow village Sare Mali are separated by only a hundred meters wide cattle trail. But Lamin Jadama's denial is not a new thing, but he personifies the dumbing down of Gambian society. In lying to ECOWAS officials, he has become the metaphor of how ordinarily decent Gambians have by necessity turned into unadulterated liars. Today, every official of the regime has become a liar; a frightening development has totally changed the character of Gambian society. Gambia is now a place of make-belief; a place where deceptions, deceit and hypocrisy is the new normal. It is a social anomaly motivated by the necessities of self-preservation. It is a phenomenon that is particular to autocratic societies like The Gambia, where the rule of tyranny has replaced the rule of law.

Lamin Jadama's denial of human rights violations in the Gambia which came barely a week after Ousman Sonko's outrageous statement regarding Chief Ebrima Manneh, is a pernicious pattern that harkens back to the days of Ms. Marie Saine Firdaus and Edward Gomez and beyond. In countries ruled by dictatorship as in The Gambia over the past decade and half, the denial of the obvious becomes second nature to officials of the regime. And around the globe and throughout history, it is a practice that has stood the test of time and bought time for regimes that would eventually collapse under the weight of their own tyranny. As in The Gambia, lies, deception and deceit are designed to delay the inevitable day when Yahya Jammeh's regime will collapse, because there is not historical precedence where dictatorship have survived the lies and brutality they visit of their people. But, for now, given the caliber of the Lamin Jadamas and Paul Mendys who represent us at both ECOWAS and at the National Assembly, we cannot expect anything better than the nefarious and self-serving machinations used to drag Gambian in the proverbial mud. Paul Mendy who heads the Gambia's ECOWAS parliamentarians, is also the senior laborer at Yahya Jammeh's Kanilai Farms and his appointment to that position in late 2011, published as a Press Release in The Daily Observer on March 31, 2011, was greeted with absolute incredulity and reads as follows. "The Office of the President wishes to inform the general public that Honorable Paul L. Mendy, National Assembly Member, has been appointed as the Operations and Logistics Manager, Kanilai Family Farms Limited, with immediate effect. This information is also extended to all Farm Managers and employees of the Kanilai Family Farm." If this is not truly the picture of Gambia at its very worst abuse of power, then nothing else is, for we have become a country of liars, griots, and self-serving megalomaniacs 

UTG’s Professor Kah in court

(The Point)The Vice Chancellor of the University of the Gambia, Professor Muhammed Kah, yesterday made his appearance in the trial involving Dr Gumbo Ali Touray at the Banjul Magistrates Court.

Kah, who is regarded as the prosecution’s star witness in the case, gave his testimony before Principal Magistrate Alagbe.

Gumbo Ali Touray, former Director of International Affairs at the University of The Gambia, is being tried for the offence of giving false information to a public officer.

Prof Kah told the court that he is the vice chancellor of the university, as well as professor in the area of Information and Technology at the university.

He added that he was appointed vice chancellor in 2009, after graduating from different universities with different degrees.

His written resume was tendered in evidence, and marked as an exhibit.

He added that he knew the accused person, and that Dr. Touray was no longer in the employment of the UTG.

Professor Kah told the court that the accused person at one time had a contract with the university, and that his contract expired like that of any other staff at the university.

He added that the accused wrote to the university management for renewal of his contract, but unfortunately it was turned down.

At that point, the prosecuting officer, Superintendent Joof, applied to tender email correspondence between the accused and the management of the UTG.

He added that the said email correspondence was very important because it indicated how the accused person’s services were terminated, and that the said documents were prepared by the accused person himself.

Defence counsel Badou S.M. Conteh raised an objection to tendering of the email correspondence, citing the Evidence Act.

Lawyer Conteh further argued that the said email correspondence had no link to his client’s case, and that all what was in the email was about one Kojo.

However, the trial magistrate ruled that the said documents be tendered in court, and they were admitted and marked as exhibits.

He added that exhibit A was the petition letter the accused person wrote to the Office of the President against the Vice Chancellor of the University of The Gambia for frequent travelling, among others.

Prof Kah further in his evidence said vice chancellors all over the world periodical travel on the business of the university at all times, and that he as the vice chancellor travelled not only on the ticket of the university, but when the state asks them to attend meetings.

He added that he had a successful academic career before coming home, in at least three continents in world, such as at the American University, in Dubai, and in a university inNigeria.

He said sometimes when he travels, it is because international organizations needed him as the vice chancellor to attend their meetings on behalf of the UTG.

Designated as the sixth prosecution, Prof Kah added that the public was aware of most of his travels, because there used to be an annual report, and he must seek clearance and other supporting documents from the executive.

He added that the annual report is usually prepared by the management of the UTG, and all the activities of the university must be indicated in the annual report.

He said that the reason for stopping staff loans after consultation with the management of UTG, was due to the financial status of the UTG, which was the duty of any vice chancellor, especially after he took up the office newly.

“I found out that the account was in the red, and there was a big financial mess in the accounts of the UTG. Imagine during my first week in office, the creditors were coming to my office for settlement of their bills.”

He said he realized that the UTG is not there for individual interest, but instead for the larger interest, by restructuring the financial arrangements at the UTG.

Mr. Kojo is a Ghanaian national, he told the court, pointing out that when he worked at other foreign universities, he was never treated like Gambian, further stating that at the university level what mattered was merit.

He added that Kojo’s wife is a Gambian and his wife’s father is a Gambian, also pointing out that professor Stigen (Kah’s predecessor) was not a Gambian.

Prof Kah further adduced that the position of financial director was advertised with The Daily Observer and The Point newspapers, but with the requirement that a candidate graduates from a higher recognised institutions with at least an MBA in finance.

He added that the matter went to the UTG governing council and members included Bai Matarr Drammeh, the president of the Gambia Chamber of Commerce, Baboucarr Bouy, permanent secretary for Basic and Secondary Education, some from the Human Resources Directorate, and the secretary of the UTG.

He added that the vice chancellor was not part of the governing council for the interview.

The case was adjourned till 18 August 2012, for cross-examination.

Author: Bakary Samateh

Deyda Hydara -Campaigning Gambian journalist who defended freedom of speech. #Gambia

By Shola Adenekan 

The murder of the Gambian journalist Deyda Hydara, aged 58, as he was driving away from his newspaper, the Point, comes after prolonged tension between authorities and the Gambia's independent press. Just a couple of days before his death, lawmakers had approved a bill setting out jail terms for reporters found guilty of sedition or libel and stipulating that newspaper proprietors must sign a $16,600 (£8,648) bond, with their houses as guarantees, to be allowed to publish.

The government had also been trying to set up a media commission with the power to shut down newspapers and imprison reporters. After pressure from journalists, led by Hydara, the law was dropped on December 13.

President Yaya Jammeh has threatened to bury journalists "six-feet deep". Last year, when asked about journalists criticising his attempts to force them to register, he told the state radio that he believed in "giving each fool a long rope to hang themselves". Journalists, he went on should "either register or stop writing or go to hell".

In an open letter to the president, Hydara condemned his words as "totally repugnant and reprehensible".

Hydara first clashed with the authorities in 1994. Together with six other journalists he was summoned under an act not used since the days of British colonialism. Their crime had been to criticise the coup d'etat which ousted the elected president and installed the then army sergeant Jammeh, and to call for a return to civil rule. After 1994, Hydara campaigned for press freedom and democracy as Jammeh brought in draconian laws against political and media opposition.

In 1998 Hydara called for opposition parties to be given equal general election air time and newspaper space, which got him labelled as an opposition mouthpiece. Soon after, the British-based global campaign for free expression, Article 19, accused the Gambian government of harassing opposition activists and journalists.

Hydara received his elementary education in Banjul before his parents moved to Senegal. There he learned French and Spanish. After a journalism degree at the University of Dakar, he returned to the Gambia to take up his first journalism job with a Banjul-based radio station. While still with the station, Hydara set up the Senegalese government-funded SeneGambia Sun in 1983, which soon folded.

In 1988 he moved full-time into print journalism setting up the Point with two friends. It became one of the voices against the recklessness of the country's first president, Dauda Jawara.

In 2003, he was among the group of African journalists who met in Johannesburg to seek support for a continent-wide media charter. But the only significant backing from an African leader came from South African President Thabo Mbeki.

Back in the Gambia, Hydara and his colleagues continued to face intimid ation. The residence of the BBC correspondent, Ebrima Sillah and the premises of the Independent newspaper, for which Hydara was a columnist, was burnt down. The BBC was also warned of biased reports against the president.

Since 1974 Hydara had been the local correspondent for Agence France-Press (AFP) and was one of the longest-serving correspondents of the press freedom organisation, Reporters Without Borders.

He is survived by Maria, his wife of 33 years, and four children.

· Deyda Hydara, journalist and campaigner, born June 9 1946; died December 18 2004

First published by The Guardian January 2005

Gambia: On Gambia Election Day, President Displays Contempt for Press Freedom

IPI Clarifies that Media Freedom is Not Just for Journalists
By: Naomi Hunt, Press Freedom Adviser for Africa

VIENNA, 28 Nov. 2011 – As Gambians went to the polls last week to vote, incumbent President Yahya Jammeh rejected international criticism over the country’s press freedom record, which, since Jammeh took power in a 1994 coup, has been characterised by the intimidation, jailing and torture of journalists, and control of the media.

"When they talk about rights, freedom of the press and [saying] this country is a hell for journalists … There are freedoms and responsibilities," the BBC quoted Jammeh as saying. "The journalists are less than 1% of the population and if anybody expects me to allow less than 1% of the population to destroy 99% of the population, you are in the wrong place."

The International Press Institute (IPI), a global press freedom organisation comprised of publishers, editors and leading journalists, criticised Jammeh’s reported remarks.  

“The reason that journalists must be permitted to work without interference, detention or torture, and the reason the media should not be compelled to report only the current government’s version of events has nothing to do with protecting a small segment of the workforce, as President Jammeh suggests,” said IPI Executive Director Alison Bethel McKenzie. “Responsible journalism upholds democracy by holding government accountable; a free media provides space for a robust and critical public discourse.” 

The election was monitored by observers from the African Union (AU) and the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), but the West African regional organization, Ecowas, said the vote was not legitimate and that their investigations had revealed “"an opposition and electorate cowed by repression and intimidation,” the BBC reported.  

In cases brought by the Media Foundation for West Africa (MFWA), the Ecowas Community Court found the Gambia responsible for the 2006 torture of journalist Musa Saidykhan and ordered the country to pay him reparations. The Gambia has failed to comply with the order. In 2008, the court also ordered The Gambia to release missing reporter Chief Ebrimah Manneh and pay him reparations. Again, The Gambia has failed to comply, denying instead that he is in their custody. In October this year Justice Minister Edu Gomez told the Daily News that Manneh was alive but not in government hands, although he refused to provide more information.

Source:http://www.freemedia.at

Gambia: Commentary: The Gambia’s darkest hour!

By Mathew K Jallow

Friday 25^th November 2011, will in the annals of The Gambia’s history, be forever remembered with consternation and utter disbelief as one of our country’s darkest hour; a dark day in which Gambians everywhere descended to the lowest points of our political lives. The shocking results of Gambia’s recently concluded presidential elections are a manifestation of the power of tyranny and the length to which Yahya Jammeh will go to remain in power.

There is hardly a soul that is not surprised by the election results; and even more telling still, hardly anyone who does not think that the results are blatantly fraudulent.

In every way, we were all caught in the most devastating surprises of our lives, because no sane Gambian expected the results to be so insanely skewed in favor of Yahya Jammeh’s military regime.

For many months now, Armed Forces Provisional Ruling Council (AFPRC) party militants have echoed and reechoed the same refrain; that the “AFPRC will win with a landslide”, but many of us took their refrain as a mere dramatization of their political demagoguery, rather than a statement of fact they knew all along.

The certitude with which AFPRC stalwarts carried themselves throughout the electoral season was buttressed by Yahya Jammeh’s own incendiary outbursts of stupidity and callousness in which his emphatic pronouncement that “neither elections nor coup’ can bring down his regime, caught the attention of both Gambians and the international community as indicative of his contempt and disregard for the democratic values of the electoral process.

In hindsight, both Yahya Jammeh and his bloodsucking leaches knew something the rest of us did not. The AFPRC cabal; which includes village alkalos, district chiefs, divisional commissioners, rural area civil servants and the formidable AFPRC machinery has collectively made sure Yahya Jammeh did not lose the elections.

Today, what really happened is still a mystery. We all know without a shadow of doubt that something egregious happened in these elections, but perhaps only the passage of time will bring the truth out. One day, some of those involved in this biggest electoral sham West Africa ever experienced, will be weighed down by the guilt of their consciences to tell the world the truth.

Just as the one of the murderers of Deida Hyrada confessed to Freedom Newspaper, the truth about these fraudulent elections will see the light of day. Meanwhile, as the paralyzing despair and the agony get the better of us, we must remember that no one said it was going to be easy. Yahya Jammeh knows what his loss of political power means; for more than any person, he has the most to lose; which includes either his life or his freedom for the rest of his life.

As incredibly painful and depressing as the situation is for us, we cannot with abandonment continue to wallow in our collective misery; rather let us dust ourselves up again to ready ourselves for the next chapter. ECOWAS’s groundbreaking castigation of Gambia’s electoral process is both a reaffirmation of our storied history under Yahya Jammeh’s tyranny and a high point of the election season, and as a nation we can wrap ourselves in the solace and comfort that their concern has provided us, as we map out the next strategy of dealing with the menace of Yahya Jammeh.

For now, UDP’s rejection of the fraudulent election results is a start. We must begin by delegitimizing the election results and bring pressure to bear on the international community to isolate The Gambia and Yahya Jammeh’s regime. We have a starting point; the regional body which knows best; ECOWAS. Unlike the African Union and the Commonwealth who come to merely observe the logistics of the polling day, ECOWAS is concerned about the entire electoral process, and how the preexisting political climate and culture lends itself or lack thereof, to the conduct of truly free and fair elections process.


PS. As we go to press, The African Union has given, what can only be described a tacitly reserved, if not an outright condemnation of The Gambia’s electoral process. The AU delegates have surprised Gambians, but we thank them for not playing to the infinite power of incumbency in African politics.