A futile excercis

by PK Jarju

Next month's Local Government elections in The Gambia can best be described as an exercise in futility.

The elections are only a mockery to democracy and an insult to the intelligence of the Gambia people, looking at the fact that President Yahya Jammeh has been given sweeping powers by the National Assembly to remove the very people Gambians will be voting for on January 24.

Looking at the new Local Government Amendment Act, it will be correct for me to state that the forthcoming elections amounts to nothing but a waste of time and resources. The democratic rights of the people to have an autonomous local government that will run their affairs at the local level have been brutality taken away from them.

Yes, we can now elect our local representatives but expect them to be fired from their posts whenever the President who is out of touch with the reality on the ground wants to.

Of course, this reminds me of the type of democracy we have in The Gambia; Jammehcracy, where the president is deemed supreme, wiser and more patriotic than any living soul in the country.

And looking at the resentment President Jammeh has for the opposition, I cannot help but laugh at the decision of the UDP and NRP to contest the elections. While their intentions are clear,  their effort is rather too late. Our democracy has died a gruesome death. We are in a dictatorship and elections are nothing but a formality.

The whole terrain is far from level and I am sorry to say that Mr Darboe and Hamat Bah must be living in a dream world if they think that President Jammeh will allow an opposition mayor or chairperson to run the affairs of any local government council.

Lawyer Darboe's own admission that his party is unable to identity candidates to run as councilors in the Fonis, because of the reluctance of the people to run on a UDPticket shows how un-level the political terrain is. My brothers in Foni are reluctant because of the fear of persecution as President and his cronies ensure that those who oppose them live a miserable life.

How many times have we heard President Jammeh calling opposition leaders and their sympathisers names that I will not state in this column for the sake of decency? How many times have we seen civil servants being sacked left, right and centre just because someone has accused them of being opposition sympathisers? How many times have we seen opposition leaders and their sympathisers being rrested, detained, tortured and killed under the direct command of President Jammeh? How many times have we seen the President fired members of the electoral commission who make decision deemed to be in favour of opposition parties?

Jammeh and his cronies are hell bend on transforming The Gambia into a one party state and nothing can stop them in their quest. We are at their mercy. Our councils are not autonomous anymore. The central government is in control of the councils with the President being the CEO. And we should not be surprise if President Jammeh wakes up one morning and decides to abolish Local Government Elections.

Commending Mathew Jallow

Mathew K Jallow's article on the Gambia Echo captioned The Gambia's struggle against a de facto dictatorship is a well written piece.

Mathew Jallow

The political situation in The Gambia is getting worse every day with President Jammeh tightening his grip on power. Our rights and freedoms have been taken by a mighty and brutal regime that has no interest to the welfare of Gambians at heart.

President Jammeh and his cronies are a bundle of terror who are wrecking our hopes and aspirations of a better Gambia. The Gambian people are today living under constant fear and oppression. And the oppression is bound to continue forever as long as we Gambians continue to remain silent and wait for divine intervention. God only give help to those who make an effort.

We need to wake up and say enough is enough to the President and his regime. We should have a desire to be free and the instinct to oppose brutality and repression. Gambians should forget nursing the dream that international organisations like the UN, the Commonwealth among others will solve our problems for us. While they can influence the process, it is left to us to take the leading role as the country as ours.

Well done Mathew!

A prayer to Gambians

O ye the oppressed people of Gambia, as we are about to say goodbye to 2007, I pray that 2008 will be a year that will bring loads of joy, happiness, peace, and prosperity in our lives and country. I also hope and pray that the ever merciful and ever gracious Lord, will end our sufferings and oppression.

May Allah bless The Gambia with a selfless leadership that will strive day and night to create a better and prosperous country for all.
Happy 2008 in advance. Long live the Gambian people, Long live our great country. Amen.

A Derailed Revolution

President Jammeh

by PK Jarju

Fail, fail, and fail is the only word I can use to describe the July 22nd revolution that brought President Yahya Jammeh and his AFPRC/APRC government to power in 1994. I cannot think of any better adjective to describe a regime that despite 13 years in power is unable to provide a good standard of living for the average Gambian.
The regime has failed to live up to its slogan of accountability, transparency and probity. It has become unaccountable, nontransparent and unable to get rid of the ills it claimed were riffed in the previous Jawara regime. This regime is worse than the Jawara regime and the once happy people of The Gambia are today living in a sad and miserable society; where a greater percentage cannot even afford to acquire a decent meal for the day. In other words, the revolution has brought nothing meaningful but retrogression, hardship, and endless suffering to the Gambian people.

What can be described as bad under the erstwhile Jawara regime is at its worst state today. Corruption is at its highest with the president and his cronies hijacking the country's economy which is squandered and diverted into personal use. The president and his associates, who were nowhere near the rich ladder before coming to power, are today the richest and most wealthy people in the country. They own vast assets and properties and businesses both in the country and abroad.

The July 22nd revolution was not brought about to alleviate the suffering of Gambian people. It was conducted by a group of unpatriotic, selfish, greedy, and power hungry soldiers who were only interested in becoming wealthy and powerful. They have become so intoxicated with power that they crush their political opponents and anyone who has the dares stand their way. Never do they intend to exit the corridors of power, for it is a dream come true. The national cake belongs to them alone. All those calling for a fair distribution of the cake are branded enemies and unpatriotic citizens.

In order to protect themselves from any future corruption proceedings, the regime has enacted legislation that immune the president and his cronies from any criminal prosecution for any wrongs they have committed or deemed to have done while in office.

This gives the leadership the carte blanc to do anything it wants as it is not accountable to anyone. All Gambians are accountable to the president, who treats them with utter contempt, like his forbidden children. He swears at them Billahi Wallai Tallai, lock them up at the Mile Two Central Prisons without facing any due process of the law, and even threaten them with death for merely opposing him.

Based on misguided and over zealous policies, the government has failed to meet many of its targets. Development is politicised and many of the development projects were embarked upon without taking into consideration the needs of the people. For example, while thousands of Gambians remain unemployed, the government spent millions of Dalasis in building Arch 22 in Banjul, which neither provides employment opportunities for Gambians nor provide revenue to the government. While Arch 22 has not increased the number of tourists visiting Banjul, thousands of Dalasis are spent on its maintenance while little is being generated from it.

While I welcome the construction of schools especially in the provinces, where I originated from, yet some of the schools can only be seen as white elephant projects. They only have quantity and not quality and do not provide the much needed education to Gambian children. Take for example, while many of the upper basic schools built by the revolution boasts of high enrolment, they lack qualify teachers, libraries and other educational materials. As a result only a small percentage of students get good results to make it to Gambia Senior or St Augustine's Senior or Nustrat Senior Secondary, which are regarded as the best schools in the country. With regard to public senior secondary schools, the number of students graduating with no credits in eight subjects is rising at an alarming rate. These students do not have a bright future. All what they face is a bleak future where they cannot go to university or get any meaningful marketable skills.

Although the government continues to rant about the quality of these schools, government officials prefer to send their kids to private schools like Marina International, Ndows Comprehensive, and other expensive schools that produce good grades. Education in The Gambia today is divided between the rich and the poor. I say this because public schools that produce poor grades are for children from poor backgrounds while private schools are for children from wealthy backgrounds.

On the health services, while government has built hospitals and health centres, yet many of these hospitals and health centres like the schools are not well equipped. They are continuously hit by persistent drug shortages, lack of qualified doctors and ambulances. Many Patients die of preventable diseases like malaria and the infant mortality rate gets higher.

In some cases, patients are asked to buy fuel for ambulances to transport them to major hospitals and due to the poor state of our public health services, many Gambians now prefer to seek medical care in private pharmacies and health centres.

The Gambia's agricultural sector is at its worst state. Cultivation of groundnuts which is the country's main export has declined rapidly due to disastrous trade seasons. The continuous failure of government to put in place effective agricultural policies has severely affected the livelihood of farmers. Many farmers today struggle to put food on their tables and the skyrocketing prices of basic commodities is causing a lot of suffering in the farming communities.

Despite spending millions of Dalasis on the Jahally Pacharr and Kuntaur rice projects, Gambians are far from being food self-sufficient. The price of rice Gambia's stable food increases week in week out. The country continues to import almost everything we eat from neighbouring countries.

With every sector of the Gambian economy failing, Jammeh has to admit his failures as a president and step down.

Good Riddance

by PK Jarju

Major Musa Jammeh

President Yahya Jammeh must be crying himself to sleep at the moment after hearing the death of his personal protector, Major Musa Jammeh. I bet he must be asking himself a thousand times or more why the Angel of Death should turn its attention to Major Musa just a few months after it took away  Major Tumbul Tamba, another loyal servant of his.

These two men were the most trusted men of President Jammeh. He gave them all the immunity and support they needed and as a result, they committed some of the most heinous crimes in our country's history. They saw Jammeh as a Messiah, sent to the Gambian people by Almighty Allah. Jammeh was their saviour and to them, anyone who fails prostrate before the Messiah deserves nothing but to be buried six-feet deep.

To these men, Jammeh is just super perfect for Mama Gambia and those who oppose him are nothing but opportunists, tribalists, and detractors. They were feared by even their colleagues because they are the Big Man's friends. They have no human feelings and they can kill, torture a fellow Gambian without even giving a second thought about their actions.

While Gambians and Africans in general believe that the Angel of Death is a bad reaper who is always after the unripe fruit, in the case of Major Musa and Tumbul Tamba, I will disagree. Don't get me wrong. I am not rejoicing at the death of the two men. I am sad to see them die peaceful on their hospital beds without having the chance to be flown in handcuffs to The Hague for the killings of Gambians and non Gambians.

I am also sad that the Angel of Death have taken them away without giving Gambian journalists and critics of the Jammeh regime the chance to see them pay for the inhumane torture and other brutalities they suffered in their hands.

The death of the two men should send a wake up call to Ousman Sonko, Alagie Martin, Kawsu Camara, Sana Manjang, Malick Jatta and other members of President Jammeh's hit squad that their crimes against the very people they swore to protect will never go unpunished. They may have the immunity today from Jammeh to kill, torture, and rape innocent Gambians, but they should know that nothing is hidden from the sun. If they escape justice in this world, they would still have to face it on the Day of Judgement when all living soul  account for all their deeds.

Let them remember that the things they do will always live after them and they will always reap what they sow.

From where I stand

Over the past few days, I received loads of support from concerned Gambians both at home and abroad regarding the threats I got from one Kebba T Sanneh, believed to be a member of the Jammeh hit squad.

I want to make it clear to Mr Sanneh and those murder happy boys at the NIA and army that I am not shaken by their threats and no amount of blackmail and intimidation will make me abdicate my noble profession. The Gambia belongs to all of us and it is our responsibility to bring the Jammeh regime to its senses anytime it enact laws or does things that are not in the interest of the country and its people.

I have matured into the journalism field seeing my colleagues like Baba Galleh Jallow, Alagi Yorro Jallow, Abdoulie Sey, NB Daffeh, Alhagie Mbye, among others being persecuted left, right, and centre by the NIA for writing nothing but the truth. Kebba and his hit squad may hate me for being the only Jola who have the balls to criticise the brutal Jammeh regime but I don't give a monkey.

This is because I don't regard myself as a Jola. I regard myself as a Gambian and an African who is only interested in the full restoration of democracy and rule of law in our beloved country. And if my calls for the respect for the rights and freedom of the Gambian people is a crime, then I am willing to be a criminal. Listing me among coup plotters and other people wanted in The Gambia does not in anyway scare me.

To the hit squad, do not ever think that my commentaries and articles will ever disappear from the front pages of Gambian newspapers and websites. The ink of my pen shall never dry; neither will my computer keyboard get stuck because my instruments of information shall always be mightier than Jammeh's sword and your machine guns and RPGs.

Your claims that you know my address and what I do will never make move out of my apartment. I will continue to live in the same place and do what I am doing.

And in the event that you succeed in blowing my head up like you did to Deyda Hydara and Chief Ebrima Manneh (may their souls rest in peace), more radical Gambians including my son will stand up and express their thoughts and feelings about the brutal and dictatorial regime in whose name you are committing heinous crimes against the very people you swore to protect.

I rest my case, chi jamma.