The coup plotter

part 1

Like Paul Sheldon in Stephen King's book, Misery, State House Commander, Lieutenant Landing Sanneh woke up in a filthy cell. He though he was in a dream and the man he saw lying on the concrete floor was someone else.

The man Lt Sanneh saw in his dream had no shirt or trousers on. He was not even wearing a pair of Sankung Sillah slippers. He was wearing only a small boxer half of which was stuck in his bum lining. The man's face look familiar, no in fact they look alike. They have the same nose, mouth, dark eyes, hair cut and body figure.

Lt Sanneh was woken by the sound of heavy footsteps.Whoever the giant was, was showing no mercy to the poor earth he was walking on. The sound of more footsteps and heavy laughter of men and women could be heard somewhere outside. Their laughter were sharp and loud like people celebrating a jackpot winning.

As he slowly opened his tired eyes, his body was greeted with terrible pain that made he moan. The pain was down below somewhere on his groin. The pain was horrible. It was as if a wicked soul hunter had cut him open and stuffed red burning charcoal into his body.

With his heart beating between 100 to 150 times a minute, he realised that the man he saw in the dream was not only his lookalike. It was himself. He tried sitting up but could not. His hands were cuffed, by whom he don't know.

He began asking himself so many questions but his mind was as blank. It was as blank as an A-4 paper and could not come up with any answer.

What happened to him? he don't know. How did he get here? he don't know that either. It was hard to think. If only those idiots who woke him up from his sleep would help or give him the gaddem answers he so badly needed.

As he tried to sit up again, Lt Sanneh felt something wet. He slowly turned his head and his eyes saw a pool of something dark where he was lying. It was blood. His boxer was shoaking wet not with water but blood. His own blood. He tried to drag himself away from the pool of blood but the pain got worse.

He could not see the wounds which were killing him and could not remember how he got them. He shouted out for help but no help came.

Moments later, he hear some footsteps then the sound of a key on the door of his cell. The cell was open and there stood a man with a First Aid box.

"Who are you?" he shouted at the man, but the man just ignored him. The man shot him a long angry look and said slowly:" You should thank your god that you are still alive."

"We should have killed you. I would have left you to rot if I have the power. Thanks to our weak chief. He is a very weak man," the man replied and started patching his bleeding wound up.

Lt Sanneh gave the man a second and better look and he immediately recognised him as a medical officer at the Yundum Military Camp.
.
It was then that he remembered everything. Everything that happened.

x x x x
It was around 4am on January 21, 2000. He had been in bed for not less than two hours because he stayed up till late watching Nigerian movies at his Mile Seven residence with some relatives. Since going to bed, Lt Sanneh had tried hard to go to sleep but couldn't.

The past few nights were horrible. He always woke up with nightmares about his young nephew he accidentally killed while reversing his car. He was hunted by the horrible images of the accident.

Today though, as he lied in bed staring at the ceiling, he heard some footsteps, then a knock at his door. Not sure who was knocking at the door at that ungodly hour and what they may possible want, he ignored them.

"Whoever the person is," he told himself "must wait until in the morning." As he laid in bed, he heard the footstep disappearing the way they came. When he peeped through his bedroom widow, he saw two men walking in the dark. He could swear that he overheard them saying: "He is inside."

Taking the men to be thieves, who broke into some neighbouring houses weeks ago, Lt Sanneh rang the night duty officer at the Denton Bridge, which was guarded by his State Guard boys and requested a patrol team to visit the area and see if they can catch the thieves.

As he replaced the phone receiver, Lt Sanneh was sure he heard a car engine.Within seconds, he heard people jumping out of the car even before its engine was gunned down. He heard some men running round the back of the house and others to the front. And then he heard someone issuing orders.

"Lets do anything we can to get him either dead or alive," and then they started shooting. They were shooting directly at the house.

The sound of gun shots and bullets mercilessly shattering his glass windows sent him diving to the floor. He don't know who the people shooting at his house were and why they were trying to kill him. Not only him but everyone in the house.

As the bullets started hitting the sitting room, bedrooms and blasting away anything on their way, Lt Sanneh had to think fast. Think fast how to safe his family. He crawled on his chest like a pregnant lizard to his children's bedroom and shoved them under the bed. "Get under your beds," he shouted out to his terrified wife and relatives.

Paw paw paw, pum, paw paw paw paw pum, the shooting continued both in the front and back section of the house. It was like a Silvester Stallone movie. Every moving Shadow was shot at. To add to his fear that attackers were definitely trying to wipe out everyone in the house, he heard a loud explosion at the back of the house which shook the house. Perhaps it was a grenade, only God knows.

Like Paul Sheldon in the book, Misery, Lt Sanneh convinced himself that he had to do something to stop his entire family from being wiped out. Reaching his dressing table, he grabbed his loaded service pistol and crawled to the rear exit of the house.

Seeing that there were only a few armed men at the back, he convinced himself that if he act quickly, he could make it out of the house before the attackers know. As he tried to quietly open the door, the armed men who looked as if they were high on cannabis, turned their guns to the door and started spraying bullets.

With the pistol in one hand, Lt Sanneh pushed the door open and raised his hands in surrender. But the gun men paid no attention. A bullet missed his chest but two landed on his groin and heap sending him crashing on the floor in agony. As he landed on the ground, the armed men quickly surrounded him and aimed their guns at him.

"Halt, halt," he shouted at the top of his voice. The shooting stopped and the armed men gleefully took away his pistol and cuffed his hands on his back.
"Where are your weapons?" someone asked.

"I only have my service pistol," Lt Sanneh replied.

The man he immediately recognise as senior officer of the National Army took the pistol from one of the attackers and ordered to search the house. Minutes later, the men returned with nothing. Satisfied, the commanded tapped Lt Sanneh on the shoulder playfully and ordered his triumph men to take him to the car.

Without any explanation, Lt Sanneh was dumped in the back of the heavily armed pick-up which turned right on the Bakau-Banjul road. At Sting Corner, the pick-up turned right again, this time towards Kanifing. Reaching Westfield Junction, the pick-up stopped. No one said anything.

Lying in the back of the pick up, Lt Sanneh could hear the unit commander talking on the phone. He heard him say gleefully to the person on other end of the phone: " We got him."

As the unit commander continued on the phone, Lt Sanneh's body started getting cold. His injured leg was hurting like hell and bleeding profusely. When the commander finished his phone conversation and came to take a second look at him as if to reconfirm that it was truly him, Lt Sanneh asked for help.

"Don't worry about your leg," the man replied calmly, "We are going to kill you. We have already killed your friend, Almamo Manneh and you are the only one left. Remember to say your last prayers."

Overtaken with fear, Lt Sanneh began to shake. And as the pick-up speeds away on the pot-holed roads towards the Yundum Army Barracks, Lt Sanneh injured leg was bleeding profusely. He started feeling dizzy then he saw darkness which swallowed him as fast as it came.

To be continued
Note: Lt Sanneh was a former State House military commander, who was arrested and jailed in 2001 for allegedly plotting to overthrow the government of the Gambia. The article is part of his testimony before a military tribunal headed by Vincent Jatta and presided over by Justice Okoi Itam at the Yundum Military Barracks.