The Honourable Minister of Foreign Affairs, International Cooperation and Gambians Abroad of the Republic of The Gambia on Monday July 29, 2019 said Ecomig forces are serving as a stabilising force in The Gambia. 

Dr. Tangara made the remark in a meeting with delegates of African Union Peace and Security Council as show of appreciation for the role played by Ecomig forces in the maintenance of peace and security in the country.

The 26-member AU Security Council Field Mission to the country met Dr Tangara at his office on Monday to acquaint themselves with the security situation in the country. 

In welcoming the delegation, Dr. Tangara commended their respective countries for standing by the people of the Gambia in ensuring that the will of Gambians prevailed during the political impasse the country experienced in December 2016. He paid special homage to Nigeria, Mauritania and Equatorial Guinea for the role they played during the political impasse. 

He further urged the Council Members to extend the mandate of Ecomig forces adding that the Security Sector Reform is ongoing. 

He emphasise the need to build the capacity of security forces, notably the military. He applauded the AU Security Council Team for their hard work and called on them to redouble their efforts towards bringing greater development on the continent through ensuring peace. The Government, he said is working on attracting foreign direct investment and tourism among others in the country. 

The Ambassador of Togo to the African Union, H.E. Sebade Toba, expressed delight at progress registered and expressed optimism that the trend would be maintain. He said this the courtesy call is a learning experience for them and thanked Foreign Minister for the warm welcome accorded. 

Issued by: Communication Unit of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, International Cooperation and Gambians Abroad

And so my first encounter with the man Peter Bonu Johnson, was through the enchanting commentaries of Radio Gambia legends like Bora Mbodge and Malick Jones. On those intense match days, the voices of the commentators would boom over the airwaves on medium wave (MW): “meanwhile Bonu Johnson; takes possession of the ball and clears it away. But blocked to touch; and ball since taken, the Gambians…”

I was to meet Bonu in person when I was hired as youth assistant at the Department  of Youth and Sports headquartered at the independence stadium. Bonu was to be one of my supervisors there alongside other cool kotos like Pa Suwareh Faye, Abdoulie Kah, Mr. Demba and others.

Bonu always stood out for his businesslike attitude, devotion to duty and the occasional telling of the hard, unpleasant truth that can make others uncomfortable; but those of us who knew him well enough knew he always meant well.

His exploits in national service are quite legendary – from national team player to national team coach, Bonu has truly served his nation with distinction.

Has the nation rewarded him in turn? That is the question worth answering; not just for his sake but in the long term interesting of the nation. Or, Alas, are we going to continue to plead guilty to the timeless charge preferred against us by the Kora maestro Jaliba Kuyateh who sang in Mandinka “fatafing laa jamani bay kang; moe nyimmaa e mang wo keh feng ti. Naa faa ta, e kaa yeh tooraa yeh e laa!” (In Africa we don’t honour our great people but once they are dead we all proclaim : Indeed a great hero has passed away!”

I was to have further contacts with Bonu many years after I left the Department of Youth and Sports in my neighborhood at Kerr Sering and Sanchaba. That was when I found out the other side of Bonu, as a cultural connoisseur and a man devoted to religious service and communal activities.

He came to my mother-in-law’s house on festive occasions of the Christian tradition singing Christmas carols with children and youths. Those occasions just heightened my admiration and respect for Bonu. Here I saw a man who had “been there, done it,“ but remained well-grounded and in tune with his higher self.

I am no Saul Njie or Bora Mboge; neither am I Malick Jones. But I have breathed a bit of their legendary commentary spirits . And so I dare draw inspiration from them to bid the legend, Peter Bonu Johnson, Farewell:

Meanwhile, in the greater game of life, our man, the legendary Peter Bonu Johnson, did collect the pass, skillfully disciplined the ball on the ground; laid his own pass to the next generation, and bowed out gracefully.

Farewell Bonu, servant of the people 

Never condoned hate or evil

On the pitch you proved your mettle

On the bench you raised the mantle 

Thrust the nation to global level

Served Gambia without forgetting Jehova

To country and church you gave your all

Rest well commander of the ball

We shall remember your service to all. 

RIP, Coach. Till we meet again.

#GambiaMourns

Momodou Sabally

Former Secretary General and Minister of Presidential Affairs, Economist, Author, and International Speaker.  

The presence of men armed with AK47 rifles with no uniforms on our streets is indeed a new threat to national security in case the Director General of NIA has not noticed. The Gambia is not a narco-state or engulfed in a civil war neither fighting an insurgency or terrorism. Hence it is utterly unjustified that law enforcement officers of the Gambia could carry assault rifles openly without uniforms while facing ordinary citizens protesting the death of another citizen.

In the first-place assault rifles must not be in the hands of law enforcement agents when they are engaging the civilian population. AK47 is a combat rifle that must not be used ever again by our police as a first instance weapon in controlling crowds. There was no evidence that angry demonstrators in Serre Kunda on July 24 were armed especially with assault rifles so as to warrant a similar response from the police.

Secondly even if the police were to use these weapons in a faceoff with an armed civilian population those officers must be inside their police uniforms. One of the purposes of police putting on uniforms is to ensure identification, legitimacy and accountability. Every Gambian is required to recognise the uniform of the Gambia Police Force. Hence to deploy men without uniforms is to undermine the identification, legitimacy and accountability of those officers in the eyes of the people and therefore undermine the cooperation of the public towards those armed men.

Thirdly the presence of men without uniforms and bearing arms in such situations as a demonstration threatens peace. This is because where such men were to unlawfully use their weapons it will be difficult to identify the shooters. Even where the use of that gun was lawful it has the potential to generate a negative and violent reaction from the demonstrators as they might mistaken the officer to be a criminal. Therefore, this would have endangered the life of that officer just because he was not in a uniform.

Therefore, it is pertinent that we ask why the Anti-Crime Unit command decided to hand weapons to its men knowing fully well that they were not in uniform? What is their objective? If indeed those officers were CID officers as claimed by the Police PRO, I wish to put it to the PRO that CID officers expected to be undercover agents or operate in counter-insurgency scenarios. For that matter it is unjustified to arm CID officers in such public situations.

What we know is that the practice of law enforcement agents bearing such arms openly and in public and without uniforms happens mainly under authoritarian and criminal regimes. They do so because they wish to generate chaos with an objective to shoot to kill identified persons or implicate certain people. Such regimes also employ these tactics in order to create an unpleasant situation that they will now use to justify the creation of more draconian laws or adoption of more oppressive measures against the people. Is this the objective of the Barrow Government?

We all recall how in April 2000 after killing 14 schoolchildren the Jammeh Regime came to say that shooting came out from the protesting students. It appears by then the regime had not fully mastered the gimmicks of notorious regimes in full otherwise they would have planted gunmen inside the students and take their pictures so they can show that as evidence. This is why it is so dangerous to see today, in 2019 after defeating that Dictatorship that this Government would put armed men without uniforms on the streets!

When all is considered it will be clear that this country urgently needs a security sector reform otherwise the peace and security of this country is fast eroding. Since the launch of the security sector program several weeks ago, may we ask the Minister of Justice what is happening so far? The events of July 24 in Brikama and Serre Kunda clearly point to the urgent need for these reforms.

One will find more justification for these reforms when you read the Faraba Commission Report. In that report it was categorically recommended that the IGP should vet all PIU officers and those found to have been involved in torture to be removed. Has the IGP done that? We know that some of the PIU officers deployed in Brikama and Serre Kunda on that fateful day are notorious torturers and killers since 2000! Why are they still in our uniforms?

The Anti-Crime Unit is notorious for torture. The evidence is overwhelming, yet the Gambia Government continues to close its eyes to malpractices that characterised the country under Yaya Jammeh. Those of us monitoring this Unit have reports that the detention conditions at the ACU headquarters are subhuman while various other abuses continue to take place there. The death of Ousman Darboe is a case in point which must be thoroughly investigated.

After 22 years of indiscriminate killing of Gambians by the Gambia Government under Yaya Jammeh, we must not ever again allow a single Gambian to die at the hands of Gambian armed and security forces. So far, we have registered the death of several Gambians at the hands of security forces in Kanilai, Faraba and now Serre Kunda. This is unacceptable and there must be accountability.

Meantime the practice of Gambian law enforcement officers appearing with guns and without uniforms in public must also be investigated and those responsible held accountable.

For The Gambia Our Homeland

……………………………………………..

Madi Jobarteh

Skype: madi.jobarteh

Twitter: @jobartehmadi

LinkedIn: Madi Jobarteh

Phone: +220 9995093

It is important that Gambians remind ourselves that after all this country is 49 years old today since we gained Independent in 1970. In 2016 the Gambia Bureau of Statistics released figures to indicate that poverty increased in the country from 48.1% in 2010 to 48.6% in 2015. The United Nations Development Programme in its human development index 2018 report ranked the Gambia as the 174^th poorest country in the world with more than 60% of the population living below the poverty line.

One does not need to refer to any study to realise that more than half of the Gambian population cannot read or write with widespread unemployment. The fact that thousands of Gambians have to find their way out of the country and the money they send back amount to more than 20% of our GDP manifest that indeed this country has very little opportunity and capacity to grow. I need not tell anyone that not only taxes are high in this country but cost of living is equally so high while the country’s debt takes much of the taxes we generate. Paradoxically the more loans the Government takes the more impoverished the country becomes such that we cannot even pay back our loans!

It is obvious that the vast majority of the homes, villages and towns in the Gambia do not enjoy basic social amenities such as water and electricity supply which remain largely erratic and expensive. One can count on your fingers the number of tarred roads in Banjul or Kanifing Municipality or Brikama or Farafeni or Basse which are among the biggest towns in the Gambia! Even those tarred roads are poor quality without drainage and streetlights or even adequate road signs!

In 1920 Edward Francis Small fought the colonialists that Gambians must have a say in how our tax money was spent and by who when he cried, ‘No Taxation Without Representation’. In those days Gambians do not elect individuals to serve as representatives of the country. Rather a foreign power constituted a government by itself and without our consent and then imposed taxes on the people without giving back to the people any social services or economic opportunities.

Exactly one hundred years later in 2019, Gambians now have the independence to elect their own representatives as President, National Assembly Members, Mayors, Area councillors and Chairpersons. We pay taxes to them and in our name, they take loans and receive grants from around the world. Despite paying taxes to these representatives who are in charge of our institutions of governance and development our people receive only very limited and usually very poor, expensive and erratic social services. Where is our tax money then? Where are the loans? Where are the grants?  In 2019 the Gambia’s national budget is 25 billion dalasi and we are only 2 million people. Where is this money?

According to the Local Government Act and the Finance and Audit Act the area councils are expected to share their budget estimates with residents by pasting them in each and every ward for public scrutiny. The law said 60% of all the revenue of the local government area must be spent on development projects and only 40% should be spent on operational costs. Furthermore, the law said the Central Government should give 25% of the development budget (i.e. 60%) to the local government areas to add to their development budget. Is this been done? Never!

Who has ever seen the published budget estimates of BCC or KMC or BAC or Basse or Janjanbureh or Kerewan or Kuntaur or Mansa Konko area council? I have never seen them publish their budget estimates in each and every ward for public scrutiny as required by law? Did anyone of us ever hear a mayor or chairperson or governor publicly announce how much money his or her local government area or city or municipality collected in a month or in a year? Yet one will always hear these area council officials complain that lot of residents don’t pay compound rates or that the rates are not enough. But they never tell us how much they collected from compound rates?

Therefore, the path that #OccupyBAC is pursuing is the path each and every Gambian must pursue if we wish to see real change and development in our lives in our lifetime. Our local government areas are our primary agencies of development. We cannot take the majority of our people our of poverty and create high standard of living so long as our area councils are not transparent, efficient and accountable.

There is so much money in the Gambia being generated by our central and local governments, yet our people live in subhuman conditions. Go to any community in the Gambia – from Banjul to Fatoto – to realise the immense poverty, underdevelopment and disorganization in which we live. For how long?

Those of us insulting protesters are not helping ourselves and our country. Let us rise above tribal, party and other sectarian biases to realise the high stakes. The state of affairs in this country after almost five decades of independence is disgraceful. This is not what we deserve, and we must rise up to ensure that our lives change for the better during our lifetime.

In a democracy one of the most effective weapons for change and progress in the hands of citizens are demonstrations. This is what we see in every democratic society of the world where there is progress. For example, in these recent weeks we saw citizens of Hong Kong protest until their government backed down from making a law that will allow them to extradite anyone to China. These past 10 days we also saw how people in Puerto Rico force their governor to resign just for saying some unpleasant words. We also saw how Pres. Macron of France was forced to abandon some economic measures because of the protests by citizens in yellow shirts. The examples are many around the world. Why therefore should the Gambia be different?

I don’t know about you, but I am fed up! We cannot continue to have central and local governments to whom we pay tax and they take expensive loans and fat grants in our name only for the majority of our people to continue to live in poverty and still paying back that loan. Why? There are numerous communities in this country which live in such appalling conditions that you would think that they do not belong to the Gambia.

We must all occupy our area councils to demand meaningful development. We must demand transparency and accountability. We must demand efficient delivery of quality, affordable and consistent social services that must be accessible and available to all. In 2019 no Gambian community or home should exist without 24 hours uninterrupted water and electricity supply and high-quality roads. If so, either our central and local governments are corrupt, inefficient and lacking vision or that our citizens are dormant, uninformed and equally corrupt or that both our governments and citizens are all corrupt and lazy without vision.

For the Gambia Our Homeland