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US advices nationals in Gambia to be vigilant or leave country as political crisis heightens

The United States Mission in Banjul on Friday advised all its nationals in The Gambia to stock up food, be vigilant and take precautionary measures as the country plunges into a political nightmare.

At a town hall meeting held at the Ambassador’s residence in Fajara, the US diplomats further advised all US nationals that they may leave the country if they wish ahead of January 19th, when President Yahya Jammeh is supposed to handover power to President-elect Barrow.

The town hall meeting was well attended prompting the organizers to convene two sessions as an estimated 1,000+ crowd of American citizens, including many of Gambian heritage attended.

US Ambassador Alsup spoke of the “change that is coming to The Gambia” and expressed strong support for the President-elect who she said The Gambians chose as their new president. She said the embassy will be issuing a travel alert/warning shortly and will be scaling down to a small staff of 8 in other to send embassy families to Dakar.

“The embassy is encouraging American citizens to consider leaving, since evacuation of large numbers would be difficult. If an evacuation takes place (probably by bus) it would be to Senegal, not to the States” she said.

Advice was given for those choosing to stay to secure at least a gallon of water per person each day, adequate food and medicine for a week, etc.

Ambassador Alsup called on nationals to register at www.travel.state.gov on their STEP program to receive email updates from the embassy about Gambian developments. (anyone can register, even in the States). She said that next Tuesday will be a day of potential conflict due to the Supreme Court hearing.
She also announced that the American Embassy School has decided not to open on Monday or Tuesday. She also assured the audience that the embassy was working closely with neighboring countries to reach a diplomatic solution.

Meanwhile, West African leaders said last month it would take all necessary steps to uphold the result of a December 1st election in The Gambia, where incumbent President Yahya Jammeh says he will not step down after losing to opposition coalition Adama Barrow.

Jammeh initially accepted his loss in the December 1st election, shocking Gambians who have lived through his repressive rule since he took power in a 1994 coup, and triggering celebrations in the streets. But a week later changed his mind, saying the electoral commission had been biased by “foreign influences” and vowing to hang on despite regional and international condemnation.

ECOWAS has since placed a standby forces on alert in case Mr Jammeh attempts to stay in power after his mandate ends on January 19th. Mr Jammeh called the bloc’s stance “a declaration of war”, and said he will defend himself. He said ECOWAS has no right to interfere in Gambia’s internal affairs.

The sub-regional bloc is meeting in the Ghanaian capital, Accra, this Saturday, January 7th, 2017 to take what they call a “major decision” on the political impasse.

Building The New Gambia: What Mama Kandeh Did Not Say…

I welcome Mama Kandeh for reiterating that his party continues to stand by the election result and GDC position would not change. He recognized the fact that Yaya Jammeh has no power to call for a new election, and asked him to step down. It is also a welcome move on his part to call on all Gambians to peacefully resolve the crisis we have. And it is good GDC wants to have Kandeh, Barrow and Jammeh sit down to negotiate.

But what worries me about this press conference is the way and manner Mama Kandeh approached issues and therefore what he did not say. I expected his narrative to be unequivocal, clear and direct from the beginning to the end, consistently and constantly. What I have heard him say tells me Mama is pursuing an on-the-fence approach, which could instead prove more challenging for us than helping us.

I heard Mama Kandeh say that he did not hear Yaya Jammeh claim that he would not step down. Is Mama Kandeh telling us that he did not listen to Yaya Jammeh’s televised address to the nation on December 9 when he categorically stated that he had rejected and annulled the results? He went further to say that he would constitute a ‘God-fearing’ IEC to conduct another poll. Thus to hear Mama Kandeh now claim that he did not hear Yaya Jammeh say he would not step down is a major cause for concern about the intentions and approach of Mama Kandeh.

Secondly, whatever negotiation Mama intends to initiate, it is important for him to be clear when he said Yaya Jammeh lost the election and should therefore step down. He needs to agree with himself that the handing over of power on January 19 is non-negotiable. Furthermore, Mama needs to understand that any negotiation he wants to lead, the issue of accountability and justice for crimes and corruption committed since 1994 cannot be forgiven. Thus I do not fully understand when he said we should forgive each other and turn a new page. He did not elaborate. I just wish he did not mean we should ignore the crimes and atrocities perpetrated by the State under Yaya Jammeh in the interest of reconciliation. There cannot be any meaningful reconciliation and durable peace in the absence of truth and justice.

Mama further said he would not comment on the petition because that is illegal. Does this mean Mama Kandeh believes that Yaya Jammeh’s petition is legal and legitimate? If that is the case, then either Mama is not fully informed of the meaning of the right to petition and the nature of this particular petition, or he has just chosen to ignore the facts. When it comes to mattes of law and constitution in any country, there is no better-qualified and more authoritative body than the bar association. This is the body in any society, especially in such common law jurisdictions like ours, which is purposely dedicated to promoting and protecting access to justice and the independence of the judiciary within the broader objective of promoting democracy and the rule of law. We recall in 2007 when in Pakistan the military dictator Pervez Musharraf sacked the Chief Justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry. Immediately the bar association of that country launched series of protests, backed by the population that led to the ousting of the dictator.

when the Gambia Bar Association spoke on matters of law and constitution, anyone who objects to them must provide sound and solid reasons otherwise all decent citizens are supposed to rally behind them in that domain. On December 12, the Gambia Bar Association issued a statement to condemn the statement of Yaya Jammeh, which they described as treasonable. They went to state that while the right to petition exists, yet the circumstances in the Gambia at the moment cannot enable Yaya Jammeh to petition simply because there is no Supreme Court since May 2015. They noted that if he goes ahead to empanel the Supreme Court that would constitute a violation of the principles of natural justice. Thus while Kandeh refused to speak about this petition, but he knew that Yaya Jammeh had already spoken about the outcome of his petition when he said he would annul the election. This is prejudging the court hence that in itself renders his petition illegitimate because he has spoken about the case which Kandeh said is illegal for him to do. I am sure Kandeh knows how Yaya Jammeh has personalized the court system in the Gambia hence when he speaks about cases in which he is interested, it effectively tantamount to determining the outcome in his favour. Does Kandeh have a problem with that? I do.

Again, Mama said that both parties, i.e. Yaya Jammeh and Adama Barrow are respecting the rule of law since Jammeh went to court and Barrow did not declare himself president. Here again Mama is clouding the issue, which can be dangerous. The fact is Adama Barrow and the Coalition and Mama Kandeh himself are the ones respecting the rule of law. But Yaya Jammeh is not doing so since December 9. At this moment, Yaya Jammeh has suspended the transition process on his end. It is clear that even if the petition goes ahead, this should not stop the inauguration process and the eventual installation of Pres. Adama Barrow on January 19. Thus the fact that Yaya Jammeh has suspended this process clearly indicates that he is not respecting the rule of law, to which Mama did not speak.

Mama also spoke of violence in a manner as if everyone is pursuing the path to violence. This is a misinterpretation of the facts. Again, what Mama should have said is the fact that the GDC and the Coalition and all Gambians wish for peace and are on the path of peace. The only person opposed to peace is Yaya Jammeh and Mama Kandeh must call that out. I am sure Kandeh is aware that citizens were arrested for putting on #GambiaHasDecided T-shirts, while many radio stations have already been closed down. This does not tell anyone that indeed Yaya Jammeh is on a peace mission.

My Advice to Mama Kandeh
Thus in his statement, I am more concerned about what Mama Kandeh did not say. What he said is ambiguous at best and condescending at worst. Mama needs to get his narrative clear, simple and unambiguous. As he said, we conduct presidential election every five years. On that basis, we had elections on 1st December 2016 that went free and fair and the people spoke. Yet Yaya Jammeh refused to accept the result and sought to use unconstitutional means through an illegitimate petition to subvert the will of the people. In the meantime, he has blocked all avenues for a transition process while clamping down on citizens for defending the vote. This is the foundation of all things that Mama or anyone indeed should say or should not say.

My advice to Mama Kandeh therefore is for him to personally reach out to Yaya Jammeh to talk to him in no uncertain terms to realize that he has lost the election and he cannot and must not subvert the will of the people. Let him tell Yaya Jammeh to realize that his refusal to step down would lead to either a civil war in the country or a foreign military intervention sooner or later. In either case, Yaya Jammeh will cause severe destruction of life and property, but the life of Yaya Jammeh itself will not survive such mayhem. This is what I expect Mama Kandeh to do in a very strong and categorical manner.

Let Mama Kandeh and all Gambians stop rationalizing the situation in the Gambia as if everyone is responsible for the current crisis. No. We are all not responsible. The only person responsible for this situation is Mr. Yaya Jammeh and aided and abetted by his cabinet ministers, APRC parliamentarians and few other Gambians standing on the sideline or supporting him. Hence it is vital that we all stand on the path of truth and justice to speak unequivocally and clearly. Just as Mama Kandeh accepted the result and his defeat, GDC must equally call on Yaya Jammeh and APRC to equally accept their defeat in the election. That responsibility squarely lies on Yaya Jammeh, and therefore we must not address the matter as if everyone is responsible for this crisis. If anything, the Coalition and all Gambians as well as GDC are the ones pursuing the path of peace and the rule of law.

On the issue of people buying cutlasses, it is urgent that Mama Kandeh once again call on Yaya Jammeh to stop fomenting tribalism and pre-empting genocide. Let us recall that in the run-up to the 1994 Rwanda Genocide, the ruling Hutu-led government procured thousands of machetes, which were distributed to its youth groups and tribesmen across the country. This was why it was possible for 800 thousand people could be butchered to death within just three months! Hence if the buying of cutlasses is true, it means Yaya Jammeh and the APRC are planning genocide just as the Hutus did in Rwanda. Hence Mama has a responsibility to expose it and to make a special call on Yaya Jammeh to withdraw. He must be told not to burn the Gambia for his own selfish interests.

Finally, I call on Mama Kandeh to meet Adama Barrow and together they convene a national conference of all stakeholders to call on Yaya Jammeh to step down. This conference should be public and all Gambian CSOs, businesses, trade unions, academic institutions, community-based organizations, media organizations and traditional and religious leaders as well as chiefs and alkalolu must be invited. Members of the diplomatic corps and international stakeholders should also be invited. The conference should issue a resolution to demand Yaya Jammeh hand over power on January 19, peacefully. Furthermore, I want to ask Mama Kandeh to stand with and support the #GambiaHasDecided movement. I call on him and all his party members to put on #GambiaHasDecided t-shirts and encourage all Gambians to stand with the spirit and demand of #GambiaHasDecided.

This is what Mama Kandeh should have said, clearly, unequivocally and directly.

GDC leader Kandeh renews calls for peaceful transfer of power

The leader of the Opposition Gambia Democratic Congress (GDC), Mama Kandeh has reiterated his call a peaceful transfer of power to President-elect Adama Barrow by outgoing President Yahya Jammeh.

Kandeh who was Presidential candidate of the GDC in the December Presidential election that showed Yahya Jammeh lost to Adama Barrow insisted at a press conference on Friday at the Baobab Hotel that his party’s position on the political impasse remain same.

“The position of GDC does not change. We have accepted the defeat. We call for peaceful transfer of power,” Kandeh said.

He called on both parties – the outgoing and incoming, to open line of communication to ensure a smooth transfer of power. He said his party is ready to sit on the negotiation table adding that they would continue to facilitate for peaceful solution.

“How can we resolve our problem without talking? The Gambia is bigger than all of us. We are not supporting any military intervention,” he said.

Hon. Kandeh reiterated his call on all political parties to come together to resolve the political impasse.

“We are not in war, it is a political problem which can be resolve peacefully. I’m calling on all to sit on the negotiating table. There is no time to waste. Let us come together as Gambians” he said.

The GDC leader further called on political parties and supporters to open a new page for the Gambia. He expressed concern about the rumors of people buying cutlasses on standby for any fight in the country saying the matter is getting serious.

Meanwhile, Kandeh declined to comment on the APRC election petition filed at the Supreme Court, but pointed that the Outgoing President Jammeh has no powers to annul the results or calling for fresh election and should accept defeat and handover power peacefully.

ECOWAS leaders to meet in Accra to take ‘major decision’ on Gambia’s political impasse

By Alhagie Jobe: Leaders from the sub-regional bloc, ECOWAS, are meeting in the Ghanaian capital, Accra, this Saturday, January 7th, 2017 to take what they call a “major decision” on the political impasse in The Gambia, Nigerian Presidency spokesman confirmed on Friday.

“A major decision on the impasse is expected to be taken at that all-important meeting,” said Garba Shehu, spokesman for Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari, who is chief mediator to the political crisis.

The ECOWAS bloc said last month it would take all necessary steps to uphold the result of a December 1st election in The Gambia, where incumbent President Yahya Jammeh says he will not step down after losing to opposition coalition Adama Barrow.

Jammeh initially accepted his loss in the December st election, shocking Gambians who have lived through his repressive rule since he took power in a 1994 coup, and triggering celebrations in the streets. But a week later changed his mind, saying the electoral commission had been biased by “foreign influences” and vowing to hang on despite regional and international condemnation.

“President Buhari is the chief mediator of the crisis and he is committed to ensuring that the logjam is resolved” said Spokesman Shehu.

ECOWAS has since placed a standby forces on alert in case Mr Jammeh attempts to stay in power after his mandate ends on January 19th.

Mr Jammeh called the bloc’s stance “a declaration of war”, and said he will defend himself. He said ECOWAS has no right to interfere in Gambia’s internal affairs, and that Gambians should await the outcome of a legal challenge that his APRC party has lodged at the Supreme Court.

Amnesty: Gambia: Arrests, media closures as deadline nears

PRESS RELEASE: 05 January, 2017: The government of President Yahya Jammeh, defeated in Gambia’s December presidential election, has arbitrarily arrested opposition sympathizers and closed three independent radio stations in the past week, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said today.

Jammeh is required under Gambia’s constitution to cede power to president-elect Adama Barrow by January 19, 2017.

Since December 31, intelligence agents have arrested and briefly detained at least six people for wearing or selling t-shirts bearing the logo of the #Gambiahasdecided movement, which has called for Jammeh to respect the election results and step down. Several senior members of the movement have fled Gambia after receiving credible threats from alleged National Intelligence Agency (NIA) officers.

On January 1, intelligence agents forcibly closed three private radio stations, depriving Gambians of independent sources of information during this critical period.

“The targeting of the #Gambiahasdecided movement and the closure of private radio stations threaten the rights of Gambians to express their opposition to Jammeh’s attempt to stay in power,” said Jim Wormington, West Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. “It’s at times like this that free expression is most crucial.”

Jammeh publicly conceded defeat the day after the December 1 election, but then rejected the results on December 9, criticizing what he called the “treacherous” Independent Election Commission (IEC) for its lack of independence.

Gambian security forces on December 13 evicted Alieu Momarr Njai, the commission chairman, and his staff from their headquarters. Njai subsequently told Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International that he feared for his safety, and on December 30 he left Gambia to seek refuge abroad.

Jammeh’s party, the Alliance for Patriotic Reorientation and Construction (APRC), on December 13 filed a challenge to the election results in the Supreme Court. Because the Supreme Court has no permanent associate judges, and so hearing the case would require Jammeh to appoint new justices, the Gambian Bar Association has said this appeal is “fundamentally tainted.”

Jammeh’s refusal to accept the election results has been widely condemned internationally, including by the United Nations Security Council, the African Union, and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). On December 17, ECOWAS said that when Jammeh’s term ends on January 19, Barrow “must be sworn in” and promised to “take all necessary actions” to enforce the election results.

Sources in Gambia described to Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International how intelligence agents detained two men, Alpha Sey and Muhammed Kuyateh, wearing #Gambiahasdecided t-shirts on the evening of December 31.

One witness said five men in civilian clothes forced Sey into a white pickup truck. “They asked to have a word with him and, after a brief conversation, they just pushed him into the car,” the witness said. “Sey was the only one wearing a #Gambiahasdecided t-shirt, and I heard him say, ‘There’s no need for me to get in the car, I can just take it off.’ But they forced him in anyway.”

Another witness described how on December 31 men in civilian clothes forced Kuyateh into a vehicle in Bakoteh, a suburb of Banjul, apparently for wearing a #Gambiahasdecided t-shirt. Kuyateh and Sey were held incommunicado at NIA headquarters, then released on bail on January 3.

Intelligence officers detained three store managers selling #Gambiahasdecided merchandise in the Westfield area of Serrekunda on the evening of December 31. Ebrima Sambou, Mamie Serreh, and Isatou Jallow told Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International that the intelligence officers came to their shops and confiscated t-shirts and other materials featuring the text #Gambiahasdecided or graphics supportive of president-elect Barrow or the opposition coalition.

They were then taken to the intelligence agency headquarters in Banjul, where they were questioned about the suppliers of this merchandise, and released a few hours later.

The store merchandise has not been returned. Serreh said that before she was released, an intelligence officer told her, “Anything you say about this, it will come back to you.” The wife of another of the store managers left Gambia soon after his release, fearing for her safety.

Intelligence officers also reportedly detained a coalition supporter, Wandifa Kanyi, for selling t-shirts in Serrekunda on January 2. Kanyi was released on January 3.

Two founding members of the #Gambiahasdecided movement, Salieu Taal and Raffi Diab, fled Gambia on December 31 after receiving what they believe was credible information of their imminent detention by the intelligence agency. The agency has a long track record of arbitrarily arresting opposition activists, many of whom were tortured and sometimes killed while in agency custody.

Taal, the movement’s chair, said that NIA officers nearly intercepted him outside his house on December 31. “I believe Jammeh is trying to send a message, to stop us from resisting his attempt to stay in power,” he told Human Rights Watch and Amnesty. “But we won’t be intimidated.”

On January 1, intelligence agents forced three private radio stations, Teranga FM, Hilltop Radio and Afri Radio, to go off air. Although Afri Radio was reopened again on January 3, it is not currently airing news-related material.

Given the government’s control of state television and radio, private radio stations provide an important outlet for Gambians to access dissenting views and opinions, although the security forces’ history of arresting and intimidating journalists have caused many to self-censor. Teranga FM and Hilltop Radio were two stations that discussed diverse political news in local languages.

The Gambian authorities must send a clear message that human rights abuses, including by members of the security forces, will not be tolerated and that those responsible for abuses during the transition will be adequately investigated and prosecuted – says Sabrina Mahtani, West Africa Researcher at Amnesty International.

Emil Touray, president of the Gambia Press Union, told Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International that the radio closures, “denied Gambians several essential media outlets during a crucial phase in the country’s history.” Teranga FM has been closed three times in recent years and the station’s managing director, Alhagie Ceesay, was arrested in July 2015, beaten and tortured at the NIA headquarters and then charged with sedition. He escaped from custody and fled abroad in April 2016.

As the deadline for Jammeh to leave office and transfer power nears, the Gambian authorities and security forces should respect and protect the rights of all Gambians to freely and peacefully express their political views and opinions, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said. Private radio stations should be free to operate without government interference or fear of reprisals.

“The risk of a crackdown against independent and critical voices will only increase as calls for Jammeh to step down intensify prior to the January 19 deadline,” said Sabrina Mahtani, West Africa Researcher at Amnesty International.

“The Gambian authorities must send a clear message that human rights abuses, including by members of the security forces, will not be tolerated and that those responsible for abuses during the transition will be adequately investigated and prosecuted.”

CPJ: Gambia orders three radio stations to cease broadcasting

Press release: January 5, 2017- The Committee to Protect Journalists today called on Gambian authorities to allow three independent radio stations to resume full broadcasting. Taranga FM, Hilltop Radio, and Afri Radio stopped broadcasting on January 1 on the orders of national security agents, who did not give any explanation for the measure, according to news reports.

The closures come amid a political crisis in Gambia after President Yahya Jammeh refused to admit defeat in elections last month. Authorities may have targeted at least one of the stations after it announced details of President-elect Adama Barrow’s inauguration, planned for January 19, an unnamed journalist from Afri Radio was cited in news reports as saying.

“The Gambia government’s decision to summarily censor three radio stations is a clear effort to limit people’s access to information during this critical period of political transition,” said CPJ West Africa Representative Peter Nkanga. “Authorities should immediately and unconditionally allow the radio stations to resume broadcasting and desist from muzzling the press.”

National Intelligence Agency agents and a police officer told staff at the privately-owned Taranga FM they were acting on executive orders to stop the station broadcasting, according to media reports. Afri Radio was allowed back on air January 3 on the condition it broadcast only music, news reports said.

Emil Touray, head of the Gambia Press Union, called the orders to stop broadcasting “a slap in the face” for democracy, according to media reports.

Authorities have repeatedly censored and harassed Taranga FM, CPJ has found. A Gambian court on November 8, 2016, convicted Alagie Abdoulie Ceesay, the station’s exiled manager, of three counts of sedition and spreading false news, according to media reports. He was sentenced in absentia to two years in prison and a fine of 200,000 Gambian dalasi (US$4674).

Jammeh wants it his way, we must not let him

By Jaw Manneh: Weeks preceding January 19 will be defining for The Gambia on many fronts. The string of familiar abuses of power this week is a rude reminder of the grotesque horrors of the 22 year-old terror machine that has preyed on the population, once deadened by fear and subjugation. In large part and in patterns fashioned in a totalitarian dystopia, this cruel oppressive system is what characterized the legacy of APRC governance administration of our dear country. Like a miasmic plague, it relented not.

The closure of the two radio stations – Teranga and Hiltop radios – and the reported arrest of some supporters of the newly birthed grass-root democracy movement #GambiaHasDecided are indicative of the residual will of a badly wounded brute, reeling from the excruciating impairment delivered to his heart, to disrupt and subvert democratic process. Shutting down the radio stations that have just found a lost voice in decades following the December election helps him to further suppress access to alternative information, while reestablishing the state own media as the flagship distributor of a tailored pro-government propaganda milled from the State House.

President Jammeh and his misguided cronies have refused to come to term with the loss in a free and fair election. He is determined to change the course of history, and has launched multiple battle fronts to the effect. Behind the façade of public show of legal challenge, his objective is to unleash some sort of vengeance against Gambians he claimed he loves deeply. He loves no one but himself. Like a rabid unhinged ideologue, he has since resolved to render the country ungovernable.

His game plan is a complex one. With the aid of the so-called Nigerian judges, he is ready to use the Supreme Court as the coliseum to undo the will of Gambian people.

Second, he is using the remnants of APRC echelon to whip up the base, perpetuate anti-IEC and anti-Barrow-led-coalition favor. All rooted in unfounded allegations of electoral “irregularities” and suppression of APRC voters by IEC agents. He has since deployed military assets and mounted military checkpoints across the country. He has literally set the country into a practical war posture. And he is highly likely to use the NIA and a sadistic killer squad nestled within the Gambia Armed Forces as repressive human machines to entrench a predatory culture of fear and death.

The denunciation and rejection of sub-regional body Ecowas in his New Year address sounded to the ears as beats of war drums. Not the renewal of hope and a future that holds a promise. It was all darkness and apocalypse, and political braggadocio. Stippled with unbridled arrogance and false sense of immortality and entitlement. Curiously enough, he devoted inordinate number of minutes, lamenting and belaboring constitutional democracy, patriotism, and sovereignty. Non-interference. Peace and security. “We will defend ourselves to the last man”. Et-al. What can be more unintelligible?

Ironically, the same Yahya Jammeh is the biggest violator of the Gambian Constitution. Arguably, the most unpatriotic Gambian in memory and the greatest threat to the peace and security to the Gambian state, internally and externally. He invokes the language of the constitution when it suits him and his big ego. Patriotism, to him, means agreeing with him or singing his praises or defending his personal interest. Security and peace to him, means your total submission to his will even when your constitutionally guaranteed rights have been violated. Rarely, he speaks of justice and equality under the law. Rarely.

Under his watch, court verdicts are openly flagrantly flouted by security agents, without consequence. His directives and statements have been treated as the laws of the land. Impartial judges and magistrates are fired at will, without explanation. He uses foreign judges against the Gambian people in sham trials, just as he is trying to do so again with the APRC’s election petition before an embattled Supreme Court. He has undermined the very foundation of justice and obliterated the essence of fairness and just laws as we know them. He has presided over the bastardization of the Gambian judiciary. Only his laws matter, not ours.

Jammeh routinely insults openly and humiliates the elderly gleefully. Ordinary citizens, Imams, chiefs and alkalolus all became his victims. Even those who served him with total loyalty have fallen at his machinations, Machiavellian. He has effectively decimated the institutions of our democracy. Everything in the country revolves around him. His tried-and-failed attempts to divide the country along tribal lines still ring true.

He set families against each other – sons against fathers, brothers against brothers, uncles against nephews, and cousins against cousins. He has savaged and dehumanized any man or woman who refuses to bend to his will. He has illegally appropriated properties from private citizens. Vast lands grabbed from villages across the country and free labor supplied by citizens, often out of fear. The poor became poorer. And he often referred to political opponents who disagree with him politically and those that disagree constructively on public policy, as dogs, donkeys, cockroaches and rats. Your own people? These characterizations personify the depth of disdain and hatred that beats in his heart for those Gambians who choose to think different and perceive thinks differently.

In addition, he has continually hemorrhaged national treasury for 22 years and lived a lavish life at the expense of hard working rural farmers and market women vendors who pay duties for selling garden produce at public markets. He pays none in taxes for his for profit businesses that have mushroomed in all regions of the country.

Now, knowing the odds stand starkly against him, and facing an emboldened population united in the common call for him to respect the election outcome and step down peacefully, he is resorting to the old oppressive tactics of intimidation, death threats and arrest of Gambians. These are all calculated moves. He is trying to provoke citizens to spring into revolt. Do not take the bait. I repeat, do not take the bait. Remain law abiding. But be ready to erect guards against any aggression. Walk in groups if you sense a threat trailing you. We cannot afford to see one more Gambian life perish at his pleasure. The moral voice of the coalition leadership is needed and must be forceful and ever-present in the final weeks to January 19.

Work with the Gambian police and military when and where possible and remind them of the duty and the sacred oaths they took to protect and defend citizens from harm. Majority of our military and police outfits comprise good men and women who wish to see a thriving, progressive and developed Gambia. They wish to see The Gambia restored to a just democratic society. Work with the civil society leaders too, including members of the religious community.

Embrace the gallantry of our youth who have since coalesced around the #GambiaHasDecided movement. All shoulders to the wheel for a final push. We must not let Jammeh have it his way.

he author is a former political and
Economic Assistant for the US embassy in Banjul

People’s power is the answer to Jammeh’s arrogance

By Alagi Yorro Jallow: The Gambia is going through a reawakening. The country has ushered in a new political agenda free from fear. At last, Gambians have shattered their illusions of fear. The “core values and principles of democracy with respect for human and people’s rights” which Gambians have been denied for decades under a brutal dictatorship has induced us to prepare to defend our nascent democracy with or without help from the international community.

“Whoever can conquer the streets will one day conquer the state and any state ruled by a dictator for every form of power politics, and any dictatorship-run state has its roots in the streets,”

The Gambian people should take pride and defend our democracy and refuse to be a nation whose citizens lack national consciousness and patriotism. As a nation that has lost its soul and fallen prey to both internal and external shocks, the Gambian people must now be ready to defend our democracy, sovereignty and territorial integrity without fear and the need for external help.

If fear does not wane, we cannot be masters of our own destiny. As Franklin Roosevelt aptly reminded us: “Fear is an enemy of faith and the greatest enemy of fear is fear itself”. Fear leads to anger, and anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering. Let’s combat our fears by finding solutions that dispel the lies and arrogance of the outgoing President Jammeh and take to the streets to chase him away.

President Jammeh’s illegal decision to cancel the election is a duplicitous attempt to wrap in legal terms what is in effect, an indefinite extension of Jammehism. He has never shown any regard to our constitution and laws. All his use of legalese are nothing but ploy to shore up his dying regime. And any further attempt by Jammeh to derail the transition process could further plunge the country into anarchy.

Jammeh’s Machiavellian nature must be stopped with people’s power as demonstrated in other parts of the world. For example, in Turkey in July 2016 the military staged a coup and despite their overwhelming might, the putsch was mostly crushed within 24 hours with the help of citizens defying the soldiers in support of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and democracy after he called for popular resistance in a FaceTime call aired on TV.

The mutinous soldiers, some of whom had been running over people and cars with their tanks, were lynched by the civilians. The defiant Turkish civilians reclaimed their country from the military when they helped to end a coup by the army to overthrow President Erdogan, who called on the people to remain on the streets over fears of a fresh uprising.

Ordinary Turks confronted rifle-wielding soldiers, climbed atop tanks and lay in front of military vehicles to take back control of the country, ignoring a curfew imposed by the coup plotters designed to allow the army to bring down the government unopposed.

The defiant Turkish civilians helped reclaim their country from the military when they actively participated in ending the attempt by the army to overthrow President Erdogan.

President Erdogan called on the people to take to the streets, leading to reports of groups of soldiers surrendering at several key locations in Ankara and Istanbul, including on the Bosphorus Bridge, where 100 rebels laid down their arms and submitted themselves to advancing civilians and the police. Erdogan emphasized the importance of faith in defeating the soldiers. “If they have guns and tanks, we have faith,” Erdogan told his cheering supporters. This isa lesson for Gambians that citizen engagement and civil disobedience are patriotic duties to embark on in defending democracy against its enemies.

Taking part in civil disobedience is not only a privilege but also an obligation which each citizen of a democracy must show pride in defending that democracy. And every Gambian who respects the country’s democratic pioneers and feels a sense of responsibility in defending the country’s hard-won democracy should not allow themselves to be cowed by outgoing President Jammeh’s anti-democratic rhetoric. Every proud Gambian should not easily abandon this sacred duty by forsaking their democratic rights.

It is dumbfounding how easy it is for outgoing President Jammeh, in today’s democratic Gambia to disregard the voices of the Gambian people in such a casual way. Democracy is a system in which no one can choose himself, no one can invest on himself with the power to rule and therefore, no one can arrogate to himself unconditional and unlimited power to rule.

The Gambia is in danger. It is abundantly clear that Yahya Jammeh and the military are leading The Gambia into a political crisis of immeasurable proportion.

After decades of dictatorship, finally the Gambian people have voted for a government of their choice. The election of December 1 was free and fair. It was one of the freest and fairest that had ever taken place in that country. But unfortunately, the results of the elections were dishonored by no other than the outgoing President Jammeh himself. If the Gambian people had not voted, the world would not have known that they wanted democracy. And by refusing to honor the election, Yahya Jammeh has also made it clear to the world that he does not want democracy. And with a very tiny but powerful cabal on his side, he is toying with the future of the nation.

Under Jammeh, Gambians have been struggling for democracy and during these years, there have been many casualties and untold human suffering. Our politics has been increasingly unhealthy and the regime had disregarded our clamor and agitation for democracy. However, democracy cannot be installed at gun point any more than love or empathy can.

Citizen engagement is the heart of democracy; when the citizenry engage in democratic practices in the form of civil disobedience in a non-violent manner, they are bolstering democracy and showing the rest of the world a better model that can be emulated as shown in the December 1 election by dislodging decades of authoritarianism. The true “arsenal” of democracy is not a hell fire missiles raining death from the sky but the citizens’ engagement.

Research has shown that no government could survive if just five percent of the population revolted against a dictator. Research further shows that civil disobedience campaign has never failed after the people achieved the active and sustained participation of just 3.5 percent of the population. The importance of getting 3.5 percent of the population to protest is to bring down a government through non-violent resistance and the best and most effective way is getting more people into the streets without fear.

Uprisings can often cause a crisis of legitimacy within a government; particularly if the relationship breaks down between an unpopular leader and the military or the security forces. They can cause the government to fall. A Joseph Goebbels’ quote suggests that the best way to chase out a dictator like Yahya Jammeh is to take to the streets. “Whoever can conquer the streets will one day conquer the state and any state ruled by a dictator for every form of power politics, and any dictatorship-run state has its roots in the streets,” said Goebbels.

People’s power or citizens’ engagement is the alternative to any possible foreign military intervention in The Gambia. International military intervention is only sanctioned under conditions where there is violence in a country and lives are being lost. There is no record of foreign military intervention in African political studies where a foreign military intervened to kick out a recalcitrant leader in a country where there is no violence. Any foreign country to have a legitimate mandate to deploy military troops in another country, lives must be lost first and not only a few lives but many lives.

Non-violent struggle is a strategic campaign to force a dictator like Yahya Jammeh to cede power by depriving him of his pillars of support. This can only be possible without fear. As Andrew Cuomo, an American politician brilliantly puts it: “Fear is a powerful weapon. It can excite and motivate and it can get people to yell and scream. Fear can even bring you into power but fear has never created a job, educated a child and it has never built a nation or a community. Fear is no strength; fear is weakness and no matter how loud you yell.”

Civil disobedience that takes place in a repressive autocratic regime like that under dictator Jammeh is more likely to cascade into a successful uprising. If citizens, take to the streets despite significant risks of imprisonment, injury or death, their protest would be a more informative signal of the intensity of anti-government sentiments and the underlying weakness of the regime than where protest is routine.

In The Gambia, today, compared with other countries, we are particularly infatuated with (people “ NYEMEN YALLAH RAGAL NIT), hypocrisy, egoism,self-glorification and attention seeking. Those negative traits have brought us nothing but dictatorship. Solidarity and humility as modes of thoughts and actions that can reign in a ruthless dictator are not yet so evident in The Gambia.

Barrow scolds Jammeh over human rights issues, media crackdown

Gambia’s President-elect Adama Barrow has called on outgoing President Yahya Jammeh to improve on human rights records by releasing political prisoners and re-open the radio stations recently shut down to ensure a smooth transition and transfer of power.

Halifa Sallah, spokesperson of the Coalition on behalf of President-elect Barrow at a press conference on Tuesday denounced the current situation of media freedom and human rights in the country following the shut down of three private radio stations, Taranga FM, Hiltop FM and Afri Radio FM respectively.

Janneh’s dreaded intelligent operatives are also going round town arresting people wearing or selling the #GambiaHasDecided T-Shirts.

According to Sallah, the media are the eyes of the government of the people in any country that values democracy, good governance, rule of law and human rights. He said suppression of the media would lead to a society of uncertainty.

Below is the full statement of President-elect Barrow and read by Halifa Sallah at the press conference;
The Office of the Incoming President had written to the Outgoing President to request for the opening of communication so that agreements could be reached on a transitional agenda that would ensure the release of those who are detained without trial and prevent any new arrests and detentions without due process.

The Office of the Incoming President regrets that the climate of cooperation which commenced after Outgoing President Jammeh accepted the results of the 1st December 2016 Elections is evaporating after he changed his original position.

The Office of the Incoming President wants it to be known that it does not want to inherit a country where media freedom is fettered and human rights violated with impunity. Hence, it intends to do everything it could to prevail on the institutions of the state to uphold and protect the fundamental rights of the citizens.

The Media, especially, are the eyes of the government and the people in any country that values Democracy, Good Governance, Rule of Law and Human Rights. Suppression of the Media would lead to a society of uncertainty.

This is why the Office of the Incoming President is concerned about the current situation. It has come to the attention of the Office of the President Elect through media reports and other sources that two Radio stations are closed down by men who claimed to be acting on behalf of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA). The liberties of two individuals are also at stake in connection with T Shirts bearing the slogan #GambiaHasDecided.

Alpha Sey, a resident of Kotu Quarry, is reported to be picked up and transported in a vehicle near the traffic lights at Kairaba Avenue on the 31st of December, 2016 for wearing a T-Shirt with the slogan #GambiaHasDecided by a pickup.

Wandifa Kanyi, is reported to be arrested and taken away by five men who identified themselves as agents of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) yesterday, 2 January, 2017 around 3pm in connection with the sale of T Shirts with the slogan #GambiaHasDecided.

Furthermore, Taranga FM, a community radio located at Sinchu Alaji Village in West Coast Region (WCR), is reported to have been closed down again for the third time on Sunday 1st January, 2017 by four men who claimed to be operatives of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA).

Hilltop FM radio station, situated at Sukuta Lambai junction in the West Coast Region (WCR), is reported to be closed down by three men identifying themselves as personnel of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) on Sunday, 1st January 2017.

The Office of the Incoming President is fully convinced that the opening of the Media since the campaign period has contributed to a more informed citizenry and a more informed country. It is a sign of weakness for any side of the political spectrum to resort to Media closures rather than engagement to put one’s position across.

In the same vein, slogans on T Shirts have nothing to do and will not upset the existing political balance in the country. Such slogans could not be stretched in any way to constitute a destabilization agenda or a crime. The Coalition is in full control of its support base and has a clear agenda that no one could derail.

The Office of the Incoming President is therefore calling on the Office of the Outgoing President to improve its human rights record by releasing all those who have been detained without trial as part of the process of a smooth transfer of power. Secondly, the Director General of The NIA is being requested to review the reports of the recent arrests and ensure due process to improve the image of his institution during this transition process.

Thirdly, it has come to the notice of the Office of the Incoming President that a mechanism for solving post electoral challenges has been established comprising all the leaders of political parties, the Permanent Secretary, Minister of the Interior, Chief of Defence Staff, Inspector General of Police, DG, NIA and DG, Drug Law Enforcement Agency.

The Office of the Incoming President calls on the UNDP to host a meeting of the Inter-Party Committee in the face of the crisis surrounding the IEC and the Security Chiefs to discuss and address the post Electoral challenges so that tensions could be effaced and peaceful co-existence assured until a peaceful transfer of power could be effected.

Openness and dialogue are the traits that Gambia needs at the moment and not media closures and arbitrary arrests and detentions.

All should pledge their firm allegiance to be ever true to the Gambia and make our people to live in liberty and happiness and never become a bully of our own people to make them live in captivity and fear.

The End

IEC Chairman flees out of country over death threats

By Alhagie Jobe: The Chairman of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has fled out of the country following death threats on his life, The Fatu Network has confirmed from family sources.

According to sources, the 82-year old Alieu Momar Njai is currently in a safe location outside The Gambia but would not disclose his location as at now.

Described as a God-fearing man, Mr Njai earlier maintained that he will live and die in the country but sources revealed that due to family pressure, he had to take such decision for his safety as the country is plunge in a severe political impasse.

You may recalled that Mr Njai oversaw the recently concluded December 1st historic presidential elections in The Gambia in which incumbent Yahya Jammeh who has rule for 22 years, lost to Adama Barrow of an opposition coalition. After the elections where successfully concluded, Mr Njai who is the chief returning officer, declared Adama Barrow as winner ending Jammeh’s rule.

Incumbent President Yahya Jammeh conceded defeat, congratulated President-elect Adama Barrow and later made a U-turn, rejecting the results and calling the results ‘null and void’.

Jammeh said: “After I accepted the results without any query, the IEC called all parties at the headquarters and told them that there was error. That is not acceptable. Our investigations reveal that in some cases voters were told that the opposition has already won and that there was no need for them to vote and, out of anger, some of them returned home. I hereby reject the results in totality. Let me repeat: I will not accept the results based on what has happened” he said in his address that was aired on state TV.

In response, President-elect Barrow said:“We urged outgoing President Yahya Jammeh to respect the clear verdict of the people, and urged to toe the path of honour and dignity. His declaration is deemed as one of a defeated candidate and with no legal effect or political validity. The will of the voters will not be subverted. I’m the president-elect. Yahya Jammeh should hand over power to me in January. Leaders will come and go. Let us all act in the supreme interest of The Gambia. I call on him to change his stand for the peace and prosperity of our country” Barrow told waiting Journalists.

After the thug of words, Mr Jammeh ordered his security men to seize the IEC office reasoning it to a ‘security threat’. Staff of the body where denied access to their offices for weeks after which the security officers retreated to their base.

Meanwhile, Chairman Njai ever insisted that the results will never change no matter what. He said even the office building was to be burn down, that will not change the results. He insisted that Yahya Jammeh has lost and that is final.

Since then, the country plunged into a political nightmare and there have been calls by various national institutions and organizations, regional and international bodies for Mr Jammeh to respect the will of the people.

A heavyweight quartet of West African leaders Fact Finding Mission was sent to The Gambia. The delegation led by ECOWAS chair and Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, included Nigeria’s Muhammadu Buhari, Sierra Leone’s Ernest Bai Koroma and Ghana’s outgoing President John Mahama as well as the UN Africa envoy Mohamad Ibn Chambas.

Meanwhile, President-elect Adama Barrow is expected to be sworn-in on January 19th, 2017, to be attended by various West African leaders as contained in the Abjua Summit communiqué of December 17th, 2016.

The sub-regional grouping – Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) says military intervention in The Gambia is ‘possible’ if outgoing President Yahya Jammeh does not hand over power peacefully on that day.

FJC breaks silence, asks Jammeh to handover and go

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By Alhagie Jobe: Disgraced former Speaker of the Gambia’s National Assembly, Fatoumata Jahumpa Ceesay has finally parted ways with her former boss defiant outgoing President Yahya Jammeh and asked him to hand over power peacefully for the interest of the nation.

FJC as fondly called, who campaigned for Jammeh in the elections, served under Jammeh in various capacities notably as State House Press officer, Nominated by Jammeh to be a Member of the National Assembly and later Speaker of the National Assembly among others.

In a 6-page letter addressed to Mr Jammeh and copied to West African leaders, ECOWAS President and the United Nations Africa Envoy, former speaker FJC called on Jammeh to agree on a peaceful, dignified and amicable exit in a manner befitting of a Head of State.

Below is the full text of FJC letter to Jammeh;
ON THE POLITICALIMPASSE IN THE GAMBIA
Your Excellency, Sir, please accept warmest fraternal greetings from me and on behalf of my family; to you Mr. President and to Her Excellency First Lady Madam ZinebYahya Jammeh and to first family. As we have just celebrated the birth of the Prophet (SWT), Jesus Christ (RA) and we prepare to welcome the New Year, I first want to take this early opportunity to pray for your continued good health and long life Your Excellency, and that of your family and all Gambians.

I wish to rededicate my commitment to your great vision to make the Gambia a modern country and one of the leading nations in Africa and throughout the world. I further want to reaffirm my unfaltering support for these plans and to pledge to you that the mission will be completed Insha Allah, whilst wishing you a happy and prosperous 2017 in advance. I also want to seize the same opportunity Your Excellency, to thank you for the opportunities that you gave to me and my family, as well as to the many Gambians, to contribute, in our small way, to the massive development and progress you have brought to the people of the Gambia in the twenty two years of your rule.

My family and I will forever be grateful to Your Excellency for your generosity and your great vision.

Sir, personally, I owe you a great debt of gratitude, because you gave me the opportunity to represent my country in the great offices of our nation, the sub-region of West Africa, the African Continent and beyond. It is during your glorious tenure that I ascended the high offices of the Speaker of the National Assembly, First Female Deputy Speaker of the ECOWAS Parliament, President of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, and as Your former Director of Press and Public Relations and now a Consultant on Gender/Children; Governance; Elections; Parliamentary and Peace/Conflict Resolution.

I have also been a visible and strong advocate for the development plans, policies and mission of our great party the APRC to transform the Gambia into a middle income country in the shortest possible time. So thank you, Your Excellency, for laying a firm foundation for a modern Gambia, in just 22 years and for the good fortune you bestowed on me. Your great achievements as President of the Second Republic are already documented in history and you have in the process, carved an indelible place for yourself in the history of our great nation. It is with a deep sense of foreboding,

Your Excellency that I write this plea addressed to Your Excellency, as a former Speaker of the National Assembly, and in my personal capacity as a private citizen of the Gambia and as Peace and Development Advocate with special interest in the welfare of Women/Children and Good Governance. I write it with the clear knowledge of the consequences of civil conflict on our women and children, and it is this that I respectfully ask Your Excellency to reflect on at this most difficult time in our country’s history, as you prepare to exit in grace and dignity.

Having said that Your Excellency and following extensive consultation, several concerned people, both inside and outside of the Gambia have asked for my personal intervention in this political impasse that ensued after the Presidential election of 1st December 2016, in which Mr. Adama Barrow was elected as incoming President, in a free and fair election.

I must appeal to you Your Excellency and my dear brother, that my pride and elation in you and your family knew no bounds upon hearing the glowing tributes and respect that were lavished on you specifically and to the Gambian people generally; when you graciously conceded defeat and publicly congratulated the President-elect Mr. Adama Barrow for his handsome victory

Therefore, on the 2nd of December 2016, you added yet another achievement to your many other achievements, by showing the world that the Gambia is a democracy and Gambians are democratic, and we can have a peaceful transfer of power through constitutional means. You confounded the critics and impressed the world with your mature gesture of magnanimity in defeat and proved once again that you are a true democrat, a true Pan-Africanist and a devout Muslim in faith.

Your Excellency in your televised congratulatory telephone call to President-elect Mr. Barrow, you graciously informed him that his victory is the decision of Allah (SWT) and that you believe in whatever Allah decrees. To that end let me remind you, most respectfully of the long standing adage that, “Man proposes and God decides”, so your unwavering belief in Allah (SWT), must now convince you that Allah is Raheem and it is HE who controls our fates. Your Excellency, being born and bred in a family that is endowed with proven political pedigree, I understand the idea of winning and losing electoral contests.

Therefore, with utmost respect and great affection for you, your family and the Gambian people, I believe strongly that it will be in the supreme interest of our people, our country, sub-region and for the preservation of your handsome legacy, to work with your colleagues in ECOWAS, as well as the AU, UN, OIC, EU, Gambia Bar Association (GBA), Gambia Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI), your current serving ambassadors, civil society groups, including religious,women, youth and student groups, as well as the security chiefs; to agree on a peaceful, dignified and amicable exit for you in a manner befitting of a Head of State. This will make way for the President-elect to continue the work that you have started.

I wish to further suggest that you and the President–elect co-chair such a meeting of stakeholders, similar to what is being done in Ghana currently. Such an arrangement will further underscore your credible claim of putting the Gambia first in all your actions and intentions. Your Excellency, this action will also cement your commitment to the protection and preservation of the 1997 Constitution of the Gambia, to which you swore an oath of allegiance, in which you pledged to execute your obligations under that constitution without fear, favour, affection or ill will, whilst upholding that Oath of Office. I truly believe Your Excellency that if you listen objectively to your colleagues in ECOWAS, tasked with facilitating a peaceful transfer of power to President–elect Barrow, you will find agreement that will preserve the peace and avoid conflict.

Your Excellency, Sir, my dear brother, I happily recall your often quoted statement that the women, the children and the youth, are your number one priority in your development blueprint. As a woman and child rights advocate; and on behalf of these vulnerable groups, please Sir do all that is in your God given powers to avert violent conflict, such as those that have claimed the lives of thousands of women and children in our sub-region in the last three decades and destroyed their future prospects. This I hope will never happen in the Gambia under your sterling Presidency of our beloved country.

Your Excellency please be rest assured of my continued support and prayers, as you work with your peers and your citizens, to find a peaceful resolution to this political impasse. You are fond and proud of saying that when you came in 1994, not even a chicken was killed. I hope as you exit the government, that the same be said of your exit, this time, may it be said that not even a fly was swatted.

Finally Your Excellency, let me pray that in this work may Allah (SWT) strengthen your will and your hands to reach a peaceful exit following your glorious tenure of 22 years. Please be further assured Your Excellency, of my continuous high regards and affection for you and your family. May God bless you, the First Lady H.E.Madam Zineb Yahya Jammeh and your beautiful children Mariam and Muhammed Jammeh. Season’s greetings and God bless you all.

Hon. Dr. Mrs. Fatoumata Jahumpa Ceesay
Consultant

President-elect Barrow responds to outgoing President Jammeh’s New Year Message

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Gambia’s President-elect Adama Barrow has responded to the New Year address by the outgoing President Yahya Jammeh.

At a Press conference on Monday, the spokesperson of the incoming government, Halifa Sallah on behalf of President-elect Barrow reminded Jammeh that the speech of a national leader should inspire certainty and hope rather than promote uncertainty and despair.

He said President-elect Barrow was declared winner of the election and would assume office on the 19th January 2017. He further called on outgoing president to open up the channel of communication for peaceful transfer of power.

Sallah has emphasised that in no uncertain terms that the only time the ECOWAS, AU and UN would have a foothold in managing Gambian affairs if the two Presidents fail to do, with impeccable thoroughness, what the Constitution of the Republic demands of both Presidents.

“ECOWAS, AU and the UN have calculated their steps. Outgoing President Jammeh should also calculate his steps so that no mistakes would be made that would undermine the peace and security of the country,” he said.

However, Sallah said it should be crystal clear that filing an election petition is the private matter of a loser in an election; which does not prevent mandatory constitutional processes from taking place. This is trite law, saying that all students of electoral jurisprudence in Africa would have followed the election petitions in Nigeria, Ghana, etc. and should be able to advise the Outgoing President that an Election petition in court does not prevent any victor from being sworn in to assume political office.

“This is the simple and elementary truth that Outgoing President Jammeh should take note of. When the term of outgoing president expires he would have no constitutional mandate to be in command of the Armed Forces of The Gambia or be duty bound to defend the sovereignty of the country. He would be a private citizen like everybody else. Any President whose term of office expires who takes up arms against an Incoming President whose term should begin according to law, would be regarded by the International Community as a rebel leader. This is the candid reading that any mature leader should derive from the declared position of ECOWAS and the rest of the International Community,” Halifa Sallah on behalf of Barrow and the coalition made clear.

Below is the full responds:
Outgoing President Jammeh has issued his New Year message.
President Elect Barrow has requested for this statement to be issued in response to the salient points raised by the Outgoing President.

The General Public should be informed that a National leader should speak for the people.

The speech of a National leader should inspire certainty and hope rather than promote uncertainty and despair.

A New Year message from a Head of State is designed to take stock of the past and present and inspire people with hope for a better future.

At this juncture, the Public is fully aware that there is an Incoming and an Outgoing President in the Gambia.

The Incoming President has informed the Gambian people that he is declared the winner of the 1st December 2016 polls and is mandated by Section 63 Subsection 2 of the Constitution to assume office when the term of office of the Outgoing President expires this month. This is projected to occur on the 19th January 2017.

He has therefore called on the Outgoing President to open up the channel of communication so that ,for the first time in Gambian history, executive power would be transferred from an Outgoing President to an Incoming one through peaceful means. President Elect Barrow has emphasised in no uncertain terms that the only time the ECOWAS, AU and The UN would have a foothold in managing Gambian affairs is if the two Presidents fail to do, with impeccable thoroughness, what the Constitution of the Republic demands of both Presidents.

Section 41 of the Constitution of the Gambia has given the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) the mandate to conduct elections and Section 81 mandates it to announce the results. This has been done and President Elect Barrow is the winner. Section 63 Subsection 2 makes it mandatory for President Jammeh to vacate office when his term expires and for President Elect Barrow to assume Office on that same day, which is scheduled for the 19th January 2017.

President Elect Barrow, ECOWAS, AU and the UN have calculated their steps. Outgoing President Jammeh should also calculate his steps so that no mistakes would be made that would undermine the peace and security of the country.

It should be crystal clear that filing an election petition is the private matter of a loser in an election. It does not prevent mandatory constitutional processes from taking place. This is trite law. All students of electoral jurisprudence in Africa would have followed the election petitions in Nigeria, Ghana, etc. and should be able to advise the Outgoing President that an Election petition in court does not prevent any victor from being sworn in to assume political office.

This is the simple and elementary truth that Outgoing President Jammeh should take note of. Needless to say, when his term expires he would have no constitutional mandate to be in command of the armed forces of the Gambia or be duty bound to defend the sovereignty of the country. He would be a private citizen like everybody else.

Any President whose term of office expires who takes up arms against an Incoming President whose term should begin according to law, would be regarded by the International Community as a rebel leader. This is the candid reading that any mature leader should derive from the declared position of ECOWAS and the rest of the International Community.

On The Election Petition
It has been made very clear to the Gambian population that any Presidential candidate and his party could file elections petitions under Section 49 of the Constitution when one has grievances.

Even though, President Elect Barrow and the Coalition were privy to the fact that there was counting at polling stations which enabled the parties to know the results before they were declared by the IEC, campaign is not being done to discredit the APRC petition.

Clarification is only made to make the people to have faith that the results are incapable of distortions which compelled the IEC to remedy the mistakes made in computation.

In his address to the Nation, the Outgoing President, however, sowed the seed of uncertainty by claiming that the “Chairman of the IEC invited all political parties to the headquarters of IEC to inform them of its errors and its rectification of the figures without specifying the number of votes transposed and added to Adama Barrow nationwide.”

It is important to give some clarification by publishing what the IEC wrote.
It reads:

“PRESS RELEASE
ERROR IN THE TOTAL OF FINAL ELECTION RESULTS
The tabulation of the 2016 Presidential election results from the fifty three constituencies was done correctly.

Furthermore, regional election results were also tabulated correctly from Banjul to Basse Administrative Areas. However, when the total votes per region were being tallied, certain figures were inadvertently transposed. Instead of adding the total number of votes polled by Mr Adama Barrow in the Basse Administrative Areas, the IEC added the total number of ballots cast for Basse Administrative Area to Adama Barrow’s total number of votes thus swelling the number of votes Mr Barrow polled nationally.

This error was repeated across for the other contesting candidates.

Having noticed this, the error is now corrected and this is the actual result:

Barrow Adama 227,708 votes
Jammeh, Yayha A.J.J. Sheikh Prof. Alh. Dr. 208,487 votes
Kandeh, Mamma 89,768 votes

This result which has not changed the status quo was unanimously endorsed by the representatives of the contesting candidates at Election House this morning, 5th December 2016.”

The IEC has explained what happened. It is only the APRC candidate who has decided to file an Election petition against the IEC. President Elect Adama Barrow is not made a party to the petition.

The Contradictory Remarks of the Outgoing President
The New Year message has altered the original remarks of the Outgoing President which made many people to call on him to step down now which is not in line with his constitutional mandate. President Elect Barrow has never called on him to step down. He has called on him to transfer power to him in peace when Outgoing President Jammeh’s term ends and his term begins. It is Outgoing President Jammeh who announced the annulment of the elections and the plan to hold new elections under a different electoral administration which had no constitutional basis.

Now he is saying in his New Year message that “Giving this unjustifiable and unprecedented anomalies in the elections, what we simply are asking for, is to return to the polls and allow the Gambians to elect who they want to be their president in free and fair elections to be organized by a fresh, patriotic and god fearing honest electoral commission like it was under the leadership of Mr. Carayol.”

The Outgoing President is now expressing a wish instead of issuing a decree.
Every human being is entitled to a wish.

In addition the Outgoing President has indicated that instead of issuing a decree to nullify the elections and compel the people to go back to the polls he has resorted to court action for redress in the following words: “Fellow Gambians, in filing a petition to the Supreme Court, I merely acting in accordance to oath I took to defend the Constitution of the Gambia as president and to exercise my right to appeal as candidate during the presidential election of 2O16.”

This matter is now clear. Outgoing President Jammeh has a right to pursue Court action for redress. Incoming President Elect barrow has a right to prepare for his inauguration without paying any regard to the petition filed by the APRC candidate.

On the Dangers of Post Electoral Violence
Outgoing President Jammeh told the Nation in his New Year message: “There are appeals in some quarters for me to step down. This tantamounts to disregard to the Constitution’s provision that should govern the resolution of the court. Most, if not all, reasons advanced for me to change initial position are based on fears of a military confrontation that leads to violence and concerned for them to destroy this country of ours.”

He claimed that ECOWAS is threatening to use force to get him to step down which would lead to resistance in defence of National Sovereignty but assured that his administration would never provoke violent confrontation but would always promote peace. He said ECOWAS would remain unsuitable to mediate unless the members recognise his right to go to the Court for redress.

The Way Forward
There are two parts to National Sovereignty. There is the sovereignty of territory or territorial Integrity and the sovereignty of citizens.

The focal point now is the sovereignty of citizens who are empowered to decide who should have the authority to defend territorial integrity. Section 1 Sub Section 2 of the Constitution states: “The sovereignty of The Gambia resides in the people of The Gambia from whom all organs of government derive their authority and in whose name and for whose welfare and prosperity the power of government are to be exercised in accordance with this Constitution.”

The citizens have spoken. It is President Elect Barrow who has derived the authority to govern from the consent of the majority. The Constitution says that Outgoing President Jammeh should hand over executive power to him when his term expires. The road to peace is to prepare to hand over power to President Elect Barrow while pursuing the court case of to see redress. All those who are counselling for such peaceful transfer of power to be effected should be listened to as friends of the Gambia.

To conclude, one must assert that wherever there is a will there is a way. Hence, the peace of the country is in our hands. If we all have the will to safeguard it there will be a way to ensure that justice guides our action to build a united, free and prosperous Gambia that would guarantee peace to all at all times.

Guinea’s Alpha Conde explains why Jammeh is refusing to leave

Guinean President Alpha Conde says The Gambia’s President Yahya Jammeh should not be prosecuted for crimes against the state and human rights abuses as a former African leader.
Jammeh initially accepted the results of the 1 December election, whose outcome was seen across Africa as a moment of hope.

President Jammeh is rejected the election results days after a senior member of the winning coalition government-in-waiting said the outgoing President and his spouse would be investigated and prosecuted with a stolen national wealth recovered.

But a spokesperson for the country’s President-elect Adama Barrow told reporters that Mr. Jammeh would not be prosecuted and would be treated like a former head of state and be consulted for advice.

ECOWAS has passed a resolution to use military force to bend Jammeh to leave if he refuses to hand over power to Mr. Barrow.

French President Francois Hollande said the polls are “indisputable” and that Barrow “must be installed as soon as possible.” Hollande told Senegalese President Macky Sall, whose troops will be leading the ECOWAS military force that “the matter is non-negotiable.”

Jammeh is accused by human rights groups of the detention, torture, and killing of perceived opponents during his 22-year rule.

Conde was in Gambia in May after security forces brutally crackdown on opposition protesters over the torture-death of one of its senior members. Riot police beat and slapped protesters, used live rounds and tear gas on them injuring many.
gambia.smbcgo.com

Defiant Yahya Jammeh accuses ECOWAS of declaring war

By Alhagie Jobe: Disgraced outgoing Gambian President Yahya Jammeh has accused the West African sub-regional bloc ECOWAS of ‘declaring war’ against his government by threatening to deploy a stand by force to enforce the December 1st election results if he fails to hand over power on January 18th.

According to Jammeh, this would only “escalate into a military confrontation” and further indication of ECOWAS violating the country’s sovereignty and “blatant and one-sided.”

In his New Year Message 2017 on Saturday, Mr Jammeh said the ECOWAS summit decision of December 17th, 2016 in Abuja was “totally illegal” as it violated the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of member states.

West African leaders with support from UN, warned last month at a Summit in Abuja, Nigeria, that the 15-member ECOWAS would “take all necessary action to enforce the results” of the December 1 poll if Mr Jammeh fail to respect the will of the people. The summit followed a high level quartet of African leaders’ mediation mission to Banjul led by Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

Mr Jammeh who ruled the small West African nation for 22 years initially conceded election defeat to opposition coalition leader Adama Barrow before reversing his position and refusing to accept the vote a week later. He now file a petition at the Supreme Court challenging the results entirely blaming the electoral body, IEC, for what he called “unacceptable errors and irregularities’ ” and called for a new election.

The defiant Yahya Jammeh in his address, insisted that ECOWAS Resolution to implement the poll results of December 1st by all means possible is a declaration of war against his government.

“It is in effect a declaration of war and an insult to our constitution. It is therefore absolutely unacceptable. Let me make very clear that we are ready to defend the country against any aggression and there will be no compromise on this” Outgoing President Jammeh said.

He continued: “Given the unjustifiable and unprecedented anomalies… what we are simply and rightfully asking for is to return to the polls and allow the Gambians to elect who they want to be their president in free and fair elections” Jammeh said.

Meanwhile, Gambia’s Supreme Court last month mentioned the petition case and but without enough sitting judges had to adjourned it until January 10th, 2017, while the Nigerian-hired Chief Justice Emmanuel Fagbenle scout for judges.

The court action and stance by the Chief Justice prompted swift condemnation from the Gambia Bar Association and other legal bodies saying the court has not be constituted for the past year and the outgoing president has no constitutional right to appoint judges to hear this case.

The 51-year-old tyrant who remains defiant has stoked international concerns about the future of the country, with the UN joining African leaders in calling for him to allow Barrow to take the oath of office as scheduled on January 19th without which a draconian action will be taken against him.

Dictators’ Lessons and Intellectual Prostitution: ‘Kakatar Syndrome and Human billboards’

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By Alagi Yorro Jallow: Without prejudice—What I find fascinating about being in and then out of Africa is that the contrast gives you a filter that allows you to adjust your focal length, to get certain clarity.

I thought it was exile, but now I think it’s distance—either chronological or geographical—that is required for you to really understand what you’ve been seeing, because you’re too close to a situation. I’ve studied several authoritarian regimes, and even lived under the authoritarian regime of Yahya Jammeh, and it’s fascinating how similar it is to Robert Mugabe’s rule in Zimbabwe. Mugabe and Jammeh seem to have use the same building blocks.

I started out thinking that if you want to understand dictatorships, you study dictators. The more I witnessed, the more I realized that, essentially, in any school playground a bully will emerge if he or she can emerge—it’s weirdly systemic. And having systems of checks and balances, inane as they may seem, prevents dictators from emerging. Dictatorships survive partially because of intellectual prostitution—which prevails in Gambia and in Zimbabwe. It’s belly politics; if you don’t go along with it, you don’t eat. Dishonesty, ambiguity, bullying, threats, cronyism and sycophancy are merely theoretic strategies for those who put position and power as objectives above truth. If truth is not upheld in every instance, telling the truth as a strategic option becomes ineffective.

In the book, Africa Unchained (2005), Professor George Ayittey wrote “as a group, African scholars and intellectuals have let Africa down badly by not providing intellectual leadership to the democratic struggle.” Time and time again, for the highly “educated,” the lure of a luxury car, a diplomatic or ministerial post and a government mansion often prove irresistible.” Professor Ayittey added that “vile opportunism, unflappable sycophancy, and trenchant collaboration on the part of Africa’s intellectuals allow tyranny to become entrenched in Africa.” He also said, “All dictators legitimized and perpetuated their rule by buying off and co-opting Africa’s academics for a pittance. And when they fall out of favor, they are beaten up, tossed aside or worse. And yet more offer themselves up.” And he further noted, “As prostitutes, they partook of the plunder, misrule and repression of the African people. Some of their actions were brazen.”

When Jammeh overthrew the democratically elected government of Sir DawdaJawara, the only minister from Jawara’s administration enticed to serve in the military with Jammeh was finance minister; a very respected individual, even in international circles. He was instrumental in getting the World Bank to resume aid to the Gambia. On 10 October 1994, he was fired by the military junta. He was no longer useful to them. Then November 15, he was accused of complicity in the November abortive coup attempt.

Next to assume the country’s finance portfolio was a brilliant economist Ousman Koro Ceesay. When he became no longer useful to the Junta,” they smashed his head with a baseball bat,” said Captain Ebou Jallow (Washington Times, 20 1995). Then other expendable intellectual prostitute with shady characters start to lobby positions and serve as ministers and diplomats.

They too were later fired when they become no longer useful the junta. Chicken-hearted professional afraid of the dictator; instead, they sought international jobs within the UN system. Such has been the fate of a political and intellectual chameleons. Yahya Jammeh fired 296 ministers, fired and recycled more than 110 permanent secretaries not to mention Directors.

Professor Ayittey further added that “African intellectuals throw caution and common sense to the winds and fiercely jostle one another for the chance to hop into bed with military brutes.” The also Professor added “how could an educated man, whose basic human rights were viciously violated in detention, suddenly decide to join his oppressor”-Only in Jammeh Kunda. A permanent secretary has been hired and fired nine times and finally rested at Mile2 prisons.

Robert Mugabe is a public intellectual, a man with six or seven degrees and very widely read, and yet when you look at how he’s emerged as the leader of Zimbabwe, it’s like so many other countries where one authoritarian regime is followed by revolution and replaced by another authoritarian regime. There is a social conditioning that occurs. People are conditioned to accept authoritarian rule. They have been cowed before, and they go back to that mindset. They think it’s a fascist rule where they are powerless.

Yahya Jammed is quite the opposite, and yet he is a rather fastidious dictator. He has no academic degree and retired with the rank of colonel in the army, but he claims to be a religious leader (a sheikh), a professor and a doctor. He’s not Idi Amin or some Nigerian general with medals clanking across his chest. Jammed, in contrast, is often seen in his long white robes, holding the holy Quran along with his sword and two prayer beads. This is quite different from Mugabe, who wears typical safari and French suits. Yet despite their differences in education and personal appearance, they both want to preserve the façade of a democracy because they believe they are liberation heroes. Jammeh believes that he sacrificed his life to liberate the Gambia from the PPP, from thirty years of bad governance, whereas Mugabe believes he liberated his country and went to prison, went to exile, before becoming their leader. And if you are a liberation hero—as we have seen in Cuba, for example—you can draw on the revolution endlessly as a font of legitimacy.

You are the revolutionary, and you can use it to stop any legitimate opposition of your rule. So, when Mugabe was recently forced to have an election, he looked at the electorate and said, “How can you possibly vote against me? If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t have a vote.” Jammeh told his party supporters that there would be “no elections in a million years” and described politics and politicians as “donkeys and liars.” There’s a sort of messiah complex that these types of leaders have.

Mugabe and Jammeh use the dictatorial methodology of intimidation, killings and forced exiles to help them maintain their power. They needed to intimidate everybody, but they refined the process. Rather than killing hundreds of thousands of people, they found that only three to four hundred people needed to be killed in order to scare the others into the desired behavior. They put two or three hundred people in torture camps and tortured them terribly, but then released them back into their own communities with broken limbs and dismissals from public service, using the courts to accuse them of “false information” and “economic crimes, “leaving them with a political stigma.

They released them back into their own communities where they basically become human billboard—they served as advertisements for what happens to those who oppose their administration. And it was very effective. How many ministers and senior government officials in Gambia are fired and then detained at Mile 2 Prisons, and how many are languishing in prison, and how many are standing trial on bogus charges of giving false information to public officials? How many faced charges of economic crimes, and how many are now in self-imposed exile? And how many are waiting to be recycled like plastic bags?

And yet on the other hand, people in other countries who were opposition members—often at just the city level—as well as ordinary citizens, people of different socioeconomic groups, seemed almost surprised by their own potential to bring about change if they were courageous enough to try. We have seen that in Egypt and many other places, a brief window opens when people say, “You know, we could . . .” And suddenly, there’s a flowering of activity. The next crucial step, and I don’t think this got sufficiently reported in the case of Egypt, is how security forces behave. Are you able to put the stems of your flowers down their barrels?

The difference between places like Egypt and Gambia and Zimbabwe is that in the latter two, you could do that if you choose, but live ammunition would be coming after you from the other direction. In Matabele land, for example, Mugabe once killed 20,000 civilians who were members of Zimbabwe’s minority Ndebele people, and Yahya Jammeh killed 14 students in April 2000 while they were conducting a peaceful demonstration. Jammed has made almost every family under his rule cry and suffer during his 22 years of dictatorship.

In 1980 Mugabe’s cabinet was full of PhD holders and Jammed too had one of the most educated civil servants when he took over. Now, many of those who currently serve have sold off their integrity, principles and conscience to serve at their rulers’ beck and call. Some even preferred military to civilian rule. In Africa, we are afflicted with “intellectual astigmatism,” in many cases hopelessly blind to the injustices committed by African leaders against our own people.

In Africa at the end of the Cold War, there was a great flowering of democracy. Sub-Saharan Africa really started to become independent, beginning with Ghana in 1957. Those first generations of independent black African countries were taught that the only way they would be judged on the international stage was on whether they were pro-communist or pro-capitalist, pro-Moscow or pro- Washington.

So, for decades, the West was quite happy to support Mbutu or Houphouet-Boigny; it was fine if they were our dictators. Then the wind of change in 1990 tore up the rule book and said that, on paper at least, you’ve got to be open and transparent. Because some of the young revolutionaries had turned into dictators or became corrupt. One of them, Laurent Gbagbo in Cote d’Ivoire, recently had to be prised from power by ex-colonial forces and another, Frederick Chiluba in Zambia, stole huge amounts of money and had to be kicked out of the country.

President Mugabe and Jammeh are political survivors and will likely remain in power for the foreseeable future. It seems they have been accepted by a population that regards them as the ultimate village chief. Jammeh has amassed a fortune that makes him one of Africa’s richest men; nobody really knows how much he is worth, but there has been some indication of his vast wealth since he married his foreign wife. Mugabe too became flamboyant after the death of his Ghanaian wife. Grace Mugabe and Zainab Jammeh shared a common desire for an extravagant lifestyle, at the expense of the plight of their people. These two countries have the poorest economies, brutal dictatorships and wives who believe in and extravagant lifestyles.

The Gambian and Zimbabwean leadership relied on highly talented and admirably hard-headed intellectuals to resort to repression as their means of political survival. They have had a great impact on their countries and even the world around them. They assumed power in different ways, with differing political views, but both styles of leadership have been detrimental to their countries. In the years since these leaders took power, they have destroyed many people’s lives and continue to negatively influence the way in which many of their people live to this day.
Note: This article is an abridged version of the fuller article that can be found at Maafanta.com. The longer version of this article was published in 2009 and is still well worth reading and of immediate relevance to current events unfolding in the Gambia. It is being republished in a different version from the original, given the fact that the article is still considered to be instructive, timely, informative and lucid, in the context of contemporary Gambian politics.

The ‘Yahya Jammeh’s people’, be warned, the end is here!

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By Ali Jaye: As any sincere Gambian home or abroad feels, I must also express the bitter pain and frustration of the nation’s innocents but of course I am directing it to the ‘Yahya Jammeh’s people’.

The title may sound wierd but I chose it for a reason. Prior to the outcome of the election, the nation was divided on party lines. After the election, however, the country is now divided between patriots versus egoists, being the people aiding and fueling Yahya’s irrational actions to bring the country on the brink of chaos. You will certainly fail because God will save the Gambia from your evil plots! The sincere APRC camp members patriotic to the nation have long embraced the truth and verdicts of the nation except the self-centered few of you called ‘Yahya’s people’.

Therefore, the crisis now is beyond party line but rather self-centered individual wanting to see Gambia into a state of anarchy. Truth be told, the ongoing resistant and power claim by the supposedly out-going president is nothing more than his cowardice to face the tribulation for his actions.

Folks for Jammeh, Lord Acton is right about you: “Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely”. How I wish I had the intellectual stature to conjoin mine to his, “…absolute power narrows the morality and reasoning of the powerful because the evil outgrow the good in them”. It is beyond comprehension to admit that our own mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters are still standing-by a man who has lost control and respect. The worst is seeing the erratic man chanting and digging a grave for all of you. Your wishes for the Gambia shall never come to be. You shall all fail in your plot to turn our nation into turmoil. And to our securities who are silently maintaining their loyalties to the Gambian people, we are with you and maintain your promises.

To you the people of Yahya, I want you to understand that the limit has been reached, the limit of enhancing the desires of a man who, for 22 years and more, betrayed, abused, enslaved, and maimed your own people. You have proven to all Gambians that you do not care about the nation but rather care about the benefits you gain from him. Your actions are evidently clear to all Gambians. I am confident that every Gambian except those of you who continue to pursue personal interest, is far better than Yahya in class, reputation, and manner. Therefore, the unforgiving state of apprehension and the emotional affliction on the innocent, non-violent decent Gambians on behalf of this unethical louse only earns you the wrath of Allah. I applaud those in the foreign mission, civil society groups, local and community leaders for acknowledgement to the will of the people but moreover, letting the louse understand that he needs to vacate the seat of power for the next president because he needs to respect peoples’ voice. Thank you for embracing the truth!

To you the ‘Yahya’s people’, at this point in our crusade, Gambians are not asking you to back down your support for him because our victory is in sight but your shame and destruction are also in sight. Therefore, hold fast to your Jammeh loyalty if your values are for him and him alone. I bet, Yahya is the proudest person and the winner in your mutual game: he knows that he is failing and decides that he must go down with many of you. That is why he wants you to be visibly seen in this crisis for the world to recognize all of you as his allies. The wise and rational ones are keeping the distant. Truly, he is the winner because he has the least to lose and the least number of blood relations in the Gambia. If my memory serves me right, Yahya’s only blood relation is his mother, and wife and the two kids who will be at safe-haven in the event of eventualities. You know best that he fell apart with all other relatives.

Going forward, Gambians will remember the extent of your commitment and support to a man whose evil nature acclaimed him a worldwide fame as one of the worst dictators on earth. The history that will narrate your roles in his evil acts will surely be read to you soon; your roles in the students’ massacre, the torturing, imprisoning, killings and disappearance of alleged coup plotters, political opponents, civic activities, journalists, raiding of our poor innocent elderly in the name of anti-which hunt operations and many more are just enough still stays in our mind for accountability purpose.

And please get me right; there is nothing wrong to serve in his administration because you are working for the government. The problem comes when you continue to uphold his values and support his actions that undermine your values, integrity, and pledges to the country as are happening at this moment in our political crisis. I refuse to accept your excuses that there are no other alternatives. If you are truly faithful and sincere to your nation, then no amount of influence or action should keep you serving a failing outgoing president who refuses to accept defeat. Gambians are flattered with your commitment to serve this toothless bulldog, a man who is been abandoned by all credible people and partners including the entire international community. Please, for the sake of your descendants, redefine your positions and desert him now before the eleventh hour passes.

Over the 22-year period, we have seen noble people who realized that they cannot continue to work under a man with such ‘malmannerism’, and resulted to exile or abandoning his offers for fear that they may act or support initiatives that oppresses the people they pledged to serve. We have also witnessed officials who honorably turned down his appointments or withdraw from service because they avoided been used against their own people. In fact, if I could remember, a minister who was appointment, sworn and within a week or two resigned from his post. Countless number of Gambians in the civil and security services has taken international and other private services jobs against their will.  That was better decision for those people than to serve the interest of a killer of people. You cannot tell me those people are more honorable, have more moral and love for the country than you do. I therefore strongly believe that decisions you take to stay with him to this moment are voluntary choices which speaks volume about your values and integrity.

We should all be disappointed with Yahya’s actions, a man who claims to be a Pan-Africanist and a champion for peace negotiation with respect to his involvements in Guinea Bissau, Senegal, Mauritania, Guinea Conakry and many more including his faked peace and unity speeches at the UN assembly. When he is now faced with his own test of faith, he couldn’t but reveal his true identity:  egocentric, greed and shallow-minded whose rational senses are bloated with evil pleasure acts on own his people. Here comes the narrow mindedness persona described by Lord Acton; a man whose conscience cannot simply let him understand that the peoples’ choice overrules his individual interest regardless of the mountain of development agendas he claims to have. I find it difficult to understand why a man, whom, Gambians have given so much and endured so much pain, says he must continue remain in power as if he is a god over of us. I can only blame him to an extent when people like you who continue to fuel his actions. I also find it so difficult to question his psyche without questioning your rationality.

Knowing how caring a “typical” Gambians is especially our women folks, it is also shameful to continue seeing the likes of Isatou Njie Saidy, Fatou Lamin Faye, Fatou Mbaye, (the list goes on…) standing by a man who has no path a good end.  I challenge their honestly, sincerity and love for the Gambia. I also question the authenticity of their religious morals and beliefs. To all of you, I say, the history to judge your actions is already in the making. To you, I say again, your creator and Gambians in particular cannot forgive give the role you may individually play in the 22 years oppression. Twenty-two years is long enough for a child born within the period to mature and be able to differentiate good from evil practices.

My list of champions in this near-ending crusade are endless; from the people who lost their lives on the cause to emancipate us from the oppressions (from 1995-present), to those who involuntarily left the country as well as those who stayed behind bearing the pain but more so, the countless politically motivated sentences and tortures. I cannot also forget our noble champions political leaders as well as voters who coalesce their strengths to uproot the evil man with power of marbles. Today, we can proudly say that Gambians including you will all come to enjoy the freedom you denied us.

The Barrow government, I can certainly foretell will be a decent one; one that will not out to witch-hunt as you had and supported. The composition, maturity and caliber of the incoming leadership tells a lot about the new Gambia in the making; a Gambia that will respect the rule of law, freedom of speech and empowerment of its citizenry. This is what Gambians miss under the regime you hail and foster. One thing I can surely say, your victims shall not rest until justice is served to them. The old saying that Gambians are very forgiving will no more prevail because so many malpractices have been executed in your 22 years cannibal administration.

Regardless of his evil actions, I feel some remorse for him. He surrounded himself with people like all of you who misled him or were not ready to tell him the truth. the prove to this was is his post-election remarks stating that he was insulted and even his mother. I laughed over that but again it validated a remark once made by our champion Fatou Camara of Fatu Network who once said she believes Yahya does not visit the social media because he hates being criticized. Though I believe her, but I also believe that he changed after December 1. To me, that was the date he curiously started to explore the social media and discovered those remarks. If he had been on the media before, then Pa Nderry Mbaye’s  “fair and balance’ medium, Essa Bukarr Sey’s focus discussions, BambaMass ‘Kalimas”, Pa Samba Jaw’s relentless advocates (the list goes on), would have taught him what was been said about him.

I will also sympathize with him for saying he has learnt a great lesson but only if he means the lesson was that you were feeding him with wrong impression and advise up until after December 1, when he discovered for himself the truth about how people feel about him. Regardless, I believe ‘Babilimansa’ should of sound mind to know good from evil. He failed to follow the footsteps of Nabi Daud, who went out to find out for himself, how his subjects felt about his ruling. Instead of helping him to be a better person, you have participated in shaping him into an evil monster whose past and legacy will never be a good history for Gambians to narrate to the future generation.

In conclusion, I ask for all Gambians to join me in petitioning the incoming administration for the eradication of attributes and symbols of tyranny in our beloved land from now to posterity. Therefore, please help to complete the wish list to the attention of the incoming administration:

  • Never to celebrate or recognize July 22 anniversary as a public holiday;
  • Change the name of Arch 22 to City Gate or any other beautiful name the Banjulians will like;
  • SulaymanJunkungJammeh hospital to be renamed as Bwiam hospital;
  • AFPRC hospital to be remain as Farafenni Hospital
  • July 22 square to be renamed Banjul Central square or any other name the Banjulians will like;
  • All areas, facilities, and services sectors that he named to be remembered should be renamed to reflect the community or beneficiaries.
  • Never encourage presidential billboards in all corners
  • Never encourage cash display to people in a manner done by Yahya Jammeh
  • Never engage in the abuse of our security forces as herdsmen, farmers or objects;
  • List goes on………! We Gambians believe that from January  19th going forward, decency will prevail in all sectors!

‘Yirri baa boita’ and new beacon of hope for The Gambia

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Democracy is up to the people: A successful democracy does not rely on a single personality or an elected leader. All people need to partake in political processes. Space for citizen participation and the emergence of a civil society, diaspora activism and new media help ease Gambia’s transition from dictatorship to democracy.

The turnout to December 1 elections are a goodsign as it reflects the people want to take more active role in the country’s democracy, suggesting democracy in Gambia has longevity. It takes time to build a democracy after decades of dictatorship; the Gambia under Jammeh have rule of law deficit, chroniccorruption, complete control of the armed and combined security forces and tribalism.

The Gambian people have finally decided to dislodge dictatorship to democracy, they want not only procedural democracy but also substantive democracy; a functioning democratic system that will reflect in a contest of ideas between candidates, not a contest of financial strength or the ability to smear.

President Yahya Jammeh is the latest victim of coalition opposition politics in Africa. His defeat should send a clear message to other sit-tight, royalist leaders across Africa. The long- term solution to the Yahya Jammeh problem should be the introduction of a Constitutional term limit for the Gambian Presidency to prevent another Jammehism from ruling as he wished to rule for “one billion years”.

When President Yahya Jammeh conceded defeat after the December 1, presidential elections, the gesture was widely hailed and described as an indication of great hope for democracy in Africa particularly for the Gambian people, which Yahya Jammeh ruled with an iron-fist for twenty-two years. The 2016 presidential elections were perhaps the most significant political development in the political history of the Gambia in fifty-two years. The first transfer of power through the ballot box.

President Adam Barrow is a product of a coalition of opposition parties who provided the platform for the people’s yearning for change. President Barrow became the symbol of the people’s hopes, and of freedom from Yahya Jammer’s dictatorship that was the benchmark of brutality, love of witchcraft and human rights violations.

For over two decades under President Yahya Jammeh and his AFPRC regime, independent views were considered seditious. Secret police were everywhere, listening for hints of subversion. Yahya Jammeh name was spoken in whispers unless, you were praising him, in which case you genuflected and shouted hoarse at rallies and in Gamo gatherings, thanking Allah for loving Yahya Jammeh so much as to bless him and his family with a leader of such peerless morality, wisdom and compassion.

Those who demurred at such scurrilous sycophancy found themselves at the old GPMB buildings along Mariana Parade where Bambina located, a torture chambers built by the National Intelligence Agency (NIA). The state became a law unto itself, seizing land and property meant for hospitals, schools and other infrastructure to award to its sycophants. If you sang praises like a parrot — as we were encouraged to do — you were rewarded. Many became overnight millionaires. The country’s economic growth rate went negative.

Under Yahya Jammeh’s rule, The Gambia is in a crisis of morality. It left a culture in which wealth, no matter how one gets it, is a redeeming value. It bequeathed mind-boggling selfishness, as exemplified in our driving immoral habits; it inculcated a culture of mediocrity and short cuts; it taught us to see the world through tribalism, and to shirk personal responsibility in the execution of public duty.

In a phrase, Yahya Jammeh and his APRC party left a Gambia whose value system must be re-engineered to support a prosperous Third Republic.

The foregoing dictates the kind of president The Gambia needs in Adama Barrow. First, a leader who will stake his personal prestige and sense of accomplishment on achieving the goals set in his campaign. This will mean assembling a team of high achievers irrespective of tribe or party loyalty, and demanding by personal example, total commitment to the task at hand, personal integrity and innovation.

Second, the country will need a leader who is keenly aware of our despotic past and is therefore, totally committed to fully implementing the Constitution. This will mean acting, appointing, deciding only based on enhancing the aims of the Constitution.

Nelson Mandela understood keenly the human cost of apartheid, and on assumption of the presidency, he went about with a single-mindedness of purpose to banish completely its cultural institutional and legal underpinnings.

A third republic of The Gambia will need a leader who can visualize the society anticipated by Constitution, and inspire us all to see that vision and work towards it. This will mean re-educating us not to analyze our society through the prism of tribe, thereby creating a new basis for social interaction and political mobilization.

By Alagi Yorro Jallow

Gambians in Belgium insist Jammeh must go!

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The Gambian community in Belgium on Tuesday handed over a petition to H.E Tenneng Mba Jaiteh, Head of Mission in Brussels, calling on outgoing President Yahya Jammeh to accept the will of the people and facilitate a smooth handover of power to President-elect Adama Barrow on January 19th, 2017.

It could be recalled that the Brussels Mission and its head Tenneng Mba Jaiteh is among the 11 Gambian Ambassadors who jointly sent a letter to Mr Jammeh calling him to step down when his term ends on January 19th, 2017.

Handing over the petition on behalf of the Association, Pa Modou Faal, Secretary General of the Association also raised concern over the recent announcement by the Inspector General of Police that people should demand permit for convoys on the public roads saying they find it troubling and bias and called on the IGP to reverse such decision.

Below is the full message contained in the petition;
PETITION: GAMBIA HAS DECIDED

The Gambian Community in Belgium hereby join the rest of the world in condemning the statement made by the outgoing President of The Republic of The Gambia calling for the nullification of the December 2nd election results. As Gambians living in the Diaspora and could not vote, we stand in solidarity with the Gambian electorates recognizing the results as the will of the Gambian people.

It is the sole responsibility of the outgoing President to avoid chaos in the country and should therefore facilitate a smooth transition of power to President Elect Adama Barrow. As the country’s peace and stability hangs in the balance, threats of military intervention from regional institutions are eminent and will result in so many casualties.

The recent announcement by the Inspector General of Police demanding permit for any convoy on the public roads has come to all concerned Gambians as a surprise since it is only the Coalition who drives in a convoy at the moment. This we find troubling and bias and therefore calls on the Inspector General of Police to reverse such decision.

We also expect professionalism and patriotism from members of the security. They should know that Gambians have decided to change leadership and the will of the people remains unchanged. The Only resort was at the Supreme Court and The Gambia Bar Association has made it clear that there had been no sitting judges since May 2015. Members of the Bar have pending cases at the Supreme Court and it has never come to their attention that judges have been appointed.

The peace and tranquility of The Gambia supersedes all other interest of any individual or group. The history we write today will be irreversible and indelible hence the need to continue to nurture the peace and stability the Gambia is known for. In order to achieve this, it is in the best interest of outgoing President Yahya Jammeh, his Executive, the APRC party, the Supreme Court and all Gambians to accept the December 2nd results and work towards inaugurating President Elect Adama Barrow on January 19th 2017.

We hope that this petition can bring change in the current political impasse of our dear motherland and touch the hearts of those who wants bring the Gambia into turmoil.

For The Gambia, Our Homeland…..Let Justice Guide Our Actions….To The Gambia Ever True.

By Alhagie Jobe

Gambia’s 2017 budget is over D14 Billion

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The Gambia’s total budget for the year 2017 stands at D14.34 billion from D12.99 billion in 2016.

This was disclosed to Gambians on Thursday by outgoing Finance Minister Abdou Kolley while presenting the 2017 national budget to the National Assembly of the country.

The budget was presented three weeks before the present government of President Yahya Jammeh will hand over power to the incoming government of President-elect Adama Barrow after loosing the crucial December 1st Presidential election.

The budget will centrally focus on ensuring micro-economic stability through increased and enhanced private sector participation in economic activities to spur economic prosperity.

Finance Minister Kolley told Parliamentarians that the total revenue and grants in 2017 is estimated at D14.34 billion from D12.99 billion budgeted in 2016, representing a growth of 10.4% and domestic revenue is projected to slightly decline by 1.2% from D8.6 billion in 2016 to D8.5 billion in 2017.

“Similarly, tax revenues are also estimated to decline from D7.93 billion to D7.86 billion, while non-tax revenue would increase marginally from D670 million in 2016 to D674 million in 2017. The project grants are estimated at D5.8 billion compared to D4.4 billion in 2016 representing an increment of 31.8% over the period” he said.

On sector by sector plans for the coming year, the minister said agriculture continues to be the strength of the economy and has managed to recover from the setbacks of late and insufficient rains in 2011 and 2014.

“In so doing, government intends to improve key enablers such as sustainable macroeconomic framework, energy, access to finance, transport and communication, a simplified tax code, land use management, ICT and highly qualified human capital. In addition to this, the government will also enforce fiscal discipline to ensure that the cost of borrowing, particularly for the domestic debt comes to sustainable levels – making entrepreneurship viable for all actors in business spectrum through reduction in policy rate” the minister said.

He said the agriculture sector has witnessed a significant growth both in the number and size of the portfolio of agriculture projects.

“In 2015, the agricultural sector grew by 3.8 percent compared to a contraction of 7.1 percent in 2014. This improved performance is primarily due to a growth of 4.5 percent in crop production from a contraction of 20 percent in 2014,” he said.

In terms of sub-sector growth rate, the minister said livestock and forestry experienced setbacks with growth rate declining to 3.1 and 4.3 percent in 2015 from 4.6 percent respectively.

“As per Gambia Bureau of Statistic revised sectoral growth rate, industry grew by 8.2 percent in 2015 compared to 2.7 percent in 2014. This impressive performance is the result of amelioration of growth in electricity, gas and water supply and construction, which recorded a growth of 9.2 and 24.1 percent in 2015 from 7.4 and 10.6 percent respectively in 2014” Minister Kolley noted.

The Finance minister also disclosed that preparatory works are progressing steadily for the construction of the world class international conference centre for the hosting of the OIC summit in The Gambia in 2018. He said already a site has been identified and both the design and the final implementation agreement have been reviewed and the actual construction is expected to commence in early 2017.

On education, the minister said a significant achievement has been registered in enrollment at all levels. He said enrollment at the basic education; that is from grade 1 to 9, has increased from 383, 679 in 2015 to 399, 567 in 2016 representing an increase in Gross Enrollment Ratio from 90.9 percent to 92.3 percent.

“Gross enrollment ratio at senior secondary level also rose from 41.6 percent in 2015 to 44.0 percent in 2016 as a result of the increase registered in school enrollment from 51, 225 to 56, 001,” he concluded.

By Alhagie Jobe

National Assembly: Time to act! #GambiaHasDecided

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As we draw closer to the end of term of the tenure of the outgoing president, yet he remains recalcitrant in accepting the verdict of the people, it is now time for the National Assembly to assume its constitutional responsibilities. All categories of the Gambian society have spoken in no uncertain terms and various groups have shown their open and unfettered support for Adama Barrow as the elected president of the republic. The entire Gambian population is now determined and prepared to defend our vote. The international community has similarly shown that they are fully behind the people of the Gambia by calling on outgoing president to step down.

Yet the outgoing president continues to make ridiculous statements about the elections while filing an ill-informed petition to a non-existing yet illegally constituted Supreme Court, which intends to start sitting on January 10. Meantime ECOWAS, backed by the African Union and the United Nations and governments of the world, has indicated that come January 19 if Jammeh refuses to step down they will resort to the use of military force to end his misrule. Since December 9 they have been frantically engaged in diplomacy to avert conflict.

Now I ask, does the National Assembly wish to tell us that they are not aware of these developments in our country to the point that they have remained mute like a silencer? Given the fast approaching fateful January 19 day, and the continued refusal of Jammeh to see reason and abide by our constitution, the onus is now on the National Assembly as the only constitutional authority in our republican system with the capacity to bring sanity to the outgoing Pres. Jammeh and save the Gambia. I wish to put it to the members of the National Assembly that they have a duty to prevent a military conflict in our small but beautiful land by prevailing on the outgoing president to humble down with faith and respect the verdict of the people.

Advice The Outgoing President
Section 102 spells out the functions of the National Assembly and in that regard Subsection (a) empowers the National Assembly to ‘advise the President on any matter which lies within his or her responsibility’. The first responsibility of the president is to respect and defend the constitution. But on December 9, it is clear that Yaya Jammeh has reneged on his oath of office by flouting Section 6 of the constitution and intends to further violate Section 63(2). By these actions he has already violated his responsibilities under Section 17, which puts an obligation on the president to protect the fundamental rights and freedoms of citizens.

Hence the National Assembly must now rise up to its obligation to advise the president as per Section 102(a) to withdraw his December 9 infamous statement because it was unconstitutional, politically motivated with bad faith and endangers national security.

Vote of No Confidence
Failure of the president to heed to the advice of the National Assembly, the parliamentarians yet still have other powers given to them by the constitution to pass a vote of no confidence in the president under Section 63 Subsection 3. Hence the National Assembly still holds the key to our salvation and the prevention of armed conflict in our dear country. They must be seen to fulfill these solemn national duties.

Impeachment of the Outgoing President
Apart from a vote of no confidence and failure of the president to heed parliamentary advice, yet the constitution still gave powers to the National Assembly to impeach the president for misconduct. Section 67 Subsection 2 empowers the National Assembly to undertake impeachment proceedings of the president for misconduct, which are spelt out in Section 67 Subsection 1.

The grounds for removal of the president under the first paragraph of this section are where he or she is found to cause ‘abuse of office, wilful violation of the oath of allegiance or the President’s oath of office, or wilful violation of any provision of this Consultation’ or if he or she misconducted himself ‘in a manner which brings or is likely to bring the office of President into contempt or disrepute’. Furthermore the second paragraph of Section 67 Subsection 1 also states that a president can be impeached for having ‘dishonestly done any act which is prejudicial or inimical to the economy of The Gambia or dishonestly omitted to act with similar consequences.’

Here again we can see that outgoing Pres. Yaya Jammeh has abused his powers, wilfully violated the oath of office of the president and flouted many other provisions of this constitution based on his utterances and actions since December 9. The deployment of soldiers into the offices of the IEC and the continued denial of media coverage to Adama Barrow by GRTS are additional actions that severely violate the constitution. Furthermore, by making GAMTEL to close down Internet and telephony services on December 1 coupled with the deployment of soldiers in combat readiness around the country without a state emergency or declaration of war, all constitute actions that damage the economy of the Gambia.

These actions and utterances including his statements with the African Bar Association as well as statements by his associates, notably National Assembly Member Seedy Njie are major factors causing anxiety in the Gambia and slowing down the economy. Their statements by Yahya Jammeh and Seedy Njie constitute threats to the peace and security of the country as they peddled tribalism, threatened constitutionality and incitements to violence against certain individuals and communities. These are clear and justifiable grounds for impeachment.

Meet with the Outgoing President
In light of the foregoing, it is therefore utterly urgent and necessary that the Speaker of the National Assembly Abdoulie Bojang together with the Majority Leader Fabakary Tombong Jatta and the Minority Leader Samba Jallow and all the members demand an urgent meeting with the outgoing Pres. Yahya Jammeh to advise him to withdraw his December 9 illegal utterance. They should advise him to go back to his December 2 concession of defeat and promise to support the transition process. They should advise him to therefore reactivate the transition process and abide by the terms of the constitution for the inauguration of Adama Barrow on 19 January 2016.

Failure to heed to the advise of the National Assembly, I would call on the Speaker, the Majority and Minority leaders and all members to therefore invoke Section 63(3) to pass a motion of no confidence in him. They should follow this with invoking as well Section 67(2) to impeach him for gross misconduct.

Abandon Yaya Jammeh and Embrace the Gambia
In addition to the constitutional responsibilities placed on them, members of the National Assembly also owe it to their country as the representatives of their people to abandon Yaya Jammeh in order to prevent a violent conflict from erupting in the Gambia. I therefore call on all National Assembly Members to publicly isolate and disassociate themselves, individually and collectively from the outgoing president in the supreme interest of the Gambia, their motherland. All sectors of Gambian society have spoken, yet the National Assembly as an institution and as individual members have remained mute. Bear in mind that failure to play your part as effectively as you should but letting the country to plunge into conflict, then you should consider yourselves as accomplices in the crime against the Gambia. History will judge you as those sons and daughters who abandoned their motherland at her most painful moment in favour of a dishonest, unpatriotic, greedy and murderous tyrant.

Let us engage our National Assembly Members
I wish to call on all Gambians to impress on their National Assembly Members to realise that they are the direct representatives of the people hence they must be seen to uphold and defend the will of the people. Our will was expressed on December 1, and the National Assembly must realise that it is the most important national institution in the Gambia that cannot be seen to be a bystander in the affairs of the people. They must not aid and abet any attempt, project or individual who wishes to dilute and abrogate the will of the people. This is a solemn responsibility placed on the National Assembly by the constitution under Section 112 paragraph (a),

‘All members shall regard themselves as servants of the people of The Gambia desist from any conduct by which they seek improperly to enrich themselves or alienate themselves from the people, and shall discharge their duties and functions in the interest of the nation as a whole and in doing so, shall be influenced by the dictates of conscience and the national interest.

On the basis of this provision, and in the face of a looming national tragedy and in fulfilment of my constitutional responsibility and because of my love for country, I hereby call on the National Assembly to assume their national and constitutional responsibilities without delay. Failure to fulfil their historic and patriotic duty, they risk plunging the country into a conflict of far reaching consequences for which the people of the Gambia will neither forget nor forgive them forever and ever.
For the Gambia, Our Homeland. #GambiaHasDecided

By Madi Jobarteh

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