There are three things among others that I will never be embarrassed or apologetic for – My FAITH. MY RACE. MY TRIBE. These composed my identity and I can’t run away from. To disparage me by attacking them amounts to disrespecting and insulting my being. When that happens, I cannot reserve any degree of love or respect for you. It does not make me a Bigot, aRacist or Tribalist. You identity is Your Pride. I’m not going to be wearing it around my neck to hate, love, and embrace or discriminate. When that happens that’s when it becomes abhorrent and dangerous. Allah acknowledges, respects our (distinct) identities – Tribes and Nations in the Quran, and it was not for nothing.

‘O mankind! We created you from a single (pair) of a male and a female, and made you into nations and tribes, that ye may know each other (not that ye may despise (each other). Verily the most honoured of you in the sight of Allah is (he who is) the most righteous of you. And Allah has full knowledge and is well acquainted (with all things).’ – Quran Surah 49:13

While we’re worried about President Jammeh and his government looting and misappropriating our state resources, abusing and exiling us, we tend to dismiss his public inflammatory rhetoric as ‘insanity’ and Jammeh rants. In doing so we are giving him the green card to continue this dangerous path.

What we may be involuntarily doing is fanning his sadistic and dangerous fire by ignoring his incendiary and deliberate tribal diatribes that could plunge the little Gambia into ethnic and civil chaos. From recent history, we’ve seen how ethic violence in Bosnia, Rwanda and Burundi could lead to an annihilation of a whole ethnicity and their identities, fueled by idiots like Yaya with a platform. Fortunately for us, thus far Jammeh is the only Gambian propagating tribal hatred and discord.

I’d not have any qualms with Yaya Jammeh the person having the sentiments he has towards Mandinkas. That is his prerogative. What troubles and disgusts me is Yaya Jammeh the president of the Gambia’s incessant obsession with vile remarks, insults and threats towards a particular group of people because of their ethnicity any time he is accorded the opportunity. As a matter of fact, Yaya’s discomfort and resulting vitriol towards the Mandinkas has gone beyond verbal pronouncements to become executive and government policy where they get targeted, discriminated and marginalized. For an elected president to comfortably state or make it a policy that he prefers one particular tribe to another is not only discriminating but troubling, despite swearing to serve and execute his duties without fear or favor, affection or ill-will.

For far too long, we have avoided this conversation in the mainstream discourses for fear of being labeled tribalist. It makes us uncomfortable. For 20 years, we’ve watched Jammeh say the most disrespectful things on TV and political platforms about a particular tribe and we passingly condemn or laughed them off. Habitually, he’d go to a predominantly Mandinka communities with the likes of Yankuba Touray and the seyfos warning and threatening them against tribal politics and division, setting the stage for Yaya to masturbate rubbish while our parents shamefully grin. He’d wag his fingers, raise his voice at them and call them, their kids unpatriotic souls and enemies of the country. What a disingenuous lie! Objective is clear and the mission defined. This nigga is a divisive, hateful being. What would my parents and I gain in hating the Gambia? Why would I set the one place I call home ablaze?

‘WHO TAUGHT YOU TO HATE YOURSELF?‘ Malcolm X asked his people. Well let’s ask ourselves the same question. Could you imagine a little white boy walking around in a black neighborhood screaming “NIGGER!’? Or a black boy in a Klan town singing ‘Cracker Cracker!’ So in as much as I want to squeeze the living soul out of Jammeh, I have to be realistic that the Mandinkas made him this comfortable to even have the audacity. If I am comfortable enough to tell your derogatory things about your family, I must have sensed how you feel about your own. I cannot respect a man who pisses on his people just so he could fit in.

Since 1994 there has never been a shortage of Mandinkas used by Jammeh against their own. From Almamo Manneh, Baba Jobe, Tabora Manneh, Yankuba Touray, Kaba Bajo, Momodou Sabally, all would jump at the chance to berate their own parents and their identity just to be close to the president. But good old Yaya ends up destroying them one by one and move to the next.  Ndey Tapha Sosseh aptly argued this in her piece a couple of years ago. Yaya will continue to insult us because WE let him. We insult ourselves by running and fighting over his crumbs.

So Who Taught Us to Hate Ourselves? Yaya Jammeh. He is not stupid. Jammeh has succeeded in beating the esteem out of us with the help of shameless, selfish and embarrassing Mandinkas to an extend that we are afraid and embarrassed to identify ourselves as Mandinkas. The Gambian Mandinka is the only kind you’d ask ‘where are you from?‘ and he responds with ‘I was born in Jarra BUT I went to school in Kanifing’. We’re the only one’s you’d ask ‘What are you?’ and we tell you ‘My mom and dad are Mandinkas but my aunt’s co-wife is a Hausa‘. God forbid you mistakenly take them for a UDP sympathizer. They’d swear that they’d detonate a grenade at a UDP rally. Yaya Jammeh has succeeded in emasculating us. He’s succeeded very little efforts, to have us shun our identity and embarrassed to speak or admit being a Mandinka in public much more before him. He understands the psychological domination, and then dangles a position before these greedy, low self-esteem idiots and they drown each other in a gas tank just to please him. Gathers and calls them filth and scumbags, and they applaud. It is a shame!

I dislike President Jammeh NOT because he is a Jola or he’s from Foni. And will not follow that with the qualifying statement that ‘I am not tribalist because my friends are Jolas’. I have never seen the need why people use that defensive line when they do not have hold such feeling. I do not support him because I do not agree with the way he runs the affairs our country. This has nothing to do with his tribe. I will not support him because he has become more everything that he claimed was wrong with the first republic. I cannot be voting or remotely working with an elected president who has no respect for his nationals. In a conscious democracy, Yaya would never utter such slurs towards a demography that has numbers on their side knowing that would cost him. It wouldn’t happen. So I am not asking anybody to vote against Yaya on tribal lines, but I will unapologetically ask that you turn your backs against a man who shares nothing in common with you and does bat an eye to disrespect you in your face. This is not just for the Mandinkas but anybody who respect decency and frown on the hatred propagated by Jammeh. Today he has his arsenal on the Mandinkas, tomorrow could be you. Politics is an interest game. You’d be foolish to continue voting for a known tribalist and imbecile SOB.He can get raped by a gang of apes and contact ebola for all I know. This nigga disgusts me!

Pata PJ

Gambian First lady Zainab Zuma Jammeh has always been accused of wasting state monies on private trips fully funded by the Gambian taxpayers. Faturadio can authoritatively reveal details of budgets and numbers of staff that accompany her on private trips, using a private fight which her husband Yaya Jammeh owns but which the state hires and pays for to ferry Zainab on her private trips abroad. The following is a breakdown of the expenses incurred for a 3day private trip to Morocco by the First lady, fully funded by the state. This breakdown covers only the cost of the private plane:

Fuel Bjl/Cas/Bjl: $20,000

Catering Banjul: $2,000

Handling Casablanca: $5000

Fuel Cas/Bjl/Cas: $30,000

Catering Casablanca: $5000

Hotel for crew+ transport $5000

Overflihgt + navigation fees $4000

TOTAL: $71,000 (D3,834,000 @$1 = D54)

Many lament the lack of financial control and spending at the Office of the President as a large chunk of the Nations budget is apportioned to the Office of the President to cover such lavish trips and celebrations. Many have seen other first ladies especially of Senegal taking commercial flights and traveling with a small entourage to save state resources. The high cost detailed above, covers just the private plane to carry the fist lady and her entourage. Many say that with the worsening Gambian situation, the National assembly or department of budgets at the Finance Ministry really need to control the out of control spending of the President and his wife. A source even said that “before telling the chief medical officer to go increase consultation fees for patients to raise revenue for the hospital, Fabakary Tombong Jatta should be telling President Jammeh and Zinab Jammeh to use commercial flights to travel and even justify their numerous private trips and lavish celebrations using taxpayer monies”

Zainab Jammeh is notorious for not just her numerous private trips, her numerous lavish shopping trips, her lack of regard for anything Gambian but also her the huge entourage she travels with even for private trips and all at taxpayer expenses. Many say that Zinab competes with the likes of Michelle Obama, however many will tell you that Michelle shops at “target” and wears “J crew” to promote American brands, while Zinab is hardly seen wearing Gambian brands or shopping in Gambia. “I was expecting that she will wear a Gambian designer to the White House Dinner to promote tourism and Gambian fashion, instead Zinab choose a designer dress more expensive than Michelle Obama, for a first lady from a poor country like Gambia, that speaks volumes” said another observer.

Observers say that the amount spend on a private flights for the first lady, could have been spent on priority areas like the Gambian hospitals and health centers where basic things like gloves and medication are not available prompting the Chief Medical Officer to continuously call on the President to help with medication and equipment for the hospitals. Many observe that with Zinab and her children never using our health services, the President really does not care what state our hospitals are in. “Zainab delivers her children in America, Yaya flies them out even for basic medical care including immunizations, Jammeh himself and his mum fly overseas for medical treatment, yet you expect him or Zinab to care about our health services” said a source. Another priority area that taxpayer monies wasted at the Office of the president could have been spent on is youth employment, skills training and entrepreneurship. Thousands of Gambian youths are dying taking the backway to Europe, the Jammeh government is silent on this human tragedy and not coming up with any policies to address the frustrations that are leading the youth to take the backway to Europe “Jammeh sending immigration officers to Europe to identify and deport Gambian youths is not the solution because they return to face the same economic and social miseries that they left behind, Jammeh really has failed the youths of the Gambia”.

We will be attaching a letter showing the expenses detailed above and another showing the entourage for the first lady on a 3day private visit to Morocco, which includes a manicurist and a hairdresser!! to further highlight the massive drain Zinab is on Gambian taxpayers.

The “vous” is a derivative of “rendez-vous” and has long been a Gambian social institution. It is an organization of peers with shared interests, where men, and in some instance women, irrespective of social status, walk of life and political affiliation once loosely organized themselves into a social support group. In turn they would sometimes share the same “grand palace” where they can be found on most evenings chatting over attaya, a game of cards or board games such as checkers.

Dear Strugglers,

It does not come without huge costs. It’s an extremely traumatic experience, which robs citizens of their moral grounding by downgrading their humanity and elevating their materiality. And it poses an existential threat to the very fact of human existence. For a system that desensitizes citizens to devalue the very nature of humanity, no extreme is too far in debasing society. The catastrophic impact of the Gambia’s tyranny is undeniable, and characteristically showcases deep emotional scars far worst than any physical traumas sustained in an accident; it’s brutal and psychologically destructive. In a large number of homes throughout the moon-crater streets of metropolitan Sere-Kunda, innumerable wives lost husbands, and their kids lost fathers, to two decades of sustained state sanctioned murders, executions and political mayhem.

In the Kombo Saint Mary’s, area, far too many mothers and fathers lost daughters, husbands, sons and wives; forever disappeared by the notorious National Intelligence Agency. Throughout the length and breadth of Senegambia, in deep dry wells and shallow graves; in unmarked tombs and animal desecrated corpse sites, in dense forests and the open sea, Gambian and non-Gambian families lost sons, daughters, fathers, uncles, friends and neighbors to the cold, cruel hands of a regime completely oblivious the pain and agony of a nation. And in the Gambia’s gulag prison system and secret detention centers, innocent citizens and non-citizens, alike, are warehoused to languish in dark, dingy cells where many have died behind steel doors and tall concrete walls far from public view. The Gambia is a country whose history, over the last twenty years, is written in the blood of its citizens and non-citizens by a regime whose primitive savagery continues to stun a civilized world. It is a history etched in stone; undeniable, unacceptable and unforgivable.

What is occurring in the Gambia since the military regime seized power in 1994 is a travesty that defies imagination and challenges the conscience of a nation; extra-judicial executions, murders, forced disappearances, and mass incarceration. The end result of twenty long years of pernicious human rights abuse is the unparalleled blight of scruples, aggravated by the collective reticence of citizens to challenge the state’s moral bankruptcy. This state terrorism and citizens’ aversion to standing up to authorized state ruthlessness has engendered a vicious tyranny that has robbed Gambians of their dignities. Even more striking still is the ability of an insignificant number of citizens to derogate the extreme savagery in Gambia as immaterial to the healing and redemption process, in a nation’s deeply scarred by abuse, neglect and mismanagement. The calls for political reconciliation in Gambia disparages the pain and exacerbates the suffering of citizens who lost loved ones to the diabolical depravity and ruthlessness of a hated regime, which long ago lost the moral authority to shape the course of a nation. In spite of the shocking disregard for human life demonstrated by a clueless regime, a few Gambians are driven by self-interest to advance a dubious reconciliation agenda that does not support accountability or penalize the perpetrators of Gambia’s crippling criminality over two decades. It is preposterous to think Gambia will just return to politics as usual, without adequately addressing the catastrophe and burdens of two decades of sanguinary human rights abuses. The rabidity, with which a few Gambians have pursued a deeply flawed reconciliation effort, completely negates altruism as the driving force behind the strategy, and validates the hypocritical superficiality of the exercise. On his own freewill, in 2011, Yahya Jammeh initiated, organized and funded a reconciliation attempt with the dissident diaspora movement, and sponsored the willing few to travel to Gambian for what was labelled the “diaspora summit.”

In the end, it was a complete failure that has since receded into obscurity and irrelevance. But what is scarier than attempts to reconcile with Yahya Jammeh, is what transpired in Gambia since that craven reconciliation endeavor in 2011. Before even the ink of reconciliation dried, Yahya Jammeh had fallen back into his old, familiar disregard for human life, resulting in the execution of twenty-six Mile Two Prison inmates, abduction and assassination of Foni brothers, Wuyeh Colley and Enor Colley, abduction of businessman, Saul Ndow and politician Mahawa Cham, and the abduction and disappearance of two US citizens of Gambian descent. It comes as no surprise that nearly fifty more Gambians and non-Gambians have since been executed, fled the country, are languishing in prison, or abducted and disappeared from the face of the earth. In exhibiting an uncommon level of cruelty, Yahya Jammeh has eviscerated his diabolical character, which makes it absolutely impossible to give weight to his words or rely on his goodwill. The strident anti-reconciliation blowback is less of a reflection on Gambian’s incapacity to forgive, than on Yahya Jammeh’s homicidal misanthropy and untrustworthiness. Reconciliation, in any way it is looked at it, is throwing in the towel and recapitulating to a monster that lacks the ability to rationalize. It is inconsiderate to the pain Gambians feel, but more detrimental, it surrenders justice to a character of international disrepute; Yahya Jammeh. Gambian are about delivering justice for all the dead, the disappeared and those languishing in prison; not ego stroking. Maybe, if Yahya Jammeh resigns, frees every political prisoner unconditionally, and returns his looted \wealth, Gambians will consider sparing his life, but even that is a decision only citizens can make; not a random person purely motivated by self-interest. Until then, Gambians maintain no reconciliation or indemnifying the regime

As the Gambia joins the rest of the World to celebrate World Press Freedom Day today, May 3rd, 2015, I wish to join you (Media practitioners) in commemoration despite being a senior security officer. I am a bonafide senior citizen with a vast wealth of experience in the National Intelligence operations. As such, I wish to assure you that many of us are appreciative of your troubles and efforts towards ensuring a free society in The Gambia. I understand your pains and sacrifices for such a cause.

Today, as you commemorate this Day, I wish to extend special solidarity with the family of Journalist Chief Ebrima Manneh, who was held in incommunicado since 7th July, 2006. I will today make a ground-breaking revelation on all the information that the Gambian authorities are deliberately denying Manneh’s family, professional colleagues and the population, regarding all the events leading to his arrest by our own agents, and what he went through till his subsequent disappearance under their custody.

Just like you practitioners, we the Gambian security officers ourselves and the Gambian populace in general are no longer safe and secure, as long as our Commander in Chief (CiC) remains in power. Therefore, as discreet efforts to unseat him have so far been unsuccessful, one way we can take on him is not through Coup alone, but the quest to expose all the wrong-doings we have been executing against innocent citizens under our CiC’s directives.

I want to take the lead in this crusade, beginning with the Journalist Chief Ebrima Manneh’s case, as per the findings we have made on his whereabouts contained in our case files in the NIA, under the Office of the President.

Considering the failing trend through which our commander in chief (CiC), President Yahya Jammeh is taking, I deemed it imperative to shed light on Journalist Chief Ebrima Manneh’s disappearance. Already, some key people who know, or have hands in the disappearance of Chief Manneh are dying. Therefore, if proper measures are not instituted, a lot of information known to people will die down without any trace, testimony or proper evidence.

Based on our investigations at the NIA and as per the files available at our Desk, I noticed that Journalist Ebrima Manneh, a senior reporter of the Daily Observer newspaper, was picked up by two agents of the NIA. The officers were instructed to effect arrest on Chief Ebrima Manneh on July 7th, 2006, following The Gambia’s hosting of the 7^thAfrican Union Summit in Banjul.

Prior to his arrest, Chief Manneh had travelled to the US on the maiden direct flight of the defunct North American Airlines linking Banjul to New York.

From the NIA Red file case, Chief Manneh Vs the State, Strictly Confidential

Below is a synopsis of his activities before his arrest, events leading to his arrest and detention, as well as investigations into his case by our NIA office under the command of President Jammeh.

The US trip

As mentioned above, Chief Ebrima Manneh, alongside Hamidou Baldeh, former marketing manager of the Observer Company, in May 2006, travelled to the United States of America on the maiden direct flight of the now defunct North American Airlines linking Banjul to New York. Going by our investigations at the NIA, this journey lasted two days and both of them returned to The Gambia.

Chief Manneh then continued his work at the Observer as a senior reporter attached to State House, covering President Jammeh’s programmes and activities. Records have shown that Journalist Manneh returned to the country and even published stories about their experience with the then newly introduced Banjul-New York North American Airlines flight. Other reports were also authored by him in the Observer, copies of which we already have here at the NIA.

The AU Summit

Going by our files, The Gambia officially hosted the 7th edition of the African Union Summit between the 2^nd and 5^thJuly 2006 and the following day, July 6^th was a public holiday but Chief Manneh went to work alongside his colleagues to do the publication for the next day . While working at The Observer office Bakau on the 7^th July, two of our NIA agents went to arrest him.

These arresting officers only received orders to go and arrest, but actually they did not know the reason they effected the arrest. Besides, they were never part of any investigations.

Events leading to his arrest

During the investigations at the NIA, we discovered that Chief Manneh was accused by his former boss, the late Dr. Saja Taal, the then Managing Director of The Observer Company. Dr. Taal complained that Chief Ebrima Manneh had downloaded an article from the BBC website on the internet that was critical of The Gambia’s hosting the AU summit due to its poor human rights records, lack of democracy and press freedom, etc. for publication in the first post-AU Summit edition of the paper’s international news round up.

In fact, after examining the said international news page of that yet-to-be published edition of Observer, another article based on Kofi Anan (former UN Secretary General’s) speech at the AU Summit, was highly critical. That article called for presidential term limits for African presidents, greater democracy and freedom in the continent, which obviously were not pleasant to our head of state. These were to form the next day’s edition of Observer international news page as downloaded by Chief Ebrima Manneh.

Further investigations revealed that Chief Manneh who was on duties that day, printed the said articles into a transparent film and it was sent to the printers in the press room for printing. According to our findings, when Pa Malick Faye, at that time a senior editor at Observer, came to work in the afternoon, he went through the news pages and found that the said articles were included in the news bulletin for the next day.

Our investigations further revealed that Mr. Faye, then picked up the phone and called the late Dr. Saja Taal, to inform him about the said articles which Chief Manneh put in the paper for the next day. Dr Saja Taal, who according to investigations was not in good terms with Chief Ebrima Manneh, then rushed to the office and instructed the printers to halt the printing immediately. We also gathered that about 250 copies of the page that were already printed were ordered to be burnt instantly. The said single transparent paper that was prepared by Chief Ebrima Manneh for the printers was then taken away by the late Dr. Saja Taal. Taal gave the film to the late Momodou Sanyang, former GRTS Director General and board member of The Observer at the time.

It was also found that the late Momodou Sanyang also reported the matter to Neneh Macdouall Gaye, then Minister of Information and Board Chair of Observer. She is currently minister of Foreign Affairs.

Our reports here at the NIA have it that it was Neneh Macduoall Gaye who took the transparent film bearing the articles in question to the president’s office at State House and reported Chief Manneh, going by the information she received from her subordinates – (the late Dr. Saja Taal and the late Momodou Sanyang). This was the exact reason why Chief Ebrima Manneh was arrested by plain cloth officers of our Agency, under the president’s directives.

Also, during the course of the investigation, we were informed that after the said printed copies were burnt, Dr Taal called Lamin Kujabi, former Observer Store keeper to go back to the Observer office that night and give the printers another set of transparent films to restart the printing proper. This was done.

Note: I will also be happy to reveal at this point that the said Lamin Kujabi was my colleague in the NIA and he was sent to The Observer as an informer for the authorities. This was in the days of the late Hon. Baba Jobe. And until he decided to quit the job and travel abroad, he was on our payroll and I can give you his payroll number in the agency’s service.

International pressure into his case

As investigations into Ebrima Manneh’s case deepens, coupled with the pressure and international outcry over his disappearance for many years, both the NIA and Interpol were tasked to investigate his whereabouts. At the NIA, we did not take it seriously because we already knew he was with us and that is why we were moving him from one detention center to another across the country, so that the UN investigators and other human rights agencies will not find him.

Note: The reason why the government was hiding him at the time was because our CiC and president, has already declared that Ebrima Manneh was not in state custody, when that is not true. It now becomes a complicated matter for Chief Ebrima Manneh, after spending years in detention, and could not be produced.

During this period, we (The NIA) have already interrogated the late Dr. Saja Taal, the late Momodou Sanyang. Pa Malick Faye was interviewed by the Interpol in Banjul regarding his knowledge into Chief Ebrima Manneh’s circumstances and the said articles he wanted to print on the newspaper.

Meanwhile, the president should give us orders to arrest and investigate Neneh Macdouall Gaye if he really wants to answer to the international community on Chief Manneh’s case. Also Pa Malick Faye has a case to answer in this, and he should be recalled for a proper investigation, hence Dr. Taal and Momodou Sanyang are no longer living witnesses.

During our investigations, we also received reports of the testimonies of the witnesses at the Ecowas Court of Justice in Nigeria in 2008, during which Pa Ousman Darboe, a former colleague of Chief Ebrima Manneh told the ECOWAS court his knowledge into the case.

We have gathered from our files that in those days at Observer, there were six senior editors running the paper and the management divided them into two shifts. Chief Ebrima Manneh, Pa Malick Faye and Lamin Dibba were on the same shift in one group; whilst Ebrima Jaw Manneh, Pa Ousman Darboe and Abdoulie John were in the other group. Our investigations showed that during Chief Ebrima’s arrest, it was their turn to edit and produce the paper that week.

Torture

Like most other detainees at the NIA, Chief Ebrima Manneh was seriously tortured by the junglars and the military men after his arrest. The officers who tortured him include the late Captain Musa Jammeh, the late Captain Tumbul Tamba, Captain Sanna Manjang active member of the Junglers and the Armed Forces; Lt . Sang Michael Correa, Modou Jarjue, Alhagie Morr Jobe, and other members of the junglars.

I remember a day when the late Tumbul Tamba told journalist Chief Manneh that he (Tamba) hates journalists and will kill anybody who wants to bring down the government. The late Musa Jammeh once drunken, also displayed and shouted loud on top of his voice and said this government is here to stay and they will crush anyone who tries to challenges them.

Until the time he was moved from the NIA, Chief Manneh had collapsed on several occasions due to his physical weakness. He has also been admitted at the RVTH on several occasions. What happens after he was moved from our custody I cannot say. It is not yet proven that he is dead, or in fact alive after this.

Recommendations

In order to give Journalist Chief Manneh justice and have a fair and balanced trial, the international Human rights organizations including the UN, Amnesty International, ECOWAS Court of justice, and all other stakeholders must make sure that all those who played a role leading to his arrest and detention, as well as torture and possible killing, be brought to book.

These include our CiC President Yahya Jammeh, the arresting agents, the NIA director general at that time Harry Sambou, Neneh Macdouall Gaye, present minister of Foreign Affairs, who was the Minister of Information at the time of Chief Manneh’s arrest, Pa Malick Faye, former colleague of Chief Manneh who was mentioned in the case, Lamin Kujabi, former storekeeper at Observer who was called by Dr Saja Taal to supply the printers with another set of transparent films for printing after the burning of the said printed copies, and Alhagie Mor Jobe, Modou Jarjue, Bora Colley, Sanna Manjang, Sang Michael Correa and his colleague serial killers who dealt with him.

Meanwhile, some of the deceased persons who had hand in Chief Manneh’s case were, the late Dr Saja Taal, Momodou Sanyang, former GRTS managing director, the late Captain Tumbul Tamba, the late Captain Musa Jammeh, etc.

Although I strongly detest and condemn the arrest of young and innocent Yusupaha Lowe 14 years old, I became more engrossed into the fight for his immediate release when I saw his photo.  The picture depicted his beautiful smile and innocence, when he posed for that picture the last thing on his mind must have been to be arrested since 1st January 2015, detained and tortured.

No matter how bad the human rights violations in The Gambia, it is unfathomable to hear arrests and detention of children not because they committed crimes, but because The Gambia Government is detaining Yusupha for a crime allegedly committed by his father Bai Lowe (for his alleged participation in the December 2014 attacks).

We teach our children to be obedient,  we teach them manners and those manners become their insurance policy against being punished.  Imagine his confusion when he knew he did not do anything wrong, but suffers a consequence he does not understand?  My heart is heavy. I have cried so many tears for Yusupha because I am a mother, I have cried many tears for Yusupha because he is being treated unfairly.

As a mother, I fear this horrible experience will impact him very negatively for the rest of his life. How can The Gambia National Intelligence Agency (NIA) officers, most of whom may be parents, allow themselves to be responsible for the inhumane treatment of a minor? How is it possible that his mother Jarriatou Lowe, was also arrested but released and forced to leave her minor child in the custody of authorities?  I cannot imagine the agony of walking away from detention, not knowing what will happen to your child!  When we retire to bed at night, my children and I say “I love you” to each other – I tuck the younger one in….  I think of Yusupha and he is being denied that right.  He is at the ripe age where the challenges of his growth (reaching puberty) are big enough.

As a mother, I am afraid of the new Gambia where children are detained because of the alleged crimes of their fathers.  If we allow this to continue, we are allowing a trend that is not acceptable and should not be condoned in The Gambia.  Once referred to as the “Smiling Coast of Africa”, Gambians now live in a society where Yusupha Lowe is in custody but nothing is being done about it.  Every country has child welfare institutions that protects the rights of children from abuse and exploitation.  In the case of Gambia, when asked by the press to intervene in the abduction of Yusupha, the Director of Social Welfare was quoted as saying “I don’t have permission to talk to the press.” This is surprising to me because I acquired my first employment opportunity with the Department of Social Welfare.  At the time, the Department protected the rights of children all the way to the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare.  If a father was delinquent in their responsibilities to support children, the Department summoned the absentee parent to court and was forced into monthly payments.

When the parent was uncorporative, his salary was garnished and paid to the parent responsible for the care of the said child.  When a child needed critical medical attention overseas, the Director of Social Welfare would coordinate with international sources to take the child for treatment.

I wonder what happened to that same Department fast forward 20 years? Under President Dawda Kairaba Jawara, the rights of the children were protected because they matter.  Under President Yahya Jammeh’s regime, using Yusupha Lowe as a pawn in his dad’s alleged crime becomes normal because the president’s rules and rights supersedes the rule of law and the right of an innocent child.  This young boy has been arrested and has not been in school since his arrest on January 1st, 2015.  Why aren’t people in The Gambia doing anything about his detention? The simple answer is this: fear and intimidation.

I go to bed thinking about the fear in Yusupha eyes,  I think of Yusupha when my boys and I laugh and eat together.  I think of Yusupha when I wake up in the morning because I know he is confined in a place against his will. My heart aches when I sit down next to my children and feel their warmth,  Yusupha is being denied that privilege.   One thing I know for sure is that although people in The Gambia are unable to speak up against Yusupha’s detention, torture and intimidation, he has mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers and sisters in the Diaspora.

I am overwhelmed by the level of anger expressed by total strangers, including myself.  People who are afraid of speaking up against Yahya Jammeh because they want to continue going in and out of Gambia are putting those fears aside and standing up against Yusupha’s capture because they know it’s the right thing to do.  People have spent endless hours on Facebook and Twitter expressing their rage.  Yusupha, we may not have access to you right now, but be rest assured you have many who are looking out for you from afar,  we will not let you disappear into thin year. We will not keep your voice silent because we have become your voice, If you would like to be a voice for Yusupha, the “FreeYusuphaLowe” campaign continues on Facebook and Twitter.  As a mother, I am making a pledge that I mention him in my daily tweets and I will talk about Yusupha any chance I get.  That’s my pledge.  Please make the same pledge and visit the “FreeYusuphaLowe” page on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/freeyusuphalow?ref=aymt_homepage_panel

PEASE LET’S MAKE THE FOLLOWING HASHTAGS TREND ON TWITTER and bring world attention to 14 year old Yusupha’s plight. He needs to go home to his mom! If you are not on Twitter, this campaign should be the reason for you to join – it is easy!

HASHTAGS:

#FreeYusuphaLowe

#BringBackYusuphaLowe

#FreeYusuphaLoweGambia

#FreeInnocentFamiliesOfDecember30

#FreeInnocentMotherOfDecember30.