– Are you happy with the life you are living? Are you satisfied with the salary you take home every month? Is it ever enough to cover your living expenses? Do you own a home or are you renting? Do you own a car or do you take public transportation to work? Better yet, do you stand on the roadside waiting for a ride?

 
– How many of your friends, colleagues and family members receive a monthly salary that covers their living expenses? How many of them come to you to assist them with money for food, fares, rent or other basic necessities?

 
– Is this really the life you envisioned for yourself when you decided to join the security forces? Is this the best you can do in your life or do you think you deserve better? Would a regime that cares about you leave you in this condition?

 
How many times have you, your family members, neighbors or friends been sick and unable to get treatment at the hospital, or had to scramble to get money for medication?
Just think about it!

 
Compare the life you’re living to the life Yahya Jammeh and his family are living. While you’re struggling to get to Serekunda Market, Zeineb Suma is flying first class between Dubai, New York and Paris to do her shopping. While you’re struggling for D200 for your child’s school fees, Mariam Jammeh is chilling in a private high school in New York, fees over $20,000 per year. While you cannot afford cash power, or even candles when NAWEC goes out, Jammeh has 24hrs electricity both in Banjul and Kanilai.
Just think about it!

 
With all this, i did not see Jammeh beating, kicking or arresting anyone during the recent protests. It was YOU and your colleagues! Jammeh was not even in the country. In case you missed it, i would like to point out that this man is NOT worthy of your loyalty or respect. It is sad for you to allow him to continue to use you against your own people. Jammeh cares only about himself and staying in power, and he will do everything to achieve that. He will not hesitate to arrest, torture and murder you like he has done to many others once he is done with you. Where is Lang Tombong Tamba who was so loyal to him? Where is Solo Bojang? Where are Edward Singateh, Yankuba Touray, Sana Sabally and Sadibou Hydara? Where is his cousin, Pa Bojang?

 
Is this the man you will commit crimes to protect? What is in it for you? What do you get for following orders to arrest, beat and torture PEACEFUL protesters?
Just Think about it!

 
See these protesters? These are not strangers. They are not criminals and they are not your enemies for you be aggressive to them. These are your brothers, sisters, cousins, friends and neighbors. The people you live with. Your former school mates or their relatives, your colleagues, the people you meet and share a public transportation with…etc…All they want is for a better life for you and for themselves. All they’re doing is walk the streets and ask that ALL Gambians, including YOU, be treated with the respect every human being deserves – the same oath you made when you signed up for the job you currently have.
Guess what? You are welcome to join them. Yes, you can simply stand and march with them. If you’re sick or in trouble, i promise you you’ll see them before you see Yaya Jammeh by your side!

 
And if you’re not strong enough to join them in the peaceful march, you can stand by them and do your job…of making sure you protect them so nobody can harm them! It is your obligation to disobey any illegal orders, and any order that tells you to harm innocent Gambians is ILLEGAL!

 
My brothers, i beg you to obey your conscience and do what you know in your heart is right! Do it for peace, do it for justice, do it for humanity, do it for Gambia…but above all, DO IT FOR YOURSELF!

Sana Sarr

While a lot of people believe that it is the security service personnel of the Gambia who hold the balance of power in favour of Jammeh, others believe that it is our hard working and indefatigable women who are actually the backbone of his regime. However, my contention is that it is the vibrant, intelligent and dynamic youths of the Gambia who are the real deal makers or breakers. The future of our beloved country lies squarely in the hands of our youths as the last frontier of hope especially with regards to a political change. The writings are clearly on the wall for all to see.

One manifestation of this fact was on the 4th April when the UDP congressional convoy arrived in the Kombos from Basse. Following the rumours that there was a major demonstration unfolding in the streets of Banjul, there was a plethora of commentaries on social media and some online radios by some Gambians in the diaspora calling for the youths to come out in the streets in full force.

The impression was that once the youths managed to cross Denton Bridge, Yahya Jammeh will quickly take to the sea and be a refugee in Senegal like Baba Jawara did in 1994. However with the border closure in place, my guess was that Jammeh will not move an inch but will put up a fight. Anyway it was just a rumour and it seemed that the youths have apparently already made a decision of their own that they would not be drawn into any form of violence. Their message was loud and clear: they will not be used by any interest groups whatsoever!!!

Another example was about 3-4 weeks ago in a political rally in the village of Mariama Kunda. During the adoption ceremony of Mr. Dahaba as the father of the village, a pronouncement was made that the Kombo North Region is a no go area for the opposition. With no legal basis for such a declaration and not a chance that the security services would implement such a whimsical and wishful thinking, this was a ploy to instigate the APRC youths against the opposition. But the fact that the PPP, PDOIS and UDP are all over the Kombos holding political rallies is yet another proof that our youths have reached that level of enlightenment where they can no longer be used by politicians or their sycophants.

A third incident is a video which is currently online in which the Gambia’s Minister of Interior was addressing what appeared to be APRC youth militants. In this video, the Minister talked about the APRC youths as being not only the biggest in numbers but also the most hot-blooded. He asserted that they will not trouble anyone but anyone who troubles them will be dealt with using the full weight of the security forces. To me, this was a blatant attempt to divide the Gambian youths by drawing a battle line between “us” (the APRC youths) and “them” (the opposition). Again I am certain that our youths have passed the stage in which they can be divided and manipulated by any minister, governor, or other politicians. Not even by President Jammeh himself.

The wind of political change has finally arrived in The Gambia and change will certainly happen. In addition to overstaying in power, there are so many other reasons why we need a change in political leadership. One good reason is that for 22 years, Jammeh has made numerous promises and revealed several visions of the Gambia becoming an economic superpower and yet we are not even among the list of the top 100 wealthiest countries of the world. In the contrary and according to the World Bank, The Gambia is in fact among the top 10 poorest countries in the world.

http://www.cheatsheet.com/business/10-of-the-richest-and-poorest-countries-in-the-world.html/?a=viewall

Clearly, Jammeh and his government cannot and will not deliver The Gambia to the promised land of freedom and prosperity and so it is therefore time for a change. However, resorting to violence to achieve political change is absolutely not an option. If we set our little country on fire and shed each other’s blood, we will not even be on that list of the top 10 poorest countries at all. Instead, we will join Somalia on the list of failed states. Our voters’ cards are our bullets and the ballot boxes are our guns. By using this powerful weapon, we will achieve change in peace and security without any struggle, violence, reporting each other to the security or even trading insults at each other. We are too civilized, too enlightened, too closely related and too peaceful for all that.

In conclusion, I challenge each and every youth to go all the way out to convince our mothers, grandmothers, aunts and big sisters (who are the backbone of Jammeh’s regime), to also vote for change this year……even if that change is in the form of a Serrer man from Njongon village in the North Bank Region!!!

Long Live the Republic of The Gambia, long live our peaceful and harmonious co-existence!!! We can all smile and no one has to cry!!!!

 
Author Gano
Posted on April 12, 2016

By D. A. Jawo

 
It is 16 years today (April 10) when our own security forces brutally put down a peaceful procession organized by the Gambia Students Union (GAMSU), resulting in the deaths of at least 14 innocent children and the maiming of several more.

 
We can quite vividly recall those fateful two days when such brutality was unleashed on innocent Gambian school children while their only crime was to insist on staging a peaceful demonstration in order to protest against certain grievances, including the alleged killing of one of their colleagues by the fire brigade personnel in Brikama.

 
Even though it is 16 years since one of the most dreadful events in the history of the Gambia happened, yet still, the aggrieved relations and friends of those innocent young souls are still waiting for justice for their loved ones, while those who are still nursing the wounds of their offspring had been abandoned to their fate.

 
Certainly, the memories of those little souls who were brutally shot and killed in cold blood for merely coming out to exercise their most fundamental rights to peacefully march and show their grievances, will never fade away from the hearts and minds of those people of conscience who care about humanity and the crave for justice.

 
The only way that such naked injustice against the innocent children and indeed all people of conscience can be mitigated is for those who perpetrated the crime to be brought to justice and punished for their crime, which, unfortunately, this regime does not appear to ever intend to do.

 
Many Gambians still recall the events that led to the mayhem which resulted in the indiscriminate shooting to death of those innocent children. It started on the morning of 10 April 2000 when students in the Greater Banjul Area, under the leadership of GAMSU decided to stage a peaceful demonstration against a host of grievances, including the alleged killing of their colleague, Ebrima Barry by personnel of the Brikama Fire Brigade as well as the alleged raping of a girl student by a member of the security forces. Despite giving enough notice to the authorities about their intention to hold a peaceful procession to vent out their grievances, the police and those in authority, no doubt out of their arrogance and intoxication with power, apparently ordered the security forces to prevent the march at whatever cost, including the use of live bullets, which eventually led to the deaths of the 14 young people and maiming for life of several of their colleagues.

 
However, despite the widespread condemnation of the unprovoked shooting to death of the innocent children in the Greater Banjul Area on the 10th April, the security forces still went ahead to repeat that same brutality the following day in Brikamaba and other parts of the country, shooting to death several more children. It is even alleged that some of those who escaped death were subjected to untold brutality in the hands of the security forces while under detention, resulting in some of them being maimed for the rest of their lives.

 
Even though there was unanimity in the national and international condemnation of the brutality unleashed on the defenseless children by the security forces, the Gambian authorities have since been trying to wipe out that memory from the minds of the people of this country. Not only is any commemoration of the event totally forbidden, but the government has also done virtually nothing to assist the families who lost their loved ones or those children who were maimed. They are instead abandoned to their fate and the families of those who were maimed are left to continue to take care of them with the meagre resources at their disposal, and with no input from those who gave orders to the security forces to open fire with live bullets, and then went on the public media to tell big lies about it.
Therefore, instead of ensuring that justice was done in order to at least help ameliorate the psychological trauma of the affected families, the government decided to instead indemnify all those who were found culpable of unleashing such violence on innocent Gambian children. There is in fact enough indication that the authorities not only did not have any remorse about what happened, but that they have also given clear indication that they would not hesitate to do it all over again against anyone who challenges their hegemony.

 
The regime did not only stop at indemnifying the perpetrators of the unprecedented violence against the children, but they also went ahead to launch a systematic programme to annihilate GAMSU by creating their own surrogate student body; the National Patriotic Students Association (NAPSA), using public money and other incentives, and even coercion to entice students to become members of that puppet body, eventually making it the only legal student body in the country, enjoying unlimited financial and moral support from the authorities.

 
Therefore, through various overt and covert tactics, the authorities succeeded in transforming NAPSA into a formidable student union whose members were given all kinds of privileges and using them as proxies to control the activities of their fellow students and ensuring that they (the students) not only will never again challenge the authority of the government, but they were also instead left with no alternative but to submit to the dictates of the NAPSA leadership who had been imposed on them by the authorities.
What have we seen since then is that most of the original leadership of NAPSA have been absorbed into privileged positions in the government, including some of them being nominated as Members of Parliament and several other prominent positions in the public services. This is apparently as compensation for their role in helping to pacify the students and make them not only forget the brutalities that were meted out to their colleagues a few years earlier, but NAPSA was also effectively used to neutralize GAMSU and all other student bodies that had existed prior to the April demonstrations.

 
It is indeed hard for anyone to imagine that a government which makes so much noise about its concern for the welfare of its people would allow those who have committed such heinous crimes against the children of this country to not only continue to roam the streets with impunity, but for some of them to still continue to occupy important public offices and being paid from the public coffers.

 
There is however no doubt that most Gambians are anxiously looking forward to the day when the names of all those innocent young children whose lives were cut short by bullets of our own security forces, will be engraved in gold in a fitting memorial to be erected in a prominent place in the Greater Banjul Area. Also, those who were maimed and their lives left in miserable conditions would be given the maximum care by the state, while those found culpable for unleashing such brutality on them would be brought to book and justice will be finally seen to be done.