Editor,

Omar Jah of UTG has done it again. Jah damn well knows that he is on his way out and therefore decided to once again breed antagonism among UTG staff. Without following the laid down rules and regulations for staff promotion, Jah almost singlehanded promoted many perceived loyalists to the disregard of other hard working staff. As a result, some of the newly promoted staff are now earning more than their bosses. To add insult to injury, Jah hid behind the cover of UTG Management to do what he did. Jah, in writing to the beneficiaries, claimed that UTG Management did the promotion. This source can state with authority that this claim of Jah is a fallacy and any interested party is welcome to investigate. Instead, Jah was just utilizing the old tactics of his former boss and cousin, Muhammadou Kah. Messing up further, Jah never consulted UTG Finance to find out whether there were enough resources to accommodate the benefits of the newly promoted. Jah again neglected both the Appointments and Promotions Committee and the UTG Council, which is the approving authority of any recruitment and promotion at UTG. It seems that this Council is the worst that has ever been instituted to govern the affairs of UTG.

Council should know that when it comes to any major policy issue at UTG there are laid down rules and procedures to be followed. With regards to promotions, everything should be channeled through the Appointments and Promotions Committee which then laid before Council its recommendations. This is to ensure fairness in promoting staff, and it is what the rules call for. I urged Council to investigate and see whether this latest madness of Jah was in line with this simple procedure.

Mark my words, many UTG staff are very bitter about this unfair promotion. It is simply unacceptable and the whole exercise should be repeated in the manner prescribe by the rules.

Council for once should seriously assume its responsibility or honorably relinquish it. UTG Council should not be a place where members are out to protect staff just because of one relationship or the other, but this seems to be the case with Jah. WATCH OUT Council.

By DA Jawo

I have always been saying that the forthcoming presidential elections are like a referendum for Babili Mansa’s Islamic State project and if Gambians decide to elect him for another term, the first thing he would do will be to introduce full-fledged Sharia and other draconian laws that will regulate the way that ordinary Gambians will conduct their lives on a daily basis, thus destroying the very norms and values that we have always known in this country.

 
Another scary possibility is the prospect of Babili Mansa giving such Islamic radicals like Dr Zakir Naik the free hand to virtually run the country by proxy, making all the decisions that would affect our daily lives.

 
This extract below is from an analysis of what we should expect after the December elections made by a prominent Gambian academic and social commentator who has quite a deep analytical knowledge of the situation in the Gambia:

 
“After the December election, Jammeh is definitely planning to implement fully-fledged Sharia law in the Gambia to “regulate” public behavior. Apparently, the Indian Islamic preacher, Dr. Zakir Abdul Karim Naik, while recently praising Jammeh for his tough stance against gays and lesbians, did make a slip of the tongue remark on Peace TV when he revealed that Jammeh would be implementing a fully-fledged Islamic law in the Gambia from 2017 onwards.

 
“Jammeh plans to change the national flag to “reflect the Gambia’s new status as an Islamic country” and he also intends to ban any non-Muslim man marrying a Muslim woman. Among other things, I am told that Jammeh also wants to make sure that after the election, even meat to be eaten in the Gambia must have come from animals that have been “sacrificed” to Allah – “Halal”; a Muslim who becomes a non-Muslim or converts to Christianity will be sentenced and that even theft is going to be punishable by amputation of the right hand.

 
“After the election, assuming that Jammeh will remain at the helm, the Gambia is going to be mired in the most severe crisis it has known since independence from Britain in 1965. The country’s future seems so bleak and hopeless. Jammeh will keep trying his luck – doing things that involve risk, and hoping to succeed. Knowing Jammeh, he would push his luck too far, and yes, there comes a time in your life when you have reached where you say enough is enough. I believe that that time is slowly dawning on Gambians”.

 
So if this apocalyptic analysis is not scary enough for Gambian voters to take the bull by the horns and get rid of this regime come December 1, then I wonder what would ever stir them to take the necessary action to save Gambians from such a looming catastrophe.

 
Therefore, this should be even enough food for thought to propel the opposition to intensify their search for a single candidate for the December elections, particularly the GDC who are said to be making quite unreasonable demands before they would join the proposed coalition.

As Dec.1st looms closer to the staggering shock and awe of extremely difficult times Yaya Jammeh already accentuates will grip the country, a dismayed, disconsolate Gambia waits and wonders. And the most pressing question: With all the turbulence of terror, unprecedented kidnappings, opposition leaders in jail and the divisive socially intolerant policies to intentionally balkanized us into identity group politics, should we allow our personal ambitions and grievances against the opposition leaders —confuse us into extending the political schism that has divided Gambia for some 22 years? How has our country fallen so inescapably into political pandering and coalition talk dead line gridlock? The honest answer is —we are caught in a vise of Yaya Jammeh’s own design of stonewalling and dissembling things that does not perfectly suit his likings. Haven’t we Sort through all the desires of one man for 22 years and know all the details of his failures?

Nevertheless, we all know the current Gambian leader has a history of egregiously erasing the truth but one telling episode among the countless he leveled with the Gambian people is: Yaya Jammeh has gone out of his way to splendidly reinforced his own guilty verdict by putting a magnifying glass on his crimes— with respect to the death of opposition leader’s colleague —Solo Sandeng. He goes further to affirm the tremendous difficulties of the country— is caused by their failed Ponzi schemes policies and the burrowing owls pecking on our national coffers to nourish their greed. We cannot allow Gambia to falter a bit more on the same wrong direction. This is the moment to see this election as about the collective Gambian people’s predicament and the wrong direction our country is heading to. And this is the moment for the opposition parties to come together for— Gambians to rebuke Yaya Jammeh and give him the shellacking he deserves. Equally predictable, the guy has proved—he has neither the character nor the prudent disposition to continue as the president of the Gambia.

Today, we are at a key juncture. Given the tentative nature of the December 1st election being the most consequential elections in Gambian history, we must allow the disgraced outlaw regime a fighting chance of ridding to the State House gate on the backs of poor Gambians. The opposition leaders gracing the coalition talks should also remember that they’ve been robbed of opportunity and respect by the regime. We all know Yaya Jammeh and his regime are now on their heels — cunning political maneuver to impact the coalition talks and election behind the scenes. Nothing to quibble with here about that fact. Clearly this election is an urgent concern, and one that opposition leaders has sought urgently to deal with. They are all familiar imprudent mistake of the past. We understand that this election has consumes the nation’s bandwidth, but we cannot to fiddle ourselves with heart burns with conspiracy theories about coalition. If one more day is needed to get things right, lets shallow that hard pill for a chance to squared our shoulders again soon.

Yaya Jammeh has clearly communicated his quest of staying in power and enforcing his conflict-of-interest if it means— killing 10,000 Gambians to reserve his peace. Those words cannot be not met with warm considerations, prayers only, corner cutting the coalition efforts or better still — it shouldn’t only anger few swaths of the Gambian public. All Gambians should be fed-up and clamor for alternatives to tame the beast of Yaya Jammeh. Yaya Jammeh and some of his surrogates will defend that conversation as “locker-room talk or attaya session talk” rather than repudiating him. Interestingly, a kernel of truth exists in the statement—a broken clock being right twice a day. We cannot afford his quest to come true by allowing the alarms of broken clock to ruin another Gambian’s life. We will rather sweat in the coalition talks than bleed blood on December 2nd .

By Habib ( A Concerned Gambian)

Gambians who wondered just how shortsighted the cognitive elites of dying regime when facing their hypocritical moment of truth in going against the entire nation in the wake of the storm of Change, got their answer from the so called Chief of defense staff. One of the pied pipers of the regime boasted in obscene terms, warning his recalcitrant colleagues that —they are sick and tired of court endless marshals and they will begin executing disloyal solders straightway. These kinds of cheap tiresome scolds, is a telltale sign of the regime miserable campaign of murdering Gambians at free will without fearing any consequences thereafter. It’s also important to observe that they continue to drive in the head of Gambians the logrolling ideologies of Yaya Jammeh— as being immortal by using the fake debunked story tail of their former junta member.

When it became clear that they have largely completed the destruction of our country and Gambians do not need them anymore as a panther in moving forward to 2017, they resorted to the only reaction they know for twenty two years. They’ve got to be kidding. After all, we observed that the event demonstrated the folly of how the badjie brethren’s hostility towards Gambians, helped Jammeh in his social engineering quest to divided our nation and destroyed the professional code of conduct— by being innately unapologetically and unaccountable as the unelected holders of our nation. Gambians now are aware that these folks do not only have a mere manners deficit, their fatal weakness for pride and greed along with their ideological prejudice, have warped our country out of privilege. These are the same cadre of corrupt elites of our service men lacking a moral core to do what is right. They are the architects of death, executioners of torture, and the pied pipers who do not hesitate to pass on Jammeh’s immoral judgments against Gambians. They will antagonistically have their subordinates leak favorable stories about them on the issues of the minute. Its’ so sickening Gambians still fell for their chameleon tendencies.

Our country has been looted, vandalized and into flames of division by the cognitive elites of the regime. Gambians have helplessly watched in horror for twenty two years— and we are all wondering together if our beloved country is going to ever get back on track anytime soon. We have seen so much of the worst examples of behavior from Yaya Jammeh in regards to the sanctity of human life— that some Gambians counterbalance their safety by being shortsighted of events. How can we blame them all? Virtually, after all what Yaya Jammeh and his regime have done to Gambians, we are now afraid to judging people by their best intentions. This well-established phenomenon have magnified the impact of hashed regime calloused indifference when it comes to dealing ordinary citizens.

In short, contrary to common belief, these people have irresolvable grievances because with all the power and looting of our wealth through their spouses or ghost names, their angry faces have never become relaxed with happiness. It is sad that Gambians have grown accustomed to such abuse. We cannot continue to be content with the hidden cost of this regime. They represent everything we are not. We have been dismissed as good for nothing, wounded as a nation. Who wants to be cast aside as the last man to die in the pool of crocodiles? Their pleasures of trips to our central banks coffers and barbecues can speak for themselves where these peoples heart are. What sorely needs our attention today is something different than what we have experience for the past twenty years of terror.

By Habib ( A Concerned Gambia)

In the face of opportunity that presents itself to mark the end of the regime, one major problem most Gambians have is — trying to accomplish conflicting goals or revived old our habits of waiting on the eleventh hour sticking point — even though the odds are failure are high in both cases. In some ways, this trend has become a bellwether of societal norms. This should be a national concern because — it is what fuels our national crisis and gives the regimes the much needed lifeline. No one knows exactly which opportunity would have been the expedient solution to our deepening crisis, but it doesn’t also help when we take the best ideas and help it in the worst way. In brief, we largely dismissed people’s efforts of speaking truth to power with suspicion — and thereby missed the revolution their actions could have sparked.

It’s fitting to say that our opposition leaders political calendar should only be marked with “Next Coalition meetings” to send the clearest message possible, with immense courage to show that they are ready this time around. It’s a simple fact that any stumble by the political parties in this arena, Gambians will have to deal with repercussions. Clearly, that time had come for all party surrogates to show more actual remorse of the dire situation our country is in and accepted the one independent candidate leading the coalition — instead of fighting it at every turn. There’s a sad truth each time we hear a news of a major step forward on coalition talks or reason to celebrate, party surrogates with misguided vision- waffle – sometimes within minutes on social media to filter speculations and rushed to online media to paralyzed our enthusiasm.

It’s a no-brainer — these are some of the many causes for the problems that plague us. There is so much; loaded hyper-partisanship coarsening our public discourse, to name a few. No one is served by business as usual of one sided statements that confuses the Gambian electorate instead of helping people with well-informed decisions. No kidding. A Coalition is the collective strength of the Gambian people voice and thus far is the only way we can fix the broken system of our country. Our freedoms are at stake in this election — not the least of these being — the lives of our fellow countrymen. We plea with the indulgence of party surrogates, to feel as our kinship in Gambians sorrow. This flip-flopping and screw-ups of party surrogates on national interest is putting their parties on defense instead of focusing on Yaya Jammeh. Meanwhile, Yaya Jammeh is left free using misinformation as an art form to mislead Gambians whiles forcing his defenders to spin one yarn after another, for them to carry on the narratives as they barnstormed across the nation.

What got us to this point is a harmonic convergence of circumstance that makes some people fell into Yaya Jammeh’s trap — as they continue fishing around Creeks of dictatorship. Unless we start feeling our fellow kinship’s sorrow to help us answer the clarion call to rally behind the opposition, dictatorship will sunbake our society and our cultural norms into a full Islamic State of Yaya Jammeh. Furthermore, when we always cringed on our opportunities and continue to let it slide because — some Gambians could not care less, Yaya Jammeh will continue to tie the shoes strings of dictatorship around Gambia. Some Gambians shouldn’t continue to feel indifferent about others pain and feel a little sheepish when the regime jails certain women, but only show outrage if their wives and daughters seem offended. Unless we understand that Yaya Jammeh is cozied up to dividing Gambians around the country with his chameleon tendencies and discourage his palm greasing of thousands of dalasis to our community elites, we will not be able to shun him out of these practice. In the face of opportunity, we should all recognize “Coalition” is where the center of gravity in our politics is shifting to claim back our country.

By habib ( A Concerned Gambian)

Gambians ought to be reminded that there is no appeasing way of resolving Yaya Jammeh imaginary grievances. Yaya Jammeh is on a quest to hunt every Gambian’s nightmare dreams into reality. He will continue to dug his heels for a much firm grip to robbed us out of opportunity and respect as long as his last breath. The man has already given his Cooked recipe for the upcoming election everyone buzzing about. There is an unusual trait that makes the APRC regime very unique. One particular note very apparent is the stomach-churning unusual behavior of their mocking elitists avoiding to look down on their noses to see their long lines of disappointments of their failed leadership. In part for that reason, they all tend to move together with their obsession of hunting all the treasure maps of our country, instead of looking for practical solutions in solving the least problems of our communities or spend time on encouraging thoughtful engagements for them comprehend our nation issues.

This has made Gambia fallen so inescapably into gridlock of pandering to Yaya Jammeh’s fanatics so much that the days of collegiality and compromise are long gone. Now you wonder why they are ashamed to look down their noses? It is because they cannot egregiously erase the truth of not able to usher in paradise from promising Gambians all manner of things which they cannot deliver. Underlying this discussion is the question of whether these peoples are aware of the dangerous proposition of the ruins of our democracy as a result of their greed of twenty years of treasure hunting, that results into brutal dictatorship. For two decades, Gambians have been steadily pushed to the sidelines for their fair share of beautiful Gambian life. Not everyone is angry about happenings in the country, but honestly, we also have some misinformed troglodytes “deliberately ignorant” people among our midst who love power and wealth more than anything.

To that aim, it reflects the characteristics of the more voracious nonprofessional’s political appointees of the Yaya Jammeh who are couldn’t even parlay your attaya session persona much less heading an institution or local government consulates. These folks from the President to the Mayors now turned partisan politicians, who could plausibly be indicted on numerous “community” felonies of their negligence of duty and failed leadership by their own people they represent. Most certainly, it also applies to much of the rest of those who assume political appointments in the regime because they’ve been providing thrills of incompetence and chills of cluelessness for years. Some decent folks who wants to do good in their own party by reporting out wrong doings, tantamount to a charge of treason these days. Not only that, it typically leads to a shortened career and vilification at the NIA offices. The prestigious cultural values —that once made it possible to have self-respect, honesty, integrity amid difficult moments or when needed most is missing in most people.

One telling episode among the countless is – the regime has turned out to be is clumsy, expensive and demonstrably unable to solve this nation’s problems. That dream of Gambian able to take care of the needs and health of the people are always doused by the heavy handedness of Yaya Jammeh’s desires on our national coffers before it could come to life. Their disregard of personal integrity to act in a manner befitting their office and the people they represent because they have no resolvable grievances. There is no way Gambians can tame the treasure map hunting personality of Yaya Jammeh and his people. They have trek twenty years too far down the midst of dictatorship for them to fall back in love which the same people they shrugged off the way. Their policies of treasure hunting will continue to pulled us further into a scary economic ditch. Gambians have to remove their handcuffs of dictatorship and gives the country the flexibility to thrive again. Gambia need change in leadership to bring back opportunities for our citizens, reset our relationships with world, bring a significant development, and get the whole nation lasting pride back as the smiling coast of Africa.

By Habib ( A Concerned Gambian)

Contrary to the chorus of denials, what or if any particular event will finally represent the last straw, that will finally sink the APRC regime in the eyes of Gambians? Why is it very hard to appeal to the higher angels of Gambians in doing the right thing for the country’s interest? Is it — we are quick to make assumptions about people or the dark sins of the country have clouded our eyes? Our I EC wants to make us believe that those laying down in our cemeteries, had a habit of returning to life to make sure 900,000 voters are registered? News of valuable importance to the nation still does not deserve 15 minutes of public attention on GRTS. The EU have to constantly travel to the Gambia taking steps to inject some sanity into the regimes each time they start toying with our lives for ritual sacrifice. The IMF are constantly provoked to come lecture us about financial discipline when Yaya Jammeh fails to pay government employees but waste our resources on his desires. The years of bizarre utterance on that makes us as a nation look silly, instilling in our society an ideology that deliberately oppresses Gambians and Yaya Jammeh’s occasional off-the-wall remarks statements about our traditions —these have tested the patience of Gambians for years but we keep sucking our teeth’s “cheepu” whiles holding on that counterpunch.

We understand that Yaya Jammeh is constantly rebranding things to soothe the eyes and ears of Gambians, but he doesn’t shy away from making convoluted phrases to hide behind euphemism in describing his blunders. He has recently open up about his crimes and ill will intentions of policies, that —are detrimental to the country. The supposed President of Gambia have problem counterbalancing the ethos of his moral restraint — be it his desires or — his dark deeds of ending life’s in the most deplorable ways. His regime griots always make statements that intentionally misleads Gambians and make pronouncements that not only made him look worse among people but somehow, Gambians —apparently regard them as victims few moons later. In APRC of Gambia, residences of neighboring countries residing in the city’s and those laying down in our cemeteries, had a habit of returning to life according to the IEC registry on election day to vote for the regime. Shocking enough? Huh, let’s keep going. The military are allowed to fiddle with the elections as the votes get casted. Contrary to the chorus of denials, Gambians are aware of all these issues.

To the contrary, they themselves have little or no confidence— their words reconcile with reality. Their culture of self-important idealism has wrecked our society— twinkling drown from Yaya Jammeh. It’s all about get what I can for myself, and everyone else can take care of themselves. This regime does not have any aspirational quality one can point to. They lack that moral human touch when talking about the nation’s problems or those citizens the regime wronged. But they rushed to their victim’s homes and comminutes narrating different events before news get to the people. Remember when Osman Sonko went to Darboe’s residence to ask about his whereabouts — after knowing full well they were kidnapped by his men? Worst still, the regime will be engaged in buying votes with people’s money and deny them development thereafter. This acts are not an inspiring image of the common good of humanity— but yet Gambians are holding their counterpuncher.

This is why the opposition fails to make an emotional connection with Gambians. Appealing to the higher angels of Gambians is so hard because— we are quick to make assumptions about people. Ironically, the crisis of isolation Yaya Jammeh brought to our country and fragmentation he caused among our people has weakened our communities both at home and the diaspora. The selfishness the regime sweep alone into our shores and cynicism the old guards such as “Yayi kompins, made Gambians to trade in one of their most noble character – neighborliness. The effects social engineering and the regimes culture of putting distrust of the politicians by reducing their efforts to lowest motivations of Gambians, have decimated the idealism of Gambians. The question in most people’s mind is, will Gambians stop stonewalling the reality in their face and give the final counterpunch his December election from all these evidence of regimes miscues wrong doings and cover-ups?

Finally, my advice to the opposition to be aware of the alarm of coalition that has been buzzing nonstop. Gambians do not have the patience for our able politician leaders instinctively resort to long words when talking about coalition. The quicker the formation of a coalition, it will resuscitate the impulse of Gambian voters quickly. To the party surrogates, we are appealing to you as fellow Gambians to stop making rosy predictions about your party’s assured victory and kind of giving a dismal picture for coalition. To our aspiring coalition candidates, the lesson learned from yesterday was- do not be distracted into answering question down the middle that gray area that causes doubts that should have been instead knocked out of the ball park. We are all in this together. The words of the wise, should be quite sufficient.

By Habib ( A Concerned Gambian)