Yaya Jammeh, we have a constitution accompanied by laws that set up institutions and processes that set the parameters that govern our country. This is called the rule of law. As president, you have sworn to defend that constitution, which means to preserve and protect the laws and processes and institutions. But since 1994, you have led a path that only serves to violate our constitution, subvert the authority and power of institutions and shortcut processes just to make sure you confiscate our sovereignty, power and authority, with impunity.
The list of violations of our constitution and abuse of our rights that you have committed with impunity when you were supposed to protect these is too long to enumerate.
You have dismissed civil servants without regard to the rule of law. You have sacked judges and magistrates and lawmakers in contravention of the constitution. You have caused the arbitrary arrest and detention of Gambians of all walks of life with impunity. You have caused the torture of Gambians of all walks of life with impunity. You have caused the death of Gambians of all walks of life with impunity. You have personalized and plundered our sovereign wealth and resources with impunity. You have restricted and jeopardized our individual and collective capacity to earn decent sources of living. You have sowed seeds of discord and disunity among families, communities and between our various ethnic groups. You have promoted tribalism and nepotism in public life. You have interfered with, and injured the independence of the legislature and the judiciary in total contravention of the principle of separation of powers as laid out in our constitution. Consequently you have exerted undue pressure and control over the National Assembly to make laws to further erode our sovereignty and place it in your hands. You have placed undue pressure and control over the judiciary to force them to decide cases in your favour in total violation of the laws of the land and rights of citizens. You have interfered with statutory bodies such as the IEC, Ombudsman and the NCCE among others just to undermine and seize our sovereignty for your personal gain. In July 2015, you caused the National Assembly to change election laws for which neither the Executive nor the Legislature have the right, power or authority to change laws regarding elections simply because you and those lawmakers are interested players in the business of elections. You have caused disrepute to the office of the president and caused ridicule to the name and integrity of the republic.
Your pardon therefore has no merit because you have subverted the rule of law, and personalized the entire State machinery to serve your whims and caprices. Consequently, there is a vast majority of Gambians in prison not because of the crimes they committed, but because you want them to be in prison just to entrench your misrule. Thus in the first place, these people should not have been there at all. To turn around and decide to take them out of the very place in which you have deliberately placed them for your selfish interests deserves no commendation. Rather July 22, 2015 is a day of infamy – a day of untold sorrow and regret for the unimaginable suffering and waste of life you have caused these people and their families. While they should have been with their families, you caused a separation of maximum proportions between fathers and their children, mothers and their children, husbands and their wives, between loved ones…
You have caused intolerable damage and trauma on these people and their families from which many will find it impossible to recover. Yaya, you have harmed and killed with impunity. Not even the Almighty Allah with all His omnipotence deliberately or otherwise harms human beings and then decides to forgive them or not. His punishment and reward have to be earned by the individual. You are not Allah. You are not a monarch. Gambians owe you no gratitude or apology. Gambians made you what you are. These Gambians did not earn their punishment and you cannot therefore give them a reward. You have publicly claimed Mile 2 as your ‘Hotel’. Is that not evidence enough that it is indeed you who deliberately sent people to this ‘hotel’? What about the tens of Gambians already kidnapped and executed by your thugs? Who pays for those crimes? To therefore imagine that you play with the lives of Gambians anyhow you wish is not only ungodly but also deadly.
Yaya, you are playing this gimmick because you know that your time is nigh because you know the pressure is growing unbearably on your head. You have realized by yourself that you are indeed not only a tragic liability for our country, but also a mess that cannot salvage itself anymore. You have been ostracized by the world and you know the pressure that is on your shoulders. From the patriotic Gambian dissidents at home and abroad. From the EU. From ECOWAS and AU. From many more that you know more than we do. We know you are not acting in any good faith because you lack the capacity to do good. Rather you are being forced to act. Yaya Jammeh, you are evil. You are a pariah.
Yaya, you shall not escape the consequences of the atrocities you continue to mete out to Gambians and Gambia. Remember Hissene Habre? Sooner or later, you shall pay for your crimes against Gambians, dearly. The message that anyone can give you is to step down now and face prosecution. Any prolongation of your misrule only serves to further aggravate the inevitable and severe pain of your final demise, sooner than later. You do not need to pardon anyone because you decided to put them there first, and now you decide to take them out because you are afraid of your own evil.
You need to step now and face justice.
Free Gambia.
