Let’s jump into it straight without cutting corners. Why would Yaya Jammeh degrade Gambia by humiliating the high level delegation of ECOWAS-UN, consisting of respectful African heads of states? What conceivable advantage is there in choosing the occasion of a high-profile visit to close the doors to the premises of the IEC, and shamefully sending the chairman and his staff home.
To add, an insult to injury, why would he wait until a historic day like this to dispatch one of his top minions, Bala Gaba Jahumpa — to punish for his effrontery in second guessing the elections results by filling a petition on behalf of APRC on an empty supreme court? What could Yahya Jammeh and his dying regime gain from— what is, in effect, their own indictment perfectly for the world to see. Well, I never knew incompetence and stupidity is so contagious. With Yahya Jammeh in charge, this sort of problems should be obvious.
As Gambians, we see it as nothing short of an insult and disrespect to other heads of state, let alone our President Elect’s team. Maybe Yahya Jammeh didn’t understand that this powerful delegation’s was on a mission aimed at soothing his strained relations with Gambians to ensure smooth transfer of power. Harder to fathom was the security heads flip flops in their drive to expunge any trace of supporting the Gambia people’s will and groveling to their foolish master- Dictator Yahya Jammeh.
That’s ridiculous on its face. Chalk it up, if you like, the CDS now turned Juju fashionista, photo shopped a picture of the dictator and place it on his chest to display loyalty to Yahya Jammeh. Can we finally now accept the official explanation of his loyalty and move on? Never mind, Right. Let no one be mistaken Yahya Jammeh will go one way or another. The sooner everyone recognizes this fact, the better. If he wants “suicide pact” to stand in the way world powerful forces, he can choose his own family to ride straight to perdition.
For a moment at least, the ECOWAS-UN fact finding and political dialog delegation ,patiently listened to a dilatational Yahya Jammeh’s a toxic mix of demagoguery , mean-spiritedness and nonsense rhetoric , but their message is clear— ensure a smooth transition of power . Put simply, they blow their whistle on him to bring him back to reality. The rules are the rules. He lost and he got to go. It’s really as simple as that. Denial has been Yahya Jammeh’s greatest ally because everything he says falls somewhere between risible and infuriating. Yahya Jammeh can confuse Gambians with a spider web of ideological and demographic fault lines of the election results, but he wants to negotiate the best deal for himself to live his blissful life peacefully elsewhere. It’s time for Gambians working for this regime to reject Yahya Jammeh and his reckless rhetoric. Public trust about this regime will plunge even deeper as times goes on. They should even go one step further to desert the APRC party and bolt away from this dead regime.
Perhaps by now, reasonable people know that Yahya Jammeh is far from alone in his hypocrisy. Granted, his team of enablers and NIA has been contributing to the confusion by releasing fake news about Presidents elect’s cabinet or creating a fake twitter account in his name and creating fake profiles on Facebook to hurl our tribal slurs. Disgraced dictator Yahya Jammeh also dispatched one of his top minions, Bala Gaba Jahumpa, to file a petition on behalf of APRC on an empty supreme court.
Sadly, this petition was prepared by disgraced former regime Justice minister Edi Gomez. Notwithstanding, he closed the doors to premises of IEC building and his man prevented the IEC chairman and his staff from entering the building. So far what is clear is Yahya Jammeh is testing the patience of Gambians — and exceeding — the limits of his constitutional powers. But it’s a remarkable thing if you take a step back and think about why he gave orders to temporally shut down IEC. Yahya Jammeh’s Obsession With power Is Stretching Beyond Reason.
Seemingly every day, there’s another story of powerful unions condemning the actions of Yahya Jammeh. So it is no wonder that Gambians grow instantly queasy at the thought of Yahya Jammeh wanting to annul the results of the elections by any means possible and further find it abhorrent that he refuses to hand over power to President Elects team. Already, the Gambia Bar Association, Gambia Teachers Union; Gambia press union and the Female Lawyers of Gambia, have all call of the regime to respect the elections verdict or otherwise —they will boycott court cases, exams and so forth. Yahya Jammeh could prevent all this strife by simply leaving the shores of Gambia and handing power to his successor— President Elects team. Such diplomacy would go a long way to reduce — or at least prevent — further polarization and ensure a smooth transfer of power peacefully.
If Yahya Jammeh thinks he is controlling the narrative, he is making the biggest mistake of his life because by 18th of January when reality of new Gambia begins, it might be too late for him to discover where hope and fantasy ends. The IEC chairman has put it very clearly — there is no way he can unearth a bombshell to derail the transition process. The results are clear and valid. Unsubstantiated claims are only coming from Yahya Jammeh and it have not contributed much to the noise he wants to hear. Fortunately, his regime will be history soon. It was encouraging to hear the ECOWAS-UN delegation, advice the President elect and his team to continue working on the transition process. The fool can keep on day dreaming.
By Habib Drammeh
