Jasseh's Sacking Was A Foregone Conclusion




The Independent
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(Banjul)
EDITORIAL
December 15, 2000
Banjul
Several month's ago when sacked DIG Tamsir Jasseh said at a government
spokesperson's committee press briefing that the police would not tolerate
harassment of the press and other human rights abuses, we knew that he was soon
going to be sacked.
The fact that he continued speaking on those lines cemented our conviction that
Mr. Jasseh would not survive in these reactionary waters of Gambian politics,
where only the mediocre and the uninventive are likely to survive.
Now we have been proven right. Officer Tamsir Jasseh, who returned from the US
to his native Gambia to help in efforts at national development, has received a
slap in the face. He certainly must have been cured of his lofty illusions on
patriotism.
Predictably, no official reason has been given for Jasseh's sacking.
Therefore, we can readily assume, unless the government proves otherwise, that
his sacking was a consequence of his unhidden honesty, his readiness to work,
his realistic approach to problems besetting the police force and his frequent
tirades against all the wrong things going on both within and without the police
force.
It is a tragic reality that the government of President Yahya Jammeh is not as
committed to the wellbeing of this country as it pretends to be.
This government fails to realise that getting the work done is not synonymous to
pleasing powerful interests. It means doing things that the president and his
powerful group of cronies may not like, things that could run counter to the
grain of powerful selfish interests. It means discarding outmoded codes of bogus
etiquette and doing just what needs to be done, no matter whose ox is gored, or
whose toes are stepped on. It means taking the right steps, in the right
direction, at the right time, which, we believe, Jasseh was trying to do.
Our high hopes for positive change and development in the early days of the coup
of July 22, 1994 have been shattered on the hard, grim rocks of reality. Instead
of ushering in the expected era of true revolution of the mind and spirit, the
Jammeh regime has further built upon the reactionary policies of Jawara's
ancient regime. Hopes of greater political enlightenment and freedom, greater
respect for human rights and the rule of law, an enabling environment for
positive change and development, have given way to a painful sense of
frustration and a gamut of repressive and unproductive policies that has seen
the sacking of progressive civil servants, the harassment of journalists and
politicians, selfish constitutional manipulations and a general slide into an
environment of fear, anger and uncertainty. Today, Gambians mourn the demise of
common sense and bemoan the rising ascendancy of uncommon mediocrity.
How utterly tragic that some of us cannot stand any sustained signs of positive
thinking; that only the dull and the unproductive are given the chance to thrive
in our land; that we cut the productive crops and allow only the useless and
destructive weeds to thrive on our national farm; that those who feel that they
are powerful and privileged in our society continue to sacrifice the productive
sons and daughters of this nation on the stained alter of their bloated egos!
How so unfortunate that the powerful among us persist in placing their selfish
interests, their personal whims and caprices, over and above the national
interest, and in the process, have our helpless unborn generations drop into
this world with shackles of poverty, strife and backwardness tenaciously
straddling their tender necks. When shall these so-called powerful interests
learn to be honest to themselves, to this nation and to God All Mighty, and for
God's sake stop leading us down the path of retardation?
Tamsir Jasseh's sacking, unless the government proves otherwise, epitomises the
slimy mantle of shame our nation is now wrapped in. For isn't it a shame that a
patriotic Gambian who returned home from the United States to help in the
process of national reorientation and construction should be so badly treated?
For Jasseh himself, this could very well be a blessing in disguise; but for The
Gambia Police Force and for our nation in general, it is a shame and an
irredeemable loss; ten steps backward in the true tradition of our increasing
descent into zero progress. A tear for us all.

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