Mr. Dampha,

Your analogy of the school teacher being Yaya and the students being the
Gambian popultation cannot be more apt.

You see, I happened to have also ready the story and it reminds of Sierra
Leone in the seventies. At that time, corruption had actually taken root in
that country's social fabric and was being manifested in daily lives of
Sierra Leoneans. Corruption was so rampant that an arresting police officer
would never let his/her superior find out about an arrest for fear that he
the superior will end up with the bribe and not him the officer who made the
arrest in the first place.   A college bursar would sell books and supplies
to students at a fraction of the cost so long as there was no paper trail.
He will then pocket proceeds of the sale. A joke at the time was that a
prominent minister in the late Siaka Stevens' government was entrusted with
a warehouse full of rice that was donated to the people of Sierra Leone.
Except for a few busted bags of rice, the whole consignment mysteriously
dissapeared.  When asked what happened to the rice the minister responded
that it was rats ate the rice. The late President Siaka Stevens himself was
said to have falsely accused and executed seven members of the opposition
for allegedly plotting to ovethrow his government after these men began
investigating the fate of the famed "Star of Sierra Leone" diamond which
Stevens had sold and pocketed the millions.

Corruption had become endemic.  The leadership was corrupt to the core.
Their corrupt activities were being conducted with impunity.  Everyone knew
this. In the mind of the ordinary Joe this was not the way things should be,
but he had no option but to join in the mess if he were to survive.  The
rationale being that the leadership sanctioned it so why not him. Thus
started the decay of a society. Decades of corrupt practices and other
heinous crimes committed by the leadership finally culminated to a
leadership and social crisis and finally war!

The story in yesterday's Independent newspaper may seem insignificant on the
surface but may hold valuable clues as to the way our country is heading if
we do not stop Yaya and his kleptocracy.


Lamin Jeng


>From: Dampha Kebba <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Yaya: Corrupt to the Core
>Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 10:24:44 -0400
>
>Last night I came across a very funny piece in Gambian newspapers. There
>was
>a report stating that a school teacher was attacked by her students because
>apparently the lady was given ten Dalasis by Yaya and the lady decided to
>keep the five thousand to herself (as a personal gift from Yaya) and give
>the school the other five thousand.
>
>Very plain and simple story on the surface. Rudiments of right from wrong
>we
>should learn from our parents at a very early age. The teacher and the
>students both thought that they were entitled to the five thousand the
>teacher was claiming to herself. But what was significant to me about this
>story was that I detected the same kinds of traits that characterize the
>way
>Gambia is run at the helm. As we go up, the characters in the story simply
>change. The teacher becomes Yaya and the students become the general
>Gambian
>population.
>
>This is the same game Yaya plays on the Gambian people. He sends his people
>to Taiwan to negotiate loans. The cash dollars are loaded in suitcases and
>brought straight to the State House (forget the Central Bank and the
>transparent way things were done in the past). When Yaya sees the money, he
>takes a decent chuck of the money and regard it as a 'personal gift' to him
>from the Taiwanese. These are the dollars Yaya and his cronies use in order
>to open accounts such as account number 49275.1 with Credit Lyonnais in
>Switzerland and a $20 million dollar account at Citibank also in
>Switzerland.
>
>There is no such thing as Allah's Bank as Yaya and his cronies would like
>us
>to believe. What is going on here is corruption to the core. Like the
>teacher, Yaya will receive money on behalf of Gambians and treat the money
>as a 'personal gift' to Yaya. It is that money he uses to engage in 'gift'
>giving to win people's support. He also uses the money to finance a
>flamboyant lifestyle; driving 'fancy' cars, buying an airplane, building a
>bunker in Kanilai, fencing villages he can call his own and importing
>exotic
>animals into the country.
>
>Like the students that attacked their teacher, Gambians should also attack
>Yaya. The same sense of justice that spurred the students to repudiate the
>teacher's claim that the money was donated to her personally, should
>energize Gambians to claim what is rightfully theirs from Yaya. This money
>Yaya is dishing around belongs to the Gambian poor. Yaya is NOT doing
>people
>a favor by dishing ten thousand dalasis to any entourage that visits him in
>Kanilai. He is simply returning to people what originally belonged to them.
>Surely the students will not hail the teacher as a benevolent leader if she
>sees light and return the five thousand to the students. The students know
>that the teacher would not have received the five thousand dalasis on her
>own merit. If the teacher was not with the students, she would not even go
>to Kanilai let alone be given five thousand dalasis. So Gambians should NOT
>see Yaya as a philanthropist if the vermin steals from the people and then
>return part of the money.
>
>What is clear is that Yaya's salary cannot finance the lifestyle he is
>leading. Like the crook he is, he engages in criminal behavior to finance
>his flamboyant lifestyle.  Even if we assume that these moneys Yaya claims
>are actually given to him, people should ask themselves why the Taiwanese
>will want to give Gambia a $35 million loan and give Yaya $10 million on
>the
>side as a personal gift. Does that make sense? Would the Taiwanese give $10
>million to any low-life lieutenant from Gambia? I submit that even if the
>money was 'given' to Yaya on the side, that is bribery; a crime in our
>books. Yaya had access to those bribes by virtue of his position in the
>country. When he was a lieutenant, no one would even 'give' him $100.
>Should
>we allow the vermin to go around boasting to be the richest Gambian when we
>all know that he did not earn 'his' money? Should we allow our people to
>feel indebted to Yaya because the low-life is stealing from them just to
>turn around and 'give' them back part of the money?
>
>In this election season when all sorts of opportunists are parading before
>Yaya to ask for 'donations' and declare their 'allegiance' to Yaya, we
>should make the source of Yaya's 'wealth' an issue. In six years, the thief
>has stolen from us more than people can imagine. We have documented proof
>that by January 16, 1996 (less than two years after the criminals stole
>power) Yaya by himself opened Swiss Bank accounts with moneys totaling over
>$20 million. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Yaya did not just steal
>money from us, but he uses our Attorney General's Chambers and Gambian
>taxpayers' money to ensure that the money stays with him. Anyone that
>doubts
>this figures can ask the then Attorney General in early 1996.
>
>We should be as mad as the students that would not allow their teacher to
>take the five thousand dalasis for herself. Yaya is taking millions of
>dollars for himself; millions that rightfully belong to the Gambian poor.
>KB
>
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