Hamjatta,

Your posting of December 19 is quite interesting. It appears that you do
acknowledge that the 1997 Constitution is superior in content to the 1970
Constitution. However, you proceeded to ask the question: "Where did you get
the lopsided idea that we have raised issues of any kind that makes
comparative analysis of the 1970 and 1997 Constitution?" You further asked:
"Was there any dispute about the development of the 1997 constitution over
the 1970 constitution?" You then proceeded to state categorically that:
"Fairly and squarely, the 1997 constitution did away with much of the
monarchical proclivities, gender discrimination and most of the democratic
deficits that were inherent in the 1970 constitution."   Interesting. Isn't
it?

Why then are you asking me to explain why I gave support to the 1997
Constitution. Of course, you did give an answer. According to you, I made a
postulation which was never raised. Furthermore, you indicated that: "It was
a deliberate deviationist ploy and intellectual dishonesty on your part to
bring up a point that was never in dispute; that of the 1997 constitution's
developments over the 1970 constitution. The idea that Saul and I found the
1970 constitution preferable to the 1997 constitution is a figment of your
feverish imaginations and very hallucinatory brought up solely to gain cheap
points."

Now, now, Hamjatta, angry invectives aside, I know you are more intelligent
than this. It is true that I have been very provocative. I quite understand
that the trend of discourse does not help you to easily digest the points at
issue because of the language like 'pedantic' and others which impinge on
your self esteem. I have been doing so because of the prevalence of uncouth
words like 'hog wash' in your own correspondence, fit only to be utilised by
one who has allowed his or her language to degenerate into lumpen parlance.
I would like to apologise for giving the wrong impression that everything
you say is empty in content. It is my duty to encourage you to sharpen your
critical faculties since you constitute the foundation for a future Gambia.
In actual fact, the right thing to do is to enhance your self esteem instead
of impinging on it.

Let me now get to the point. You know as much as I do that there can be no
constitutional order without a constitution. Hence, in order to restore
constitutional rule after the coup, Gambians had two options, that is, to
restore the 1970 Constitution which had been suspended or come up with a new
constitution.

Furthermore, constitutions are drawn up within a given contextual framework.
In our case, it had to be worked out under the government of the day or
under another government which could only have been possible at the time by
overthrowing the AFPRC.

The fact that you accused me of  deviationist ploy by bringing the relation
between the 1970 and the 1997 Constitution into play seems to indicate to me
that you did not fully understand the mandate which brought the 1997
Constitution into being.

Let me refer to the terms of reference of the Constitutional Review
Commission which were spelt out in section 5 of Decree No. 33. They read:

"(1) The terms of reference of the Commission shall be;

"(a) to formulate proposals for a Draft Constitution for The Gambia taking
into account:

"(i) the Constitution of the Republic of The Gambia, 1970 for purposes of
determining its adequacy or otherwise for the good governance of The Gambia;

"(ii) Laws passed after the enactment of the Constitution of 1970 whose
provisions or part thereof merit inclusion in the draft Constitution;

"(iii) Views and comments of members of the general public including
professional and other bodies and associations;

"(iv) Matters which in the opinion of the Commission are reasonably related
to this section;

"(v) Such matters as may be referred to it by the Council.

"(b) Submit to the Council a draft Constitution which shall form the basis
of a new Constitution for The Gambia; and

"(c) To present a report of their activities which shall contain
recommendations and such other matters that merit consideration by the
Council."


Hence, it should be abundantly clear that it was the fundamental role for
the Constitutional Review Commission to review the 1970 Constitution and
determine its adequacy or otherwise for the good governance of The Gambia.
This was one of  the principal task.

Furthermore, the Commission was to take note of recommendations of other
bodies.

A draft constitution emerged out of the exercise. Gambians had the option to
accept or reject the draft constitution. There would still have been
elections under Decree 78 regardless of whether Gambians accepted or
rejected the draft constitution. In fact the presidential and national
assembly elections took place before the constitution came into force.

Suffice it to say, if the draft constitution was rejected, the Party which
won the elections would have had the mandate to prepare another constitution
or restore the 1970 constitution. On the other hand, by accepting the draft
constituion, any party which took over would have had to abide by that
constitution but would also have had the capacity to consult the people
again to bring about a new constitution.

You have already agreed that the 1997 Constitution is superior to the 1970
constitution. Relying on this conclusion you have drawn, it would,
therefore, not be an option to you to restore the 1970 Constitution.

Now, if we rejected the draft constitution, it would have meant that after
winning an election, the same AFPRC would have ruled by some form of
transitional instruments based on decrees until we promulgated a new
constitution. The acceptance of the 1997 Constitution provides a yard stick
by which the performance of the AFPRC could be gauged, and the instruments
available such as the courts, auditor general's department, the Independent
Electoral Commission made operational.

As a Gambian, I was of the opinion that it was best to have a constitution
which has elements that  were superior to a constitution that I have
functioned under for 26 years at the time.

I did also alert my mind to the concerns you raised. According to you, your
"dispute was premised on the blanket Indemnity Clause, the term limit and
age of the presidency, how still the executive (presidency) still has
enormous monarchical dispositions that the Constitution Review Committee has
not fundamentally stripped off the 1997 constitution...."

I am sure you know that in my memorandum to the Constitutional Review
Commission, I had exposed and opposed all the monarchical characteristics of
constitutions using the 1970 constitution as an example. Furthermore, there
is no Gambian, except those who have something to hide and lose, who would
support an Indemnity Clause. However, the issue was whether to accept the
draft constitution with these flaws or reject it on the basis of those
flaws.

In my view, I had lived with those flaws under the 1970 constitution. Hence,
if I could get a constitution with more advanced provisions to the 1970
Constitution with the same flaws all the better. It is on this basis that I
supported the 1997 Constitution. I am sure you do know that there was no
term limit under the 1970 constitution which kept Jawara in office for over
two decades. I am sure you do know that the age (30 years), qualification
for a presidential candidate is the same under the 1970 constitution as it
is under the 1997 constitution. I know you do know that the 1970
constitution did not bar state of emergencies from being called and
Indemnity Act established as the one after the 1981 coup absolving
government and its agents from any liabilities to any commission or
ommission of an act under the Emergency Regulations.

Needless to say, you have already acknowledged the monarchical
characteristics embedded in the 1970 Constitution. What is your problem now
and why do you find it difficult to understand why I, personally, supported
the 1997 Constitution? I do not know what Saul's position would be; whether
he also holds that the 1997 constituion is superior to the 1970. Otherwise,
I would have gone into greater details to make a comparative analysis. This
is the first point.

Now, on the Koro case, you wrote:

"Particularly, I did find offensive your petulant ripples of
holier-than-thou afterthoughts in your closing remarks about the Koro
tragedy. You wrote: "we did everything that was possible to get to the facts
and we concluded as everybody is concluding now, that there should be a
coroner's Inquest. If it fails to do so, anybody can speculate whatever one
wants. However, no one has the moral authority to question our integrity
because of the manner we approached this." Oh yeah. Good gracious. What a
banquet of sanctimonious tosh!!!!!! How can you claim to have to done
"everything that was possible to get to the facts" when you overlooked the
obvious circumstantial evidences that I mentioned above and did you carry
out  any forensic DNA examination of the site to scientifically ascertain
whoever were present during Koro's death? Do you now see the sham that is
coming out of your pretentious attempts to look smart and professional
investigative  journalists? Do you now see why I called you a novice
journalist on his/her first assignment. Halifa you don't have the resources
or the training to carry out a scientific forensic scrutiny of the site that
Koro was found. The State could and should have done this even if it means
acquiring help from  outside the borders of the Gambia. What was at stake
was too much to be left in the hands of muted silence and in the puerile
hands of your investigations that reeked from the outset of absurdity,
naivety and simplicity?
     "Halifa if you fail to follow the lead I just offered you, I will have
every moral authority question your integrity. And get this: you shall lose
my confidence and consequently my vote come the 2001 elections."

Now, now, Hamjatta, your political maturity is higher than this. You know
you have as much right to be a candidate for election as I have. In fact,
you people should be preparing yourselves to assume such mandate at the
earliest possible time, and I hope you will begin to develop the tolerance
you are preaching, and not feel offended by the exercise of my freedom of
expression.

It is my view, that "we did everything that was possible to get to the facts
and we concluded as everybody is concluding now that there should be a
coroner's inquest."  We indicated then that if the State fails to do so,
anybody can speculate according to one's whims. This is the plain fact.
Since I have promised not to utilise any language to impinge on our
integrity, I must, however, ask you whether you have contradicted my
assertions by asking the questions: "Did you carry out any forensic DNA
examination of the site to scientifically ascertain whoever were present
during Koro's death? Do you now see the sham that is coming out of your
pretentious attempts to look smart and professional investigative
journalist. Do you now see why i call you a novice journalist on his/her
first assignment?"  How did you conclude? You concluded by confirming my
assertions as follows: "Halifa you don't have the resources or the training
to  carry out a scientific forensic scrutiny of the site that Koro was
found. The State could and should have done this even if it means acquiring
help from outside the borders of the Gambia. "

In short, my assertion is that we have done everything possible and now you
are pointing out our failure to do what you have indicated is impossible for
us to do because of limitation of knowledge and resources. Moreover, we did
not constitute a State.

Are you being fair with us? Hamjatta, am I the one who should follow your
lead or the State? Have you tried to contact the forensic experts where you
are and inquire what they could do at the moment? What basis would you have
for questioning my integrity or threatening to withhold your confidence and
your vote? You know that I am not in the business of bartering for votes. I
do not want to be anybody's President or representative. I only have a
national duty to perform like every single Gambian. To serve one's country
is a duty. It is left to the people to decide who can best serve their
interest.

As far as I am concerned, there is new evidence regarding Koro's  death.
Instead of engaging in a wild goose chase, according to your lead, it is
best for us to continue to do the inquiry that is necessary without hoping
to make political capital out of the death of a compatriot.

Lastly, you dealt with the issue of Pan Africanism as a social scientific
concept and Pan Africanism as a belief. After consulting your dictionary as
to what 'HOLD' means in the context of my assertion, you went on to indicate
the following: "I hope you will come up with a clearer and unambiguous
statement on where you stand with Pan Africanism."

I thought everything is clear, but apparently it is not to you. I noticed
that you have not made any attempt to refute the view that science is the
pursuit of the known and the knowable whilst belief may protrude into the
unknown and unknowable. This is the clear distinction I tried to make.

To have a Pan Africanist belief is to hold the concept as a dogma which must
be pursued irrespective of whether it is viable or not. I have simply stated
that this is not my view of Pan Africanism. To me, it is not a dogma. It is
a by-product of the historical realities which have been woven by our
colonial experience which has tied all our economies to a metropolise which
continue to utilise our countries as sources of raw materials and markets
for their manufactured goods. This gave rise to a common political
experience.

Needless to say, African countries need investments and Africa has
tremendous resources. With the pooling up of resources, the strength of
regions and countries could be enhanced and our collective economic
development ensured.

It goes without saying that colonialism left countries divided into ethnic
groups which sometimes occupy land that goes across national boundaries. The
post colonial State has not brought the people together and give them a
national consciousness. Hence, Pan Africanism, as a political concept, is
inconceivable without the elevation of the consciousness of the African
people and their enlightenment to realise the economic, political and
cultural initiatives that they need to take in order to forge an all
embracing union that could ensure their collective survival in liberty and
prosperity.

I do not think it is necessary to go any further. What is however essential
is to explain what I mean by asserting that I belong to a different school
of thought.

My emphasis is that before we can solve Africa's problems, we must begin by
studying our societies and fully apprehending why they are the way they are.
A person like Nyerere, like many African Socialists, felt that African
societies have certain communal residues which can be built upon to create
societies based on cooperation. The rural area was not examined on the basis
of the economic and political realities which had been engendered through
the colonial experience. Rural development was seen as a priority and the
way to do it was seen to be bringing the rural people together so that
educational, health and other services could be brought to them. It was not
fully realised that the countryside is not completely isolated but was
linked to the towns and an international economic system.

The creation of towns which relied on taxation of the whole country to be
constructed and developed and the creation of a colonial bureaucracy which
depended on taxation of the whole population to be maintained led to an
uneven development between countryside and town. The repatriation of profit
made by the colonial merchant houses created an uneven development between
colonialised territories and those of their colonisers.

How to bring schools, hospitals, roads, electricity, water supply to the
countryside and pay those employed by the State became a major dilemma. Some
countries nationalized industries and other services not realising that many
of them were not linked to the agricultural base of their economies and were
not serving to provide consumer goods to the ordinary farmer. Others did not
nationalize industries and services.

However, irrespective of whether industries owned  by foreign companies were
nationalized or not, no development agenda was in place that could eradicate
poverty in the countryside. Instead the bureaucracy continued to increase.
The cost of living in urban areas continued to rise. The standards of living
and the level of dependency continued to increase giving rise to the
diversion of tax money to consumption by the bureaucracy.

The countryside continued to depend on the production of raw materials which
continued to earn less in comparison to the rise in the prices of
manufactured goods. This led to the impoverishment of the countryside and
pockets of development in urban areas.

On the other hand, in countries where industries were not nationalized, the
growth in the parasitic bureaucracy also led to high level of corruption
where nominal industries and companies survived mainly by getting contracts
from State bureaucracy through patronizing bureaucrats. The countryside
depended on the sale of raw materials in the face of escalating prices of
commodities.

In both cases, the saturation of the tax base lead governments to borrow
more and more to finance development projects.

In my view, development can come to African countries by understanding the
law of balanced and proportionate development which calls for policies that
run contrary to the law of uneven development. What this simply means is
that the countryside cannot be developed by simply bringing hospitals and
schools without a productive base to sustain them; that development in the
countryside should be linked to development of the productive base of
communities. It is to recognise that each community is a production unit and
they can be made to collaborate in different forms of cooperation to produce
their basic necessities such as food, housing and processed goods which
would have otherwise been imported. Through cottage industries, milk
products, oil, canned vegetables and fruits can be produced through the use
of appropriate technology. So each community must seek to be self reliant in
producing the basic necessities and also in producing what it can sell to
other communities including the international community to be able to earn
more for social development. The law of balanced and proportionate
development calls for a linkage between public servants and the productive
base.

As the communities develop their social institutions, the number of public
servants will increase with the growth of those community institutions. in
this way, the public service becomes a working body which is linked to the
productive base. Instead of a parasitic bureaucracy you end up with a
productive branch of the national economy with specialisation in services of
all sorts.

This development of the community productive base could be linked to a
national productive base where resources could be invested in light scale
industries to process goods for consumption. With such a self reliant
economy, development can proceed without terrible dependence on external aid
for any development project.

It goes without saying that such community development must go hand in hand
with total ownership of the community by the people. This calls for
empowerment of the people so that they are involved in the adminsitrative
lives of their communities. Community members would participate in different
committees in order to facilitate the construction of services by taking
part in planning, in receiving resources, in making decision on tenders, in
keeping stores, monitoring the construction of public services, giving
feedbacks to the community and delivering final products to the communities
with explanation of cost and so on to ensure transparency and accountability
thus making the community an agency to prevent corruption.

Clearly, if each African country moves in a similar direction, then their
economies which are well organised internally could have collaborated to
ensure the maximum development of their potentials by pooling up their
monetary resources, make investments in the right sectors and complement
each other's economies through mutually beneficial trade.

With the people empowered everywhere, their political unity could also have
been ensured since managing a society would have seized to be the privilege
of tyrant and would have been  a mere task imposed on reliable people chosen
by the people.  Such people would not allow anybody to overstay and
misrepresent them.

In my view, Kwame saw the Pan African agenda and had hoped that through the
unity of the continent from above, continental institutions such as armies,
central banks and so on could have been created. However, he did not realise
fast enough that the real task was to build up the countryside to ensure
their self reliance and their empowerment; that this constituted the bastion
on which continental unity could emerge.

This is my view of Pan Africanism. I hope my position is now clear.

Have all your questions been answered now? Can I now go on with my
historical analysis of the whole coup period? I believe other people may be
interested in my analysis of the whole coup period for the sake of
posterity.


Greetings.


Halifa Sallah.

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