For people that still need convincing about the deplorable state of
Gambians, I say to them to look no further than Famara Jatta’s budget.
Better still, I tell those people to talk frankly to their folks back home.
AFPRC/APRC unashamedly declare that under their watch, Gambians have grown
poorer, yet we still have sycophants such as Gassama and Essa Sey and Ousman
Bojang and misguided souls such as Musa Jeng tell us otherwise.  I just
cannot understand how seemingly educated people can be bamboozled by the
mental midgets running our country.

With all due respect to Musa Jeng, Gambians in the Diaspora are NOT overly
preoccupied about ‘intangibles’ such as good governance and the rules of
law; and oblivious of ‘bread-and-butter’ issues that face our people back
home.  I know this is the favorite argument of the sycophants back home that
want to rationalize their support for this despicable regime.  But it is
simply NOT a true argument and it is a weak one.  Some of us in the Diaspora
are not just concerned about the bread-and-butter issues that our folks
face, we solve their problems.  It tells a lot about people in the Diaspora
that make statements as the ones made by Musa Jeng and Ousman Bojang.  I can
understand the statements coming from Gassama.  He CANNOT send dollars to
his family.  Almost all the Gambians I interact with in the Diaspora always
send money to their families.  It is that money that is feeding the people
back home.  It is NOT jobs created by government that is feeding our people.
  Gassama CANNOT honestly tell anyone here that he can live on his salary
alone and feed his extended family, if he has any.  It is NOT Yaya’s
‘generosity’ that is feeding our families.  What is wrong with these people
that cannot even recognize that hardworking Gambians in the Diaspora are the
very people why our folks back home are not starving to dead?

We do NOT just argue about the illegal incarcerations and the massacres and
the corruption in the country.  We work hard to feed our families from our
salaries and NOT from money stolen from poor people.  How gullible can some
people be?  You listen to people like Musa Jeng and Gassama, you think we
have an elaborate road network in the country.  This is a figment of these
people’s imagination.  A pure manifestation of ALES.  This illegal
government has saddled a generation of Gambians (yet unborn) with huge
loans.  We still have massive power black-outs in the country; and we are
only talking about the urban areas.  Don’t even think about electricity in
rural areas.  We still have acute shortages of water; again we are talking
about the urban areas serviced by NAWEC.  Inside Banjul, AFPRC/APRC did NOT
improve the road network.  We still have the impassable streets we had
pre-1994.  What road networks are these people talking about?  Since they
are so conversant with the ‘development’ in the country and the
‘bread-and-butter’ issues of our people, why don’t they tell us how many
kilometers of road AFPRC/APRC brought to the country compared to the loans
they have saddled us with.  What’s all this obsession with ‘buildings’?  I
would have thought that such gimmicks will only work with some of the
gullible back home.  To have some of the ‘Daisporans’ fixated on these
gimmicks is very disappointing, to say the least.

The reality on the ground is that while commodity prices (of rice, oil,
sugar etc.) are going up, people are getting poorer.  The few that have jobs
CANNOT make ends meet.  What use is the road from Yundum to Banjul to poor
farmers that CANNOT sell their produce?  Gambians (including the Gassamas of
this world) know what they are going through.  Because of fear and
selfishness some will prefer to live in denial.  One only has to do the math
to realize that something really rotten is going on.  How many of these
government functionaries get paid three thousand dalasis a month?  People
like Gassama know how they are getting by.  But they will NOT speak the
truth or lay blame where it should repose.  If these people do NOT even want
to recognize the problems they are faced with, I wonder how they are going
to solve those problems.  I know Gambians that Yaya have directly destroyed
their livelihoods, yet they still follow the man like a dog.  Even though
those Gambians know that they do NOT owe their livelihoods to Yaya, they
would still pretend to love the man and give him credit for their survival.
If you quiz them, you will realize that these misguided Gambians are only
‘grateful’ to Yaya because they are at least still alive and they have not
been incarcerated.  Pathetic state of affairs.  These people will NOT even
acknowledge that they are surviving because their children in the Diaspora
are sending them money.  I submit that NO government functionary (including
Yaya) can genuinely claim that they are living (and supporting their
families) from their hard-earned salaries.  None of them.  In short, Musa
Jeng, what should have been described as a mirage in your piece, should have
been Yaya’s ‘developments’.  Clearly, we do NOT have the ‘first-class
hospitals’ you mentioned.  We also do NOT have an elaborate road network in
the country.  Let us talk figures and actualities and NOT plans.  How many
kilometers did the AFPRC/APRC build?  The ‘energy crisis in the country is
also far from being a thing in the past.  Like I said, we still suffer from
electricity and water shortages.  If this was a serious government, rather
than Yaya stealing millions of dollars and opening Swiss Bank accounts, they
would have solved our energy problems since 1995.

Any way you slice it, this government is NOT good for us.  They have a
deplorable human rights record.  They have an abysmal economic
(‘development’) record.  They took huge loans on behalf of Gambians and used
the money mainly for their private purposes.  Their own data tells us that
Gambians have grown poorer during their watch.  If we are good sons of our
parents, our own data should also tell us that without the money we send to
our parents, they would all be starving.  Just take this year’s Hajj.
People in the Diaspora sent hard-earned dollars to their parents just for
them to be stranded at Yundum airport thanks to the corruption and
ineptitude of Baabaa (‘Blood-Diamond-Dealer’) Jobe.  On a macro scale, the
government continues to screw our people.  Because of their bad policies,
the money we send our folks is worth less.  When some of us go to Gambia or
talk to our folks, we should ensure that we have our eye on the ball and NOT
be bamboozled by APRC sycophants that think that Yaya is doing them a favor
by stealing their own money and turning around and giving them ‘crumbs’.
KB



>From: Musa Jeng <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
><[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: A recent trip to Gambia
>Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2002 22:58:09 -0500
>
>As the Tourist flight taxied off the runway at the Banjul International,
>there was a feeling of sadness of living the country I loved, but also a
>mix feeling of delight- having to return back to my three year old whom I
>missed a lot during my two weeks vacation to The Gambia.
>

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