Dave

Thanks for forwarding us this piece of information.
Lets now hope that Gambia's Biggest Fugitive will
liaise with his lawyers and file a lawsuit against the
Washington Times.

Have a wonderful day

Sanusi Owens



--- Dave Manneh <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >
************************************************************************
> Culled from The Free Africa Foundation
> http://www.freeafrica.org/elites5.html
>
> Regards
> Manneh
>
**************************************************************************
>
>
> NO TEARS FOR AFRICA’S INTELLECTUALS
>
> An FAF Publication in New African (October 1996).
>
> ----------------------------------------------------
>
> The most painful and treacherous aspect of Africa's
> collapse was the wilful and
> active collaboration by Africa's own intellectuals,
> many of whom were
> highly "educated" with Ph. D.s, and who should have
> known better. Yet a
> multitude of them have prostituted themselves,
> selling off their principles and
> integrity to partake of the plunder, misrule and
> repression of the African
> people. In fact, according to Colonel. Yohanna A.
> Madaki (rtd), when General
> Gowon drew up plans to return Nigeria to civil rule
> in 1970, "academicians
> began to present well researched papers pointing to
> the fact that military rule
> was the better preferred since the civilians had not
> learned any lessons
> sufficient enough to be entrusted with the
> governance of the country" (Post
> Express, 12 November 1998, 5).
>
> The Prostitutes
>
> One such prostitute was Kokou Koffigoh who joined
> President Gnassingbe Eyadema
> as Togo's Prime Minister in 1992. New African
> (January 1993) wrote that "the
> opposition thinks Koffigoh has sold out the gains of
> the Togo National
> Conference by not carrying out its decisions and by
> allowing President Eyadema
> to return to power" (19).
>
> Another was Gwanda Chakuamba of Malawi, who was
> appointed the chairman of
> the "presidential council" by former Life-President
> Hastings Banda in 1993. As
> The Economist (20 November 1993) reported:
> "Chakuamba was an old Malawi
> Congress Party (MCP) and ex-minister, who was jailed
> in 1980 for sedition and
> released in July 1993. He then flirted briefly with
> the opposition United
> Democratic Front, but, while Dr. Banda was in
> hospital, suddenly emerged as
> secretary-general of ruling party and acting head of
> state" (47). Chakaumba's
> move was roundly denounced "as a betrayal to the
> opposition, who had tirelessly
> campaigned for his release following local and
> international pressure on the
> MCP government's poor human rights record. "Reliable
> sources reported that
> whilst he was in prison, Chakuamba was subjected to
> immersion in water and was
> chained hand-and-foot for months on end" (African
> Business, December 1993, 29).
> How could an educated man, whose basic human rights
> were viciously violated in
> detention, suddenly decide to join his oppressor?
>
> When Captain Yahya Jammeh overthrew the
> democratically elected government of
> Sir Dawda Jawara on July 24, 1994, the only minister
> from the Jawara
> administration enticed to serve the military regime
> was the finance minister,
> Bakary Darbo, a very well respected economist --
> even in international circles.
> He was instrumental in getting the World Bank to
> resume aid to The Gambia. On
> 10 October 1994, he was fired by the military junta:
> He was no longer useful to
> them. Then on 15 November, he was accused of
> complicity in the 11 November
> abortive coup attempt. He fled to neighboring
> Senegal with his family.
>
> Next to assume the finance ministry portfolio was
> Ousman Koro Ceesay. When he
> became no longer useful to the military junta, "they
> smashed his head with a
> baseball bat," said Captain Ebou Jallow, the
> number-2 man in the ruling council
> who defected to the United States on 15 October (The
> Washington Times, 20
> October 1995, A15).
>
> Time and time again, despite repeated warnings,
> highly "educated" African
> intellectuals throw caution and common sense to the
> winds and fiercely jostle
> one another for the chance to hop into bed with
> military brutes. The allure of
> a luxury car, a diplomatic or ministerial post and a
> government mansion often
> proves too irresistible. Nigeria's Senator Arthur
> Nzeribe once declared that
> General Babangida was good enough to rule Nigeria.
> When pressed, he
> confessed: "I was promised prime ministerial
> appointment. There is no living
> politician as hungry for power as I was who would
> not be seduced in the manner
> I was to invest in the ABN, with the possibility and
> promise of being Executive
> Prime Minister to a military president" (The
> Guardian, 13 November 1998, 3).
>
> So hordes of politicians, lecturers, professionals,
> lawyers, and doctors sell
> themselves off into prostitution and voluntary
> bondage to serve the dictates of
> military vagabonds with half their intelligence. And
> time and time again, after
> being raped, abused, and defiled, they are tossed
> out like rubbish --- or
> worse. Yet more intellectual prostitutes stampede to
> take their places.
>
> African countries that have imploded in recent years
> were all ruined by the
> military: Algeria, Burundi, Ethiopia, Liberia,
> Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Somalia,
> Sudan, Uganda, and Zaire, among others. In country
> after country in Africa,
> where military rule was entrenched, educational
> institutions (of the tertiary
> level - universities, and colleges) have all decayed
> --- starved of funds by
> the military. Although the official excuse is always
> lack of funds, the
> military predators always find the money to purchase
> shiny new pieces of
> bazookas for their thugs. But the real reason? "It
> is not in the best interest
> of these military governments to educate their
> people," says Wale Deyemi, a
> doctoral student at the University of Lagos. "They
> do not want people to be
> able to challenge them" (The Washington Post, 6
> October 1995, A30).
>
> In Nigeria, the sciences have been hardest hit.
> Science teachers have been
> vanishing with such alarming frequency that
> Professor Peter Okebukola, the
> president of the National Science Teachers
> Association of Nigeria, lamented at
> the association's thirty-sixth annual conference at
> Maiduguri that "good
> science teachers are increasingly becoming an
> endangered species" (African News
> Weekly, 13 October 1995, 17).
>
> In spite of all this evidence, some African
> intellectuals still vociferously
> defend military regimes while their own institutions
> --- the very places where
> they teach or obtained their education ---
> deteriorate right under their very
> noses. One would have thought that these professors
> and intellectuals would
> protect their own institutions, just as the soldiers
> jealously protect their
> barracks and keep them in top shape. But no! For
> small change, the
> intellectuals have been willing to help and
> supervise the destruction of their
> very own university system.
>
> Another expendable intellectual prostitute was Abass
> Bundu of Sierra Leone ---
> the former secretary-general of ECOWAS --- though
> his fate was less horrible.
> When he was appointed by the 29-year-old illiterate
> Captain Valentine Strasser
> to be Sierra Leone's foreign minister in early 1995,
> he left home to grab the
> post in a cloud of dust. In August 1995 he was
> tossed into a garbage bin in a
> radio announcement. He claimed in a Voice of America
> radio interview that "he
> never applied to join the junta" (African News
> Weekly, 8 September 1995, 12).
>
=== message truncated ===

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