Toure, I thank both you and Karamba for your brilliant rejoinders. Seems we
are on the same wavelength on this topic. Hamjatta also moved the discourse
further to articulate the ‘exit strategy’ we might wish to employ. As you
all said, talks about boycott is not the end here. It should be a means to
an end: removing Yaya from the State House. Together with Hamjatta’s great
example about the Burmese situation, we can also study the Ivory Coast
situation and what happened to Allasane Ouattara.

If we study that situation, we will realize that Hamjatta’s fear about Yaya
having a mock election is NOT a farfetched fear. It is important that the
Opposition speak with a unified voice on this issue and other crucial issues
surrounding the elections. If the boycott is going to happen, everyone
should boycott. We should not have a situation like they had in Ivory Coast
where the main Opposition parties will boycott and some minor elements in
the Opposition will partake in the elections thus legitimizing a de facto
Dictatorship. We must not allow Yaya to steal the elections. We must not
allow him to also stay in power one extra day beyond his current mandate. If
we cannot have a free and fair election under him, let us have one without
him. Kick him out of the State House and have our own election that is going
to be free and fair.

As Hamjatta has said, if we want to exploit the boycott to the maximum, now
is the time that the case should be made to the Gambian public and the
international community. Every day things are going on in the country that
blatantly tells us the election is being rigged. We had a flawed
re-registration process. We are not clear about how to challenge the clearly
doctored voter rolls. Some Gambian politicians have been unconstitutionally
banned from participating in the elections. The APRC is using bribery to buy
votes. The government-controlled media is not accessible to the Opposition.
Opposition supporters are constantly harassed, arrested and hoist to court
to defend bogus charges. Gambians in the Diaspora cannot vote. List goes on.
Clearly, what we have is NOT a level playing field. Add to these shenanigans
what we should expect on polling day.

NIA and July 22 Movement thugs will be all over the place trying to prevent
Opposition supporters from voting. Casamance refugees will be escorted by
government thugs to go and vote for Yaya. These thugs will employ the same
tactics they employed to disrupt the registration process and ensure that
foreigners participate in our elections while Gambians are prevented from
voting. If they fail in their endeavor to prevent Gambians from voting for
the Opposition, they plan to tamper with the ballots cast and declare bogus
results. That is why Gabriel Roberts went against his word (he gave to the
Parties) and want to impose on the Gambian people, the wishes of Yaya.

Toure, you are right to point to the absurdity in the reason Roberts
proffered for counting the votes at a centralized location. This is
ludicrous. As you rightly pointed out, the easiest way to eradicate any
violence on Election Day, is to put the APRC thugs in check. They are the
ones that engage in violence. The by-elections we just had, is quite
instructive here. There were no reports of turmoil in Kiang where the APRC
‘won’. But in Baddibu, disappointed APRC supporters went on the rampage and
attacked the UDP victors. In the end, UDP supporters whose compound was
trespassed by APRC thugs ended up being arrested by the Police and taken to
court. When the Magistrate freed the UDP supporters, the Magistrate was
fired from his job. Now, how do you stop this thuggery by counting the
ballots at a centralized location? See the ‘disconnect’?

Roberts knows that he is trying to defend the indefensible. Fancy how he
went to the Gambian press and childishly wanted to play semantics in an
attempt to explain the unceremonious way the IEC/PIEC was taken from him and
given to Johnson. Roberts is a shameless character. The man is not even
ashamed to face the Opposition Parties he had a deal with, and tell them
that the ‘higher powers’ (Yaya) has vetoed the deal. This man is pathetic.
He also gave his word to the Diaspora, just to come up with a lame excuse
for disenfranchising another set of Gambians perceived to be anti-Yaya. I
knew from day one that he was lying when he said that he intended to
register Gambians living in the Diaspora. This man is impotent and cannot do
anything without Yaya’s clearance.

Going back to the reason about the location for the vote counting. If one
follows Roberts’ logic, then there should be no elections. Roberts is
claiming that the voters will cause trouble if the votes are counted at the
polling station. Would it not be the same voters that will be there earlier
during the day to cast their votes? This is preposterous. Does not make
sense. The root of the violence (the APRC thugs) should be attacked, rather
than giving this illegal government another opportunity to steal the
elections. Counting the votes at these venues does not mean that the votes
will be announced there and the disappointed voters will go on a rampage.
The only disappointed voters that have gone on a rampage were the APRC
supporters in Baddibu. In the last General Elections, Yaya clearly stole the
elections. Did we see any Opposition supporter go on a rampage? I wished
they did. Cause if they did, we would not be talking about the Massacre of
our children in 2001.

Just like the APRC with the help of Roberts and the IEC are laying the
groundwork to steal the elections, we should be on their back to ensure that
this election is not stolen with impunity. As Karamba said, this is a matter
of life and death. We must not allow them to ‘win’ this election by stealing
it in broad daylight. We all know that Yaya CANNOT win a free and fair
election in the country. The callous moron has nothing to offer us.

I take this opportunity to also respectfully counsel the independent press
in the country to watch its back and vigorously defend itself. I detect a
very vicious and blatant lie being perpetrated against the press. The latest
such lie coming from Sedat Jobe. The press should take these vermin to task.
The press is NOT responsible for any trouble in the country. What do these
people want? For the press not to report the crimes of this illegal
government? The culprit here is the criminals leading us. It is NOT the
reporters that report the crimes. How many times have we read reports of
independent journalists seeking to get the government’s perspective just to
be met by a hostile government functionary that does not want to talk to the
press? The last example pertained to that despicable Sedat Jobe. When he was
asked to talk about Baabaa Jobe, he refused to do so. Instead he cowardly
sent out an inflammatory letter blaming people that have nothing to do with
Baabaa Jobe’s crimes.

To the people that criticize the independent Gambian press, I just have a
simple question for them. How many libel/slander cases have the government
won against the Independent or the Point or Radio One? That is how we guage
whether the press is doing a good job or not. We have laws that govern what
journalists should say. You do NOT guage what the press is doing by counting
the number of times government thugs hoist journalists to the NIA and beat
up or deport journalists. This is just evidence of lawlessness. APRC
reaction to what the press is reporting by constantly whining (in the form
of Sedat Jobe) or beating up journalists (like that soldier did just a few
days ago) is no indication that the independent press is biased against
APRC. If APRC is aggrieved by the reports in the papers, let them follow the
law and bring libel and slander cases against the print media and broadcast
journalists, respectively. Until then, the press should NOT sit by while the
vermin blame them for the lawlessness of this government. The press is NOT
inciting any violence. It is the thugs that are murdering our children and
stealing our meager resources that are provoking the Gambian people.

Toure, I thank you, Karamba and Hamjatta for your brilliant contributions.
KB


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