Baba Jobe Runs Out of Luck

The Independent (Banjul)
NEWS
November 17, 2003
Posted to the web November 17, 2003
Banjul

Behind-the-scene-efforts by a luckless group of ruling party members of the
National Assembly to intercede with the government for clemency on behalf
of disgraced Majority leader Baba Jobe has failed, The Independent can
reveal.

A day after Honourable Baba Jobe was called in for questioning by the Fraud
Squad and subsequently charged for fraud over a "dishonoured" cheque he
reportedly issued to the Gambia Ports Authority, APRC members of the
National Assembly led by Churchill Baldeh and including Foday Lang Sarr,
Duta Kamaso, Ramzia Diab, Nyimasata Sanneh-Bojang and Fabakary Tombong
Jatta met vice president Isatou Njie-Saidy on Friday in a bid to influence
the fate of the majority leader, whose diplomatic immunity sources
suggested has been lifted.

Baba Jobe appeared at the High Court Friday afternoon along with Baba
Kanteh a confederate identified as an employee of the Youth Development
Enterprise. The YDE had itself been the bane of contention between
Honourable Jobe and President Jammeh who had reportedly demanded that it
should be scrapped for unspecified reasons, although sources attribute the
president's lack of accommodation for the business outfit to unorthodox
business practices ranging from tax evasion, money laundering and other
unscrupulous dealings.

According to unimpeachable sources, the vice president had reportedly told
the delegation bent on rescuing him from his troubles that it was out of
her powers to influence the decision regarding his fate and was therefore
the wrong person to meet on this occasion. Reports also suggest that the
new Inspector General of Police Landing (13) Badjie also allegedly turned
down a request by the same MPs to visit with him over the possibility of
Honourable Jobe's release after he spent Thursday night dejected in a
police bench at police headquarters in Banjul. Having failed to seek
audience with the police boss, the APRC delegation also visited the offices
of the Secretary of State for the Interior and Religious Affairs Sulayman
Masanneh Ceesay. According to sources at the department, those Honourable
Jobe leads in the National Assembly wanted him (SOS Ceesay) to lend weight
to their plea for their man but were reportedly disappointed by the new
minister's response.

As at press time Saturday, reports were starting to filter through to The
Independent, suggesting that the APRC delegation were seeking audience with
President Jammeh whom earlier unconfirmed reports alleged gave the orders
for Honourable Jobe's questioning by the Fraud Squad.

Honourable Jobe was paraded before a judge of the High Court in Banjul,
after a team of lawyers acting on his behalf, tried albeit abortively to
secure his bail on Thursday. He was bailed a day later. Witnesses also
claimed that Honourable Jobe's relatives and friends had spent Thursday
night sprawled on the floor of the police room where he was detained
overnight.

Meanwhile a group of Jarrankas (from his birth region of Jarra) and APRC
party sympathisers converged at a compound in Tallinding to recite the holy
Quran in a bid to summon God's mercy on the disgraced majority leader who
earlier in the day appeared totally subdued in the High Court as his case
was heard and witnessed by hundreds of people, some relatives, some
sympathisers and others just curious onlookers.

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