In the wake of all the overpontifications, questionable first hand follies, and fallacious accounts of the circumstances leading to the most recent and previous coups, one common denominator is the fact that most of the story tellers are refugee passport holders who were either in the inner-circle of the AFPRC or were former ranking army officers who absconded because of thievery or participation in  uncovered coup plots.

One such person calls himself Mr. Ebou Colly.  A former Lt. Colonel now masquerading as  Ebou Colly. The Lt. Colonel has all the rights to restate his observations while in the GNA.  My contention with his uproar  is twofold;  a) Why hide behind a fake name; b) Why deal the ethnicity card.  He carefully picked a Jola name - 'Colly', which is clearly an attempt to convey the illusion that he could not harbor any rooted resentment toward Jolas.   He used a check-list of names/victims of false-coups, to incite and justify contempt for the Jolas.

Well Mr. Colly!  as the newest member of Gambia-l, please be advised that this forum, as reflected by the ethnic composition of the Gambia is not Anti-Jola and so I don't think you can succeed in inciting a reprisal against Jolas.  The fact that  all of the attempted coups in The Gambia since July 22, 1994 are committed by non Jola's does not imply that 'all Jolas are benefiting from a Jola President and thus the docility'.

On the late Lt. Almamo Manneh and Lt. Landing Sanneh, I don't wish to elaborate on the former because the dead deserve a peaceful 'RIP'.  The latter is an acquaintance of mine and I stand to tell Gambia-l how disappointed I am that he heeded to outside interest to embark on a suicidal fantasy of staging a two man coup. The highlight of my involvement with Lt. Sanneh includes computerizing his State House Office and familiarizing him with basic computer skills.  Lt. Sanneh is no stranger to me.  Folks,  I have no doubt  that Lt. Sanneh and Lt. Manneh intended to stage a coup.  Sanneh himself, under absolutely no duress confessed his involvement as the ring leader and asked for a chance to apologize on National TV.  The truth my friends will eventually unfold.
 This man practically grew up with Yahya Jammeh, went to the same school, and was as close  to The President as anybody can get.  Folks, Ebou Colly need to be reminded about the Bob Marley lyric that says "Your worst enemy could be your best friend and your best friend your worst enemy".  The assassination of Thomas Sankara by a close friend  and confidant ( Blaise Campore ) and the assassination of the Niger President by the head of his Presidential guard shows that  trust cannot go unabated.  This theory of a fake coup conspiracy is pure nonsense.

During the shoot-out at Lt. Sanneh’s residence, his wife  yelled out - "hand  yourself over before they kill us all!!!:  This upon hearing the leader of the soldiers give firm orders and said "cease fire, there are children inside, cease fire I say!" Lt. Sanneh gave himself up at that point thus saving his life.  If these soldiers were butchers or blood-thirsty, they would not have cared about the welfare of Lt. Sanneh’s  wife and children.  Folks, all these facts are on record, I am not fabricating anything here.  The intelligence agency has almost completed its investigation and most of you will be surprised when the revelations are on air!

In fact Mr. Ebou Colly - are you not part of the coup plot?  Are you not a former Lt. Colonel? There is a network that’s ready to reveal your identity while you hide in the Bronx and incite civil war in the Gambia.  Lt. Sanneh will very soon appear on TV and give his version to the Gambia public.  This regime cannot be called "butchers" when all of us have seen what happened in Accra Ghana in 1979/80.  Is Rawlings not your darling now?.  We all remembered when Jawara ordered Sgt. Ousman Jallow to liquidate some rebels in a professional serial killer style!  Those of us crying foul today were cheering this very man.  You are saying that there are graves behind toilets. Yes, say it!  But, wasn’t it during Jammeh’s era that the bodies of two Gambian soldiers who were buried in Liberia exhumed and flown back to Banjul for the usual military burial?  Mr. Colly,  I believe you are only angry because your role as a soldier was more politically-oriented and as such you were eventually ejected from the Army because of your own virtue.  The Captain Cherno Jallow you mentioned is currently serving in Sieraleone with the UN peace-keeping force.

How can we contact Mr. Cherno Jallow on the phone when the man is not even in the country, let alone call a seven digit number 4722121 when all phones in The Gambia are six (6) digits.  I suggest you provide us with ‘more credible’ stories next time.  A smear campaign with distorted facts will not win you any sympathizers.  I know these officers you mentioned.  You’re deliberately mentioning their names so as to indirectly stain their characters in a forum where they don’t have access.  Yes Yahya’s power base is in the Gambian people.  He is serving the Gambian people as mandated by the constitution by virtue of being democratically elected as President.

If all your allegations are right,  how can a few soldiers make Yahya stay in power for all these years?  How can a few soldiers stand against a Fully Trained Army of your caliber?.  Wow, this is mind-boggling, a few soldiers against mighty Ebou Colley and his Battalion!!!  With all the information that you have, don't you think you owe it to Gambia-l to tell us your role, title/rank in the Army and your subsequent fallout with the regime and subsequent fleeing into exile.  You're too busy calling Yahya Jammeh, Yankuba Touray, Edward Singarteh, and Kaba Bajo bastards, thugs, cowards, and empty heads.    I challenge you to tell Gambia-l what your qualifications are. What University/College or Military institution did you attend and what qualifies you to call anybody an empty head.  What skills do you have and what job if any did your A-1 resume got you in the real world.  It is always interesting that those who always want to come across as more intellectual have little or no proof/title to back it up.  THE ABILITY TO READ AND POMPOUSLY WRITE in the Queens language does not,  by no means, make one an intellectual or worthy of the title 'Learned'.  Even having a Ph.D doesn't automatically qualify one as an intellectual.

You stated that  Yahya Jammeh is a coward.  Folks, It was the same Yahya Jammeh who on the night before the coup was disarmed and risked being apprehended and put on death row.  It takes a man of great courage and guts to lead a coup in broad daylight the next day.  He led the march to Banjul to rescue us from thirty years of corruption, tribalism, and marginalization  in the highest degree.   All of you writing nonsense now against this regime are the same people who were scrambling for positions.  Your colorless and opportunistic characters are the very baits that hooked you up during the course of events.

On the issue of tribalism, the last time I checked, Eleven out of thirteen secretaries of state are non Jolas and that's not because there are no qualified Jolas.  If Jammeh is playing the ethnic card, all of these secretaries of state would have been Jolas, and surely, he could have filled all these positions will Jola intelligentsia even from this Gambia-l alone.

If President Jammeh is tribalist, he would not have publicly stated that he won the presidential elections mainly because of the 56% percent of the larger ethnic groupings that he carried, including a majority of the Mandingos.  It is easy for the likes of Ebou Colly with refugee passports to incite ethnic hatred in the comforts of their new found status thousands of miles away.  We at Gambia-L should ask ourselves who the real victims of a civil war in Gambia would be. Over 90% of Gambia-l subscribers are in the diaspora and would not be personally affected by an all out civil war but some of us still have our loved ones back home.  If Ebou Colly also thinks that a civil war in the Gambia would result in a swift and decisive massacre of all Jolas, I am here to tell you that you must be living in a dream world.  We are all brothers and sisters in the Gambia.  I for one cannot raise a finger of hatred toward any Gambian because of his/her ethnicity.

I suggest Mr. Ebou Colly, or whatever you choose to call yourself to take your simplistic fiery rhetoric to another forum.  Besides, if the Jolanization syndrome that you so tirelessly try to portray is real, then even the SOS for foreign affairs position would have been given to Mr. Mbye Sagnia who is at the EU in Brussesl.  Some of us on this Gambia-l were taught by Mbye Sagnia  who is arguably the best French Scholar from The Gambia.   He was born at Kombo Berending and he is a Jola.  He was frustated out of the Jawara regime after having been left to inhale chalk for years at Armitage School.

THIS PRESIDENT  ( YAHYA JAMMEH ) IS HERE FOR ALL GAMBIANS REGARDLESS OF LANGUAGE AFFILIATION.  QUITE A CONTRAST FROM 30 YEARS OF MARMARGINALIZING THE FONIS ESPECIALLY AFTER THE KUKOI COUP. This is not a fabrication because even  ex President Jawara  said, and I quote, " how can Yahya Jammeh, from a minority tribe, rule over the majority tribe ."  I am not making this up because I was one of only seven attendants at a meeting held for the express purpose of seeking support for his return to Gambia ‘As President’. The meeting was held at the campus of The University of Miami (Ohio ) moderated by Dr. Abdoulie Saine.  For the record, under the current Yahya Jammeh regime, the fact remains that  99% if not 100% of all rural development projects are in areas other than the Fonis.   The Foni constituents never complained then (during Jawara) and are not complaining now.  So what’s the basis of Mr. Ebou Colly uproar.

Let me remind you Mr. Ebou Colly - that you’d have to wipe out all the Mandingos, Fulas, Akus, Serrers, Manjakos, Serahulays, Wollofs, along with the Jolas if you want to achieve your goal because this government is represented by all the ethnic makeup of the Gambia.  So, my friend who are you really taking on here?

I cannot conclude without touching on (a),  the NIA stuff and (b),  the Crude oil stuff.  On the NIA stuff let us be reminded that the Security council is chaired by the Vice President.  It controls the security apparatus of the Gambia.  The NIA is directly under this umbrella.  The main objective and role of the council is to assess, analyze, and report all matters concerning national security to the President.  I am not a French scholar but I believe this what they call ‘malsaisance’.  The level of ethnic tolerance that we enjoy in the  Gambia in unsurpassed.  No ethnic group can claim to be marginalized  or flushed out of the system.  No ethnic group has a lock on the Presidency or any other office for that matter.  Public office is a revolving door.  You’re in today and you’re gone when God’s time arrives.  The big picture is that we need to let the bells of tolerance ring from Banjul to Koina.

On the crude oil rumor/saga,  we need to be careful not to jump to conclusions.  I remember fully, a few weeks ago when the Gambia media, The Independent Newspaper in particular wrote that The Gambian First Lady Madam Zainab Yahya Jammeh returned to her native Morocco after a divorce from President  Jammeh.  They went further to swear that the new bride is from Sintet and a Native Jola.   Some members of this  list swore to the Holy Quran that the Independent newspaper account was correct.   Folks, I am not an expert in oil trading but common sense dictates that uplifting raw crude oil, refining that oil, finding a reasonable selling price, and drawing contracts involves some intricate decisions to make.  The fact remains that The President has proved that the proceeds of the crude oil is not in a Yahya Jammeh account.

A key figure in the oil transfer scandal Mr. Smith, said that all he know is that the oil was uplifted but doesn’t know how the funds were used.  Folks, the perception that the oil proceeds were deposited in a private account is purely speculative, ESPECIALLY WHEN PROJECTS WERE BEING COMPLETED ALL OVER THE GAMBIA DURING THIS PERIOD - Hmmmmm.  Making sense!!!  You bet !!!

The oil proceeds along with money from other sources were intended and used for the promotion of rural electrification, the Bwiam Hospital, the Kerawan Bridge,  etc. etc.

I KNOW MY CRITICS ARE WAITING WITH THEIR USUAL BLIND CRITICISMS BUT , HEY, I HAVE THICK SKIN AND BESIDES, THAT’S THE NATURE OF THE BEAST -  UNLESS  OF COURSE YOU THROW INSULTS AT ME THEN ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE !!!!

WE CAN BE CIVIL ABOUT IT OR WE CAN THROW BRIMSTONE AND FIRE !!!.

BTW.  Where is the cry for subscribers to use their real names.  Katim Touray - What’s up.  Why the silence?  Oh!!!  I know why! - they don’t have to reveal their identity as long as they ‘re Anti-APRC.  Talking about double standards...  WOW - WHAT A FORUM!!!

!!!!! RESUBSCRIBE BURAMA MANJANG - NOW !!!!!

Good Day,
                                Malafy "Mafy" Jarju
                                Software Engineer
                                Delta Air Lines
                                Corporate Offices




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