Bringing Edward Singhateh To Account: Making sense of the current troubles
of Baba Jobe


My Fellow Gambians,


I have just returned from a visit to Paris, and whilst there, I passed
through the United Democratic Party base.  I could not believe my eyes when
Sanna Ceesay gave me an Internet print-out of the report in the Daily
Observer of Ousman Sillah’s shooting.  My thoughts and prayers, like yours,
went immediately to Mr Sillah and his family.

This is my first opportunity since returning to the UK to contribute to the
discussions on the Internet about the shooting.

When I was working for the Daily Observer in The Gambia from 1992 to 1996, I
was at some point, a senior Court Reporter.  This gave me the opportunity to
have first-hand experience of some of our best Gambian legal minds at work.
Ousman Sillah stands out in my memory as an outstanding lawyer of the
highest calibre.  Mr Sillah treated me as a son:  his wife’s father the late
Alhaji Gibril Gaye of 34 Hagan Street, and my father the late Jogomai
Ceesay, were very close to each other:  they were more than brothers.

Mr Sillah is an intellectual giant:  anyone who has observed him at work in
the courts is full of respect for and admiration of him.  He is a man who
knows his field, and all his opponents give him due regard for his
professionalism and attention to detail.  He is a man who believes in
justice, and who deems that justice must also be seen to be done at all
times.  He is a man who has fought injustice all his life, who supports his
clients with veracity and wholeheartedness no matter what their background
or history.  He is a man of irreproachable integrity and superb competence;
a great supporter of human rights.  He is a Gambian of honour and decency.

We all of us wish Ousman Sillah a speedy recovery, and I would like to take
this opportunity to tell his family, including his son Pa Modou Sillah, that
they have our sympathy, support and prayers.  Ousman Sillah is a strong
person, very determined and focused, and with the help of Almighty God, he
will recover well.

The Gambian government’s priority should now be to give the investigation
into the shooting the most urgent and serious attention and support.
However, in the light of the past nine and a half years of Jammeh’s regime,
it is most unlikely that this criminal government will press for a full
investigation.  I would be naïve to expect it !  Even when one of its own
Ministers (Ousman Korro Ceesay) was murdered in cold blood, the government
did not press for a thorough investigation. It is not likely that the regime
will insist on a full investigation into the shooting of Ousman Sillah.

In the last few years, I have always held Yayha Jammeh to account for his
criminal behaviour and activities and I have done this in the public eye
through the auspices of the Gambia-L and more recently Gambia Post as well.

I now believe that it is time that we bring to account one of Jammeh’s
supporters, Mr Edward Singhateh.

I know Edward Singhateh very well indeed.  In fact, I counted him as a
brother and a tight friend before 1994.  Between 1990 and 1994, Edward and
myself did everything together:  we were close neighbours in Fajara, and
together we socialised in nightclubs and the like.  We were also members of
the same Vous at the gates of the compound of Abdou Sara Janha, the former
Secretary General and Head of the Civil Service under President Jawara.  Our
Vous was called NASA, and Edward and myself formed a close bond in the Vous:
  we shared similar backgrounds, both of us coming from poor families.  He
and I were kindred spirits:  we were first-hand witnesses of the
extravagances of Jawara’s privileged elite and particularly that of the
children of Jawara’s favourites.  Together we condemned the privileged
lifestyles of these people.  Edward himself would often become very angry
and agitated about the rampant inequalities and unearned privileges of the
Jawara favoured ones.

Edward Singhateh has an English mother who lived in Fajara.  His father, a
convert to Christianity,  David Singhateh (who died before the coup) and his
mother lived for some time in the UK but returned to The Gambia.  Edward’s
brother, Major Peter Singhateh, was also one of my friends and he joined us
in our Vous to discuss the maladministration of the Jawara regime.

The irony is that when the Singhateh brothers finished their A Levels at
Gambia High School, it was Sara Janha (then the Head of the Civil Service
under Jawara) who helped Edward get a job at the Civil Aviation Authority
and Peter a place on a training course at Gamtel training school.  Within a
short while however, both brothers elected to join the Army.  Holding dual
nationality (British and Gambian), they had to revoke their British
citizenship in order to join the Gambia National Army.  They underwent
training in Farafenni and subsequently Peter went to Sandhurst in the UK
whilst Edward went for military training in the USA.  On their return to The
Gambia, both brothers were made sub-Lieutenants.

By the time that Edward and Peter were back from their studies, most of our
NASA Vous members had left The Gambia, and so Edward, Peter and myself hung
together.  It became very obvious to me that Edward was extremely unhappy
with the Jawara regime – with people like Sara Janha, Bun Jack the former
Permanent Secretary of Defence, Ebou Ndour, former Chief of Protocol to
Jawara, and Omar Sey, the former Foreign Minister, who were his neighbours
in Fajara.

Edward started to become a rather solitary figure in the Vous:  his habit
was to sit in a corner hunched over a file, busy writing.  In later years,
Edward confided to a mutual friend that whilst he sat with us at the Vous
drinking attaya, he was actually working on plans for a coup d’etat in The
Gambia.

The 1994 coup was very much the brainchild of Edward Singhateh.  It was he
who brought Sanna Sabally into the coup plotter’s circle.  Edward had wanted
a particular senior officer in the Gambia National Army (whose name I have
to withhold) to head the coup because of his experience of the mechanics of
government, about which he, Edward, was ignorant.  The senior officer (no
longer in the army, but living very comfortably in The Gambia) told Edward
that he would not be part of the coup, but that he would not disclose his
foreknowledge of the coup plot.  The senior officer in question then
suggested names of those military men who might well choose to get involved,
including the name of Yahya Jammeh.

Edward Singhateh went on to invite Jammeh to join the coup plotters, and
Jammeh later became head of the AFPRC because of both his senior rank and
his albeit limited knowledge of the mechanism of government.

At the time of the coup, Edward’s brother Peter was studying in the USA:
unlike the defunct Gambian National Security Service who had detected no
clues about a possible coup d’etat, Peter Singhateh was well aware that a
coup was being planned.

On July 22nd 1994, when Gambians including myself saw unusual military
manoeuvres in Banjul, Bakau and Yundum, I said to myself "If this is going
to turn into a coup d’etat, then Edward Singhateh will be at the heart of
it".  I was not to be proved wrong.

At 7pm on Radio One FM, the army announced that the Jawara regime had been
toppled and said that the coup leaders would be named in the next days.  On
Saturday 23rd July 1994, my own fears were confirmed when Momodou Musa Secka
and Rodney Sieh became the first journalists to interview the coup leaders
at State House.  They returned to the Daily Observer office and told me that
one of the coup leaders had said that he knew me well and sent greetings to
me.  A few hours later, Edward Singhateh himself made an announcement on
Radio Gambia:  he named the coup leaders and disclosed that Yahya Jammeh
would become the Chairman of the AFPRC and Head of State.  He urged Gambians
to return to work as normal on Monday 25th July and said that on Sunday 24th
there would be a statement of intention from the coup leaders.

From Day One, Edward Singhateh saw the military revolution as "his".  Being
the rather naïve reporter that I was at the time, I believed that these
young junior officers were sincere and meant well for my country.  It was
Kenneth Best, the then Editor in Chief of the Daily Observer, who started to
enlighten me.  He was the one who taught me never to believe the grandiose
statements of military coup leaders:  to mistrust their avowals of probity
and decency.  With his vast experience of African military take-overs,
Kenneth Best was in no doubt about the future of The Gambia under a military
regime.

At the same time, I also got to know the late Professor John Wiseman, a UK
expert on West African affairs who also had a keen interest in The Gambia.
Professor Wiseman, one of my later academic mentors,  also advised me
against trusting the high-sounding promises of military leaders.

Ironically, in the early days of the coup, one of Edward Singhateh’s
bodyguards, Batch Jallow, (later implicated in the death of Ousman Korro
Ceesay) would call me, "Sir", because I was known to be one of Edward’s
friends and at this point, I was not at daggers drawn with the coup leaders.
  It was when Kenneth Best, my mentor and friend at the Daily Observer, was
deported on October 30th 1994 that I decided to take off my gloves and show
my hands against the military regime.

After that, Batch Jallow would tell me that he would kill me if ever Edward
Singhateh ordered him to do so:  he told me that he could not understand why
I was in such open opposition to the AFPRC regime when Edward was a tight
friend of mine.  He found it difficult to comprehend why Edward might still
be talking to me when I was so openly against the coup.  There was no doubt
that Edward had very loyal military friends – people like Batch Jallow,
Kanji, Tamba and one Marong.  These friends would all follow Edward’s orders
without question:  their loyalty to him was 100% guaranteed.

By the end of 1994, I had become openly critical of the new regime, and
withstood many attempts to bring me onto the AFPRC side.  Later, Korro
Ceesay was one of the AFPRC people who tried to alter my opinion.

In 1993, I had interviewed Korro Ceesay in his role as an economist at the
National Investment Board on the issue of how much The Gambia was losing out
when Senegal closed its borders and brought The Gambia’s re-export business
to a halt.  Following publication of the interview in the Daily Observer,
Korro was suspended from his job.  I felt very bad about this:  his
suspension was directly the result of the interview he had given me in good
faith.  At the time, we had a mutual respect of each other:  he was a good
economist, with an excellent command of the English language, and he was an
accomplished orator. After his suspension, he went on to found the Quantum
Company in The Gambia.

Korro Ceesay was invited to join the AFPRC government and he became a
Permanent Secretary in the Office of the President.  He was amongst a
Gambian delegation which travelled to the USA in order to make the case for
the AFPRC regime (Bala Jahumpha the Finance Minister at the time and Captain
Ebou Jallow of the GNA headed the team).  The Gambian lawyer, Mrs Amie
Bensouda, was also a member of the delegation.

During the work of the delegation, Korro Ceesay impressed the Americans with
his clarity, foresight and language skills.  Yayha Jammeh, back in The
Gambia, received very positive feedback about Korro:  he was a Gambian "star
turn".  Shortly after his return to The Gambia, Korro Ceesay was promoted to
the position of Secretary to the Cabinet, and then to Finance Minister,
replacing Bala Jahumpha and being appointed as an honorary member of the
exclusive AFPRC.   Reportedly, and not unsurprisingly, Edward Singhateh
deeply resented the meteoric rise of Korro Ceesay.

Yahya Jammeh was taken with Korro Ceesay and gave him enormous powers.
Korro Ceesay was a man of ideas with a very persuasive manner.  In a short
time, Jammeh was consulting only Korro Ceesay on matters of policy and Korro
had a huge role in running The Gambia at this time.  Even though Edward
Singhateh was Vice Chairman of the AFPRC (having taken over from Sanna
Sabally who was removed from his position in January 1995), Korro Ceesay was
the one who became the centre of power:  at many times, he would have
meetings with Yahya Jammeh from which Singhateh and others were excluded.

Resentments started to grow:  Korro Ceesay began to misuse his powers and to
make mistakes.  For example, he removed Ms Sabel Ndure from her position at
the Ministry of External Affairs as a bi-lingual Secretary, and promoted her
as a Principal Assistant Secretary to the Ministry of Finance against the
wishes of Blaise Jagne, the Foreign Minister and the Personnel Management
Office.  On one particular occasion, and out of the blue, Korro Ceesay
ordered the closure of the border crossing point near Farafenni in order to
affect Senegalese vehicles transiting The Gambia for Casamance.  His
unilateral action almost destroyed completely the relations between Senegal
and The Gambia.

Korro Ceesay also had the major hand in the sacking of Mrs Amie Bensouda as
the Solicitor General of The Gambia.  On the delegation’s visit to the USA,
Amie Bensouda and Korro Ceesay were operating at an equivalent level. During
the visit, Korro ordered Amie Bensouda to take notes on his behalf.  On
their return to The Gambia, Ceesay demanded the notes from Lawyer Bensouda.
She did not produce them, since she had not kept them (nor was it anyway her
job to take notes for someone of Ceesay’s level in the delegation).  It was
then Korro Ceesay who ordered her dismissal from her role as Solicitor
General.

Mrs Bensouda had been regarded as a highly competent and effective Solicitor
General.  Her reputation was as a lawyer of the highest quality and
intellectual calibre.


(Lawyer Amie Bensouda – if you are reading this posting, you will know the
real reason for your dismissal from your then post).

By this time, Edward Singhateh was very angry and resentful of Korro
Ceesay’s extensive powers and influence with Yahya Jammeh.  He started to
distance himself from Ceesay and to complain about him.  Interestingly,
Mustapha Wade, the then Secretary General and Head of Civil Service,
reportedly advised Korro Ceesay to be very careful about his role within the
AFPRC.

In early June 1995, I was in the USA at the invitation of the US government,
and whilst there, I was invited to brief a pro-Democracy group headed by Dr
Sulayman Nyang at Howard University in Washington DC. The purpose of my
briefing was to update Gambians in the USA on the political situation
prevailing at the time in The Gambia.  Dr Sohna, Dr Tijan Sallah, Dr
Numukunda Darboe and Ousainou Mbenga were all in attendance.  I reported to
them about the worrying extent of Korro Ceesay’s influence and role in the
heart of government, amongst other things.

A few days later, I met up with Dr Sohna in Washington DC, and he told me
that Korro Ceesay had been mysteriously killed, and that my analyses had
been "spot on".

During the period before Ceesay’s murder, I had also visited Texas and I
contacted Hatib Gibou Janneh and the late Saul Jeng there (both Hatib and
Saul had been former members of the NASA Vous in Fajara).  They came to my
hotel and asked for details of how to contact Edward Singhateh.  They called
Edward in The Gambia and told him that they had met up with me in Texas.
Edward asked Saul for my hotel details, and then contacted me himself at the
hotel.  During our telephone conversation, Singhateh told me that he wanted
to expose Korro Ceesay as a corrupt man:  he let me know that he had a story
about Korro which he wanted to see published in the Daily Observer (in which
Korro was said to owe money to the now defunct Gambia Commercial and
Development Bank).  It was very obvious that Edward Singhateh was deeply
suspicious and resentful of Korro Ceesay.

I told Singhateh that one journalist who would reliably protect an anonymous
source was Demba Jawo, then working at the Daily Observer.  I also knew that
Jawo, a journalist of the highest integrity, would thoroughly research the
story before publishing it.  In the event, Singhateh, for reasons best known
to himself,  did not contact Demba Jawo – and a few days later, Korro Ceesay
was dead.

Following Korro Ceesay’s death, Edward Singhateh regained some of his power
and influence with Yahya Jammeh.

Before Captain Ebou Jallow left The Gambia in October 1995, he met with me
at Afra FM on Kairaba Avenue (at the time, he was overseeing the Ministry of
External Affairs).  One of our conversation points was Edward Singhateh.
Captain Jallow told me of how he perceived Singhateh’s character – a man
with a jealous and vengeful nature, deeply resentful of those who might try
to undermine his influence.  We had a lengthy talk.

A few days later, Captain Jallow left The Gambia and resigned from his
government post.  His resignation letter accused the AFPRC regime of many
things, including murder.

Meanwhile, following the murder of Korro Ceesay, his place in Yahya Jammeh’s
affections was being taken by Baba Jobe.  Jobe became very close to Jammeh,
accompanying him to Libya and introducing him to Colonel Ghaddafi as well as
to Liberia’s Charles Taylor.  Jobe and Jammeh went on to establish business
connections together.  Jammeh started to confide in Jobe, as he had
previously done with Korro Ceesay, and to discuss policy only with him.  In
time, Jammeh left Jobe to run The Gambia on his behalf.

Naturally, Edward Singhateh became as suspicious and jealous of Baba Jobe as
he had been of Korro Ceesay.  There was little that he could do about it
however.  Jobe had Jammeh’s ear and his influence with Jammeh was by now too
strong.  Singhateh stopped talking to Jobe, and to this day,  is not on
speaking terms with Jobe.

When Edward Singhateh’s Ministerial portfolio was reduced, Singhateh
believed that it was Baba Jobe who was behind it.  On countless occasions,
Singhateh tried to split Jammeh and Jobe, but without any success at all.

And then in 2003, the economic situation in The Gambia started to spiral out
of control and become critical.  The IMF threatened to suspend cooperation
with The Gambia and planned to introduce drastic measures to recover their
debts from the Gambian government.  The IMF warned that levels of fiscal
corruption in The Gambia were totally unacceptable, and that it was vital
that fiscal discipline and rectitude were restored immediately.

Jammeh saw the need to reshuffle his cabinet, and decided to appoint his old
stalwart Edward Singhateh as the Minister of Trade, Industry and Employment.
  It was Singhateh’s role to inject discipline into the economic and fiscal
life of the country.  Jammeh assured Singhateh of his 100% support, and gave
him carte blanche to whatever was necessary.

Edward Singateh used this opportunity as a pretext to snare and humiliate
his political arch-rival, Baba Jobe.

Prior to Singhateh’s appointment, Famara Jatta the then Minister of Finance
and now Governor of the Central Bank of The Gambia, had told the Press that
Baba Jobe owed millions of Dalasis to Customs and the Gambia Port Authority.
  Yankuba Touray, the Minister of Tourism and Culture, spoke out in defence
of Baba Jobe.  Of course, Singhateh did not like this statement of support
at all.  He also had evidence that Yankuba Touray himself was embroiled in
corruption:  an internal Ministry of Tourism investigation had revealed that
Touray had sold all the TDA land both reserved and unreserved.

With his newly given brief of restoring fiscal propriety, Edward Singhateh
used his powers to catch up with old enemies.  He told Yahya Jammeh that
Ablai Kujabi, a relative of Jammeh who had headed the NIA, must also lose
his job since he had allowed such levels of rampant corruption to
proliferate at the highest levels of government without intervention.
Singhateh suggested to Jammeh that Daba Mareneh, Commissioner of the Upper
River Division, be restored as the Director of the NIA.

Jammeh continued to give Singhateh his total support.  In order to win back
the confidence of the IMF, Jammeh was only too well aware that Singhateh had
to be given a free range.

Singhateh contacted the Heads of the Police, Customs, Gambia Port Authority,
Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Finance etc. etc. and told them that he had
Yahya Jammeh’s full backing and that they should all cooperate fully with
him to investigate and bring down Baba Jobe, Yankuba Touray and their like.

Now, charges have been filed against Jobe.  Whilst Yahya Jammeh satisfies
the demands of the IMF, Edward Singhateh is doing all in his new-found power
to wreak havoc on his old enemies.

Singhateh gives Jammeh his unquestioned loyalty.  Without a personal
military or political power base, and without popular support, Singhateh
remains relatively unthreatening to Yahya Jammeh.  There has been a marriage
of circumstance and convenience between Singhateh and Jammeh over the years
since 1994.  Singhateh depends on Jammeh for his political survival, but
equally, Yahya Jammeh depends upon Edward Singhateh.

In the last analysis, were trouble ever to erupt in The Gambia, then Jammeh
knows that no-one will be prepared to die for him, except Edward Singhateh.
Singhateh will of course defend and die for Yahya Jammeh because he
(Singhateh) knows that he'll be held to account for many things in The
Gambia if Yahya Jammeh were to be unseated from the presidency.

Recently, whilst in the UK, Edward Singhateh told a mutual friend of ours
that he would humiliate and destroy Baba Jobe.  He explained that he had
Yahya Jammeh’s full approval and support for this.

He also asked why I was not currently contributing to the Internet dialogue,
and implied to our friend that he had a lot of documentation about Jobe
which he would be keen to share with me for publication on the Internet.  He
told our friend that people like Baba Jobe had tried to "hijack the
revolution", but that Jobe was now learning a bitter lesson.

When the court case was instituted against Jobe (which Singhateh is
following very closely indeed), Lawyer Ousman Sillah began to put up a very
good defence of his client.  He began to differentiate between the YDE
Company and between Baba Jobe the individual.  Any hint that the court case
against Baba Jobe personally would be dropped in favour of a charge against
the YDE company was something which Edward Singhateh could never
countenance.  Had Lawyer Sillah been left to defend Baba Jobe, then there
was a possibility that Jobe would walk free from the courts, whilst only the
YDE Company would be taken to task and penalised

Edward Singhateh could never allow this to happen.  He has vowed to destroy
Baba Jobe, and that is what he intends to do, no matter what it takes.

My own belief, based on my long knowledge of Singhateh together with other
informed source material, is that Edward could well be the brains behind the
Ousman Sillah shooting.  The bullets which entered Lawyer Sillah’s body
could well be clear signals to other lawyers to keep clear of the case.  Any
lawyer thinking about defending Baba Jobe would need to think very carefully
about taking the case on.  Singhateh is well aware that an accomplished
lawyer could ensure the release of Jobe, and he in my view, will do all in
his power to prevent that happening.  Until Jobe is charged and pilloried,
Singhateh will not rest.

I therefore urge the Gambian police to investigate Edward Singhateh.

I urge Ousman Sillah’s family to press for a thorough investigation of
Singhateh.

I urge the Opposition parties, the Bar Association and Civil Society in The
Gambia to press for a complete investigation into the shooting.

Let all Gambians be well aware that Edward Singhateh is as much a threat to
decency and the rule of law in The Gambia as is his boss, Yahya Jammeh.

Edward Singhateh has promoted an image of himself as a straight,
right-talking, right-thinking, reliable kind of guy.  When the truth is
known, it will become clear that Singhateh’s heart is as black as Jammeh’s.
He is the person who has been behind the sacking of so many civil servants
and government officials – even ironically enough, Yankuba Touray.

One day, and very soon enough, Edward Singhateh will be called upon to
account for all his actions.
Let us Gambians who believe in truth and integrity, work together to get rid
of villains like Singhateh and Jammeh.

Let us work together to ensure a bright and honest future for our beloved
homeland, The Gambia.

May Almighty God bless our struggles for decency, justice and the rule of
law.

Ameen.


Ebrima Ceesay,
Birmingham, UK

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