Last night I came across a very funny piece in Gambian newspapers. There was
a report stating that a school teacher was attacked by her students because
apparently the lady was given ten Dalasis by Yaya and the lady decided to
keep the five thousand to herself (as a personal gift from Yaya) and give
the school the other five thousand.

Very plain and simple story on the surface. Rudiments of right from wrong we
should learn from our parents at a very early age. The teacher and the
students both thought that they were entitled to the five thousand the
teacher was claiming to herself. But what was significant to me about this
story was that I detected the same kinds of traits that characterize the way
Gambia is run at the helm. As we go up, the characters in the story simply
change. The teacher becomes Yaya and the students become the general Gambian
population.

This is the same game Yaya plays on the Gambian people. He sends his people
to Taiwan to negotiate loans. The cash dollars are loaded in suitcases and
brought straight to the State House (forget the Central Bank and the
transparent way things were done in the past). When Yaya sees the money, he
takes a decent chuck of the money and regard it as a 'personal gift' to him
from the Taiwanese. These are the dollars Yaya and his cronies use in order
to open accounts such as account number 49275.1 with Credit Lyonnais in
Switzerland and a $20 million dollar account at Citibank also in
Switzerland.

There is no such thing as Allah's Bank as Yaya and his cronies would like us
to believe. What is going on here is corruption to the core. Like the
teacher, Yaya will receive money on behalf of Gambians and treat the money
as a 'personal gift' to Yaya. It is that money he uses to engage in 'gift'
giving to win people's support. He also uses the money to finance a
flamboyant lifestyle; driving 'fancy' cars, buying an airplane, building a
bunker in Kanilai, fencing villages he can call his own and importing exotic
animals into the country.

Like the students that attacked their teacher, Gambians should also attack
Yaya. The same sense of justice that spurred the students to repudiate the
teacher's claim that the money was donated to her personally, should
energize Gambians to claim what is rightfully theirs from Yaya. This money
Yaya is dishing around belongs to the Gambian poor. Yaya is NOT doing people
a favor by dishing ten thousand dalasis to any entourage that visits him in
Kanilai. He is simply returning to people what originally belonged to them.
Surely the students will not hail the teacher as a benevolent leader if she
sees light and return the five thousand to the students. The students know
that the teacher would not have received the five thousand dalasis on her
own merit. If the teacher was not with the students, she would not even go
to Kanilai let alone be given five thousand dalasis. So Gambians should NOT
see Yaya as a philanthropist if the vermin steals from the people and then
return part of the money.

What is clear is that Yaya's salary cannot finance the lifestyle he is
leading. Like the crook he is, he engages in criminal behavior to finance
his flamboyant lifestyle.  Even if we assume that these moneys Yaya claims
are actually given to him, people should ask themselves why the Taiwanese
will want to give Gambia a $35 million loan and give Yaya $10 million on the
side as a personal gift. Does that make sense? Would the Taiwanese give $10
million to any low-life lieutenant from Gambia? I submit that even if the
money was 'given' to Yaya on the side, that is bribery; a crime in our
books. Yaya had access to those bribes by virtue of his position in the
country. When he was a lieutenant, no one would even 'give' him $100. Should
we allow the vermin to go around boasting to be the richest Gambian when we
all know that he did not earn 'his' money? Should we allow our people to
feel indebted to Yaya because the low-life is stealing from them just to
turn around and 'give' them back part of the money?

In this election season when all sorts of opportunists are parading before
Yaya to ask for 'donations' and declare their 'allegiance' to Yaya, we
should make the source of Yaya's 'wealth' an issue. In six years, the thief
has stolen from us more than people can imagine. We have documented proof
that by January 16, 1996 (less than two years after the criminals stole
power) Yaya by himself opened Swiss Bank accounts with moneys totaling over
$20 million. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Yaya did not just steal
money from us, but he uses our Attorney General's Chambers and Gambian
taxpayers' money to ensure that the money stays with him. Anyone that doubts
this figures can ask the then Attorney General in early 1996.

We should be as mad as the students that would not allow their teacher to
take the five thousand dalasis for herself. Yaya is taking millions of
dollars for himself; millions that rightfully belong to the Gambian poor.
KB

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