Taking issue with the Independent Gambia-L, lest I be found loquacious over an already-discussed issue, permit me if you will, to take issue, once again, with the Independent over its most recent editorial, "Disappointing rejoinders," which was a response to two commentaries Ebrima Ceesay and I wrote on a previous editorial by the paper. In all honesty, it had never dawned on me that my criticisms would produce words of gut reaction from the the Independent. Evidence is, the editors reacted more viscerally rather than rationally. That's stunning. Why? Because it shows that the Independent is deficient in its editorial relationship with its readership. Just like in business parlance, the customer is always right, equally, the newspaper reader is always right never mind his/her wrong opinions. Respect for readers' viewpoints and sensibilities however wrong or senseless they are, is one way of measuring a newspaper's professionalism and credibility. Editors must know what to react to and what not to. And they must do this ethically without being emotional or myopic. Take the current Independent editorial;it is more reactive than assertive to the criticisms Ebrima and I levelled against them. Responsible newspapers with more pertinent issues to handle, would have simply read our commentaries, make sense out of them, disagree with some issues, trust that other readers were on their side, and then move on to other pressing subjects. It is a mark of professionalism for a newspaper or its writers to maintain a studied silence on readers' comments, learn from them and do away with what is not tenable or realistic. It is unhealthy and grossly disrespectful for a newspaper to lambast its readership. Which is what the Independent did in its current editorial. In fact to call it an editorial is a misnomer;it is not. It is a jumble of falsities, half-truths, bickering and dithering, pieced together and shamelessly called an "editorial." To use that as the Independent message to the world is yet another proof of the less-than-impressive editorials emanating from the editor's chair at the Independent. They are shorn of objectivity and adroitness. The Independent says our rejoinders "were written and posted in very bad faith. They samck of extreme irrationality and a desire to destroy our credibility." That's false. Our criticisms were meant to steer the Independent from its editorial mediocrity and muddle-headedness onto the path of level-headedness. They must do the job and do it right. And one sure way of helping them attain this feat is by tapping into the feedbacks from their readers including Ebrima and I. At the moment, we are distant avid readers of the Independent. We will lend our moral support as former colleagues, but we shall also register our criticisms as loyal readers. The Independent must understand this dichotomy. But the Independent tells us in very emotive terms to go back to the Gambia and "fight their own battle on the ground...or delegate someone to establish papers for them ... to which they could be sending their truthful, hard-hitting and uncompromising editorials, rather than sit out their on their ivory towers casting aspersions on others suffering hell on the ground." And this is an editorial? What fatuous nonesense! I don't need to go back to The Gambia and fight my own battle. I already did while I was there. My record speaks for itself both in the national and international press. And so it is with Ebrima. And I don't need to delegate anybody to establish a newspaper on my behalf; I have the Independent and others through which to communicate with the Gambian people. Consider this Guest Editorial I emailed to the Independent just before the National Assembly debate on the crude oil scandal: "Hold the president accountable" "The politics of join-the-side-you-are-on is a malady afflicting many an African parliament. Oftentimes, and with grave consequences, ruling parties in Africa use their numerical strenght to thwart good legislative undertakings by a wafer-thin opposition in parliament. This political malaise will hold captive our National Assembly unless its ruling party MPs muster the courage and conscience to fathom the essence of a parliamentary investigation into the crude oil scandal. "Hold President Jammeh accountable they should. Blind loyalty and smugly parochialism aside, both ruling and opposition parliamentarians should heed the national collective for a thorough soul-searching on the circumstances surrounding the crude oil saga. Too much government propaganda and rumour-mongering have been peddled much to the obfuscation of issues. We have yet to get to the heart of the matter. And the government is not helping in attaining this feat. "When the crude oil deal between Jammeh and the late Nigerian dictator Sani Abacha was first publicized, friends close to the president denied there ever existed such a deal. The president's response up till now, has been part dodgy, part ambiguous, part misleading. What does he know about the deal and when did he know it? Did Abacha tell him to lift thousands of barrels of oil for his own personal enrichment? Or was the wealth accrued meant for The Gambia? How much money out of this transaction went into secret bank accounts? "These and some more relevant questions should preoccupy the minds of the MPs as they look at the specifics of the crude oil deal. Since the president is not willing or able to set the record straight, the only recourse is for a parliamentary investigation to ascertain the facts for public acknowledgement. "Good governance is grounded in the accountability of leaders. Gravely though, accountability and transparency, the by-words of the then Army lieutenant Jammeh are now all but whittled to nothingness. That's cause for concern. All the more reason why our MPs should acknowledge the significance of Minority Leader Kemesseng Jammeh's proposal and let passage of the vote for a probe into Jammeh's surreptitious transaction with Abacha. Even if nothing dubious came out of it, at least the investigation would have been in tandem with public accountability. "That's the lesson for the the APRC representatives. They've nothing to fear but God, and the people who voted them in office." Up till now, I have received neither an acknowledgement of receipt of this proposed editorial nor an editor's comment why my editorial wasn't published. I was of the opinion that the crude oil debate in the Assembly was of political and historical significance. And I reasoned that truth and honesty lied with an investigation into the deal. Unless I have missed it, I have not seen where the Independent stated its stance on the debate in the Assembly. If it didn't, then it was a sabotage of Gambian public opinion. The Gambia is awash with news nd events whose complexities and relevance must be understood and carefully analysed for the benefit of a well-informed citizenry. With controversial issues like the crude oil deal bringing huge consequences for our polity, Gambian editors and opinion writers must take principled positions, state their views without pandering to government dithering or playing safe-safe with neutrality. The Independent should get this: I will defend them anytime they come under attack from government, but they must also note that my criticisms know no boundary. I don't care whether it is a rotten political system or a mediocre editorial written by a newspaper called the Independent. I will register my comments without the faintest of hesitation or fear or favouritism. They don't have to like them. And I mind less. Correction: The Independent states: "We are not interested in 'basking the limelight' as Cherno Baba suggests we are." Wrong. I never said anything like that. What I wrote was this: "The Independent is basking in the limelight thanks, in part, to the frontal assaults...." Cherno Baba Jallow Detroit, MI ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------------