My Fellow Gambians,
I read Yahya Jammeh’s so-called New Year Message to the People of The Gambia with increasing astonishment and disbelief. In fact, I am begging my sources in the Gambia to locate and identify Jammeh’s speechwriter for this effort: it really is beyond belief, and I think the speechwriter would have a good job lined up for writing fiction!
In the first section, I smiled at Jammeh’s protestations of “delight” to address his people on the issue of his “stewardship of the communities, the nation and humanity”. Dumo Saho and our sorely missed Ousman Koro Ceesay could give an accurate reporting of the nature of Jammeh’s stewardship.
I read the man’s words on the “peace, tranquillity and stability that have prevailed and continue to prevail” in The Gambia. No doubt the families of those young students who were gunned down on April 10/11th 2000 would have something to say about Jammeh’s notion of peace and tranquillity over the years.
I laughed to read that Jammeh has gone so far in self-delusion that he can describe how he “assumed the reins of power to lead this country”. Most people would agree that Jammeh seized power in July 1994, and then manipulated the electoral process to re-seize power in the 1996 presidential election. And whatever possessed Jammeh to believe that with his limited talents he could “lift up The Gambia to the status of a highly developed high-income country”??
The Gambia is a Third World Developing Nation: it needs administrators and politicians of the highest order in order to progress steadily. The truth of the matter is that Jammeh and his minions have overseen the deterioration of The Gambia into becoming a hard drug trading nation and haven, and a major player in the Blood Diamonds trade. Economic stagnation is the reality today, and none of Jammeh’s high-sounding words and phrases can hide this.
Jammeh claims to be working to increase the capacity of the productive sectors of the economy: he cites agriculture, natural resources, trade, industry and tourism. Well, please let him talk to the leaders of these sectors, and to the workers in them. They will all report a diminution in capacity. Look for instance, at the appalling state of the tourism sector. This latest tourist season is poor, and come April 2001 tourist operations and tourism related business will virtually cease.
Let Jammeh talk to the farmers throughout the land, and gauge their optimism for the future: if he takes the time to truly listen to them, he will hear stories of struggle, heartbreak and despair. Many of our farmers are STILL unpaid for their crops after two seasons. The only business people who could claim some elements of success are those business cronies of Jammeh who are dipping their hands into the public purse to line their own private pockets.
As for Jammeh’s statements on agriculture and the way in which he and his government are working to ensure “adequate nutrition” as a “fundamental human right”. Let Jammeh go into the towns and villages and talk to the mothers about high infant mortality rates and high maternal mortality rates. Let him look at the facts and figures which demonstrate that life expectancy levels for all sectors have not improved at all in the last five years, and in many cases have actually deteriorated. These are the end results of inadequate nutrition in present day Gambia after six years of Jammeh’s misrule.
Jammeh is still implicitly claiming ownership of the deal to provide tractors and farming implements. Even after having been found out in a series of lies about the 40 tractors from Taiwan, Jammeh is still not prepared to acknowledge and give thanks to the Taiwanese for their donations.
In the section on EQUALITY, Jammeh speaks of the different projects working to ensure poverty eradication. He speaks of what his government has done to “promote human resource development, good governance”. The truth of the matter is that in the last six years, Jammeh has sacked or prematurely retired committed and experienced administrators and civil servants who do not toe the APRC line, and he has replaced them with his puppets, whose strings can be tugged in whatever direction as long as the tugging is accompanied by money.
I read with total amazement the sentence “the provision of social services is now demand driven and matches adequately the needs of our population.” I do question this man’s sanity and sound judgement skills. Let him walk into any part of any town or village and judge for himself how the needs of the population are being met – people would chase him away in their despair and despondency. The man is quite out of touch with the reality of life for ordinary Gambians in 2000/2001.
In the section on HEALTH, Jammeh describes a situation which ordinary Gambians would not recognise. The truth of the matter is that Primary Health Care in The Gambia is unattainable for many in our population: there are charges for attending outpatients clinics, for drugs, for treatment which are beyond the pockets of many Gambians. The Health Centres are chronically short of drugs and equipment and are all starved of qualified staff.
In the provinces, the situation particularly during the rain season is dire. Let Jammeh go and sit in a village in August and try to reach a health centre when he has malaria, and let him do it with a pocket almost empty of money as most people have to do. Let him then talk about health care for ordinary people. His wife was delivered of her daughter in a hospital in the USA – shall we ask ourselves “why?”
In the section on POPULATION, Jammeh’s words sound wonderful. However, one only has to go into the rural communities in particular, to find that there is a huge gulf between what Jammeh says and what is the reality for Gambians. This is a man who has given full support to the continuation of Female Genital Mutilation, and yet he talks about his government’s support of the Gambia Family Planning Association!
In this section, he also describes how “various avenues are being explored to improve the housing situation in the country”. We are all aware of how Jammeh’s personal housing problems both in Kanilai and at State House in Banjul have been addressed! We could ask for details of the costs of these improvements and set them against what most Gambians would need in order to improve their housing situation. With what has been spent by this miscreant on his own perceived housing needs, we could have built houses for tens of thousands of Gambians in need.
In the section on EDUCATION, Jammeh claims success on all fronts. He describes enrolment figures which seem laudable. My sources tell me that it is only when one actually goes into the country to look at the experience of ordinary Gambians that we start to get a true picture of the struggle that parents have to educate their children. Times are tough, and finding money for school fees comes after feeding, clothing and housing one’s family. Jammeh’s statistics speak nothing of the awful reality of the situation for young kids and their parents in The Gambia in 2001. On paper, everything sounds great: in reality, there is despair and many young children are not receiving the education which should be their right.
As for the University of The Gambia: this institution is still viewed suspiciously by the academic world at large. The value of the degrees being awarded is questioned, and there is a level of concern about the quality of teaching, particularly in the field of Medicine.
Tucked away at the end of the section on EDUCATION, we come across a short sentence: “Government will always welcome credible investors for the purchasing, processing and marketing of groundnuts”. Subscribers to Gambia-L will remember the HILO scandal of late 2000, when I myself received death threats from this organisation after my highly-placed sources in The Gambia had alerted me to the possibility of illegal dealings between HILO and the Jammeh regime.
In the section on TRADE AND INVESTMENT, Jammeh speaks of his commitment to the development of a “vibrant private sector through dialogue and the provision of not only fiscal incentives but an enviable private sector enabling environment.” In the light of the business/economic reality of The Gambia today, I am totally nonplussed by Jammeh’s high-sounding phrases.
Again, the words do not match the reality of the situation. Private investors have in the main, been scared away from investing in The Gambia because of the constraints which Jammeh and the APRC have placed on them. Remember the famous BIVAC scheme? Conditions for economic growth are NOT favourable in any way in our small nation, and we may lay the blame for this awful state of affairs directly at Jammeh’s door.
In the section on COMMUNICATIONS, Jammeh goes so far as to say that “communication remains at the centre-piece of our socio-economic development”. Ask Gambians living abroad about the effectiveness of GAMTEL: talk to Gambians in the street about how they truly perceive the contributions of the GRTS. Ask George Christensen at Radio One FM, or the proprietor of Citizen FM, Baboucarr Gaye, about the role of the independent media in the country right now. Talk to the editors of the Independent Newspaper who are being threatened with deportation even though they are Gambian born citizens.
Jammeh trots out the Kombo Coastal road project and cites this as a success: how does this road in particular benefit the ordinary Gambian in the street? It leads only to the tourist coastal area, and apart from the tourist coaches, is largely unused by Gambians, I am told.
Interestingly, I am getting reports that roads in the greater Banjul and Serrekunda areas are being worked on right now: but ask any Gambian there, and they will cite the government’s forthcoming need to be re-elected as the main mover of road improvement projects. In general, all roads in The Gambia apart from Independence Drive and the Kombo Coastal Road, are in a chronically bad state of repair, I am further told.
Although Jammeh often speaks openly and disparagingly of white international assistance, it is interesting to note that it is the European Union (EU) which is providing both the financial and technical assistance to make improvements to the Barra-Amdallai, the Basse-Sabi, the Trans-Gambia and the Mandinaba-Seleti roads.
Jammeh speaks about the airport, citing how the FAA of the United States has awarded category one rating so that flights can now depart from The Gambia to the USA. What a shame it is then, that the airport building so recently constructed, is starting to crack up!
Now let us move to the section on ENERGY. I know that all of us will remember Jammeh’s promise of 2000 to get 75% of The Gambia electrified, or else!! Well, we are waiting, as are all those communities from Banjul to Fatoto, for a reliable and affordable system to be instituted. It is my opinion that the electricification of the whole of The Gambia is going to take years and massive amounts of investment.
Jammeh tries to reassure us of his efficiency and commitment, by reminding us that he has moved the energy portfolio under NAWEC to the Office of the President. When this actually happened, most Gambians at home and abroad beat their chests in despair. Jammeh says that it is “his hope that NAWEC will better serve the nation in the course of the year 2001 and beyond”.
Unfortunately, Gambians have, over the last six years, learned a hard lesson: do not put hope in Jammeh or the APRC because you are bound for disappointment. It is good to know however, that Kanilai has a twenty-four hours per day electrical supply: we wouldn’t want our so-called “president” to be working in the dark, would we?
In the penultimate section of the speech, Jammeh focuses on the ENVIRONMENT. He talks in high-sounding words of what his government has done and is planning to do vis a vis ensuring environmental protection and sustainable development. The substantive part of this very short section details the new environmental tax. Here is yet another financial burden on an already hard-pressed citizenry, and Jammeh assures us that this tax will generate additional funds “to implement the environment-related policies and programmes effectively”. Given the track record of Jammeh, we can fairly safely assume that these funds will further line his pocket and those of his minions, and ensure that Kanilai gets some good environmental enhancement! What benefits, one wonders, will ordinary citizens get from this new tax burden?
The final section of the speech deals with The Gambia’s INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS. Jammeh reminds us that his government’s foreign policy and cooperation with other nation states “has steadily maintained its consistency”! He explains away the fiasco of The Gambia’s withdrawal from the Casamance peace talks by claiming it “was mainly due to the need to preserve our national and moral integrity”!!! Now we have heard it all!! The Gambia’s stock in the sub-region, in the African continent and further afield is at rock bottom: our nation, under this buffoon of a leader, is the laughing stock of the entire world.
Jammeh then reaches the height of oratory: “I entreat every Gambian to strive to preserve the peace and tranquillity we enjoy in this country, for the value of peace, we cannot quantify. Caring for one another as brothers and sisters, loving one another is the only way to sustainable peace”. The words of this miscreant and criminal who has charge of our country are not worth the paper they are written on.
Let those people who are being held incommunicado without trial; let those people who have been heartlessly deported from The Gambia; let those harassed and persecuted journalists and media representatives; let those members of the judiciary who have been dismissed unfairly – let all these people witness to Jammeh’s lack of care; to his trampling on the human rights of so many people; to his disregard for the rule of law; for his disregard of human dignity and worth.
The man is an outright criminal, and when the day comes, which it surely will, he will be tried in a court of law and have to answer to his terrible wrongdoings.
I was gob-smacked to read in the last paragraph of Jammeh’s exhortations to Gambians living abroad: “distance should not prevent them from contributing positively their quota to the development of our beloved Gambia”. Many of us Gambians in the Diaspora are not there from choice: we are here because we know we should be harassed, persecuted and murdered were we to return to The Gambia.
Our dearest wish would be to return home, and to make our contributions directly: once Jammeh and his ilk have been removed from power by the might and will of The Gambian people, we shall resume our places in Gambian society on Gambian soil and work to make our wonderful nation a Jammeh/APRC-free zone which can then move forward into the future with the backing of all the people.
My New Year Message to my Fellow Gambians is:
Let the Year 2001 be the last year that Jammeh holds power in our land. Let us return our country to a true democratic state, where human dignity, integrity and honest resourcefulness is the order of the day.
God Save The Gambia!
Ebrima Ceesay,
Birmingham, UK.