Joe,

Please allow me to deviate a little by congratulating Mr. Bakary Kanteh for a well writen and moving piece. As far as I am concerned, it is genuine concerns like those of Mr. Kanteh that should be the main focus of concerned Gambians to ensure that allegations like these are investigated to ensure that they never happen in our country.

I am also heartened by the following from the same post "To my compatriots who do not want the APRC condemned or criticised,I am pleading with you to implore with President Jammeh to genuinely change for the better of himself and that of the Gambia. If he does, due credit will be given to him becuase as goes the phrase "even the devil deserves his dues."

This is how i feel."

Mr. Kanteh, this is how every well meaning Gambian should feel.

Coming back to your piece, you wrote:

"Jammeh's Net Worth - In addition to your list, Mr. President in seven years has sent countless folks to Mecca; has a Private jet that between he and his wife coming to the US is hours from Yundum (the country Gambia does not have an airline, but he has one); Built a Mansion with our money; has Swiss bank accounts one of which he shared with Ebou Jallow, etc. Do you honestly believe that these are his legitimate resources? For discussion purposes, let's say every butut that was paid him as salary and per diem was never spent. That still would not be able to fund 1/20 of his visible expenditures. Behind every country in our continent that is surviving on debt, you have a president, minister, or oligarch that is wealthier than the state. This is the source of Africa's poverty and the citizens readily accept the situation with the hope that they can get trinkets from the criminals. Africa and Gambia can never go forward with this kind of criminal activity. One does not have to have documentation in hand to prove that Mobutu, Doe, Boukassa, Abacha, et al were criminals. All these folks denied that they were stealing from their peoples until their demise. Using the same trail would lead you to the absolute conclusion that Jammeh is pilfering from the state and I think that any honest Gambian can see that. The proof you requested, unfortunately, can only be provided after his demise or when the people flush him out."

Joe, my challenge to Pamodou Jobe concerning proofs was not to say that he could not offer hearsay or circumstantial evidence to support whatever stance he takes. What I would not accept is to be bound to offer or accept such hearsay or circumstantial evidence as the gospel thruth. There is also a wollof saying that "Nyakaa dem Gannar tahut nga hamneh guddi nyu rerr", meaning you don't have to go to Mauritania to know that they too have their supper at night.

My main problem with the many speculations about Jammeh's wealth is the source of these allegations. Most of those making these allegations have lost their credibility as far as I am concerned. Take the case of Ebou Jallow, for example. He made so many allegations against Jammeh and most of us accepted those allegations as being viable only for him to turn around and appologise to him for the many wrongs that he has caused him.

Another that also puzzles me is the timing of Ebou Colley's series throwing light into many aspects of the coupe that the average Gambian knows nothing about. In fact I can say, without any contradiction, that at the time he was writing his series, many people looked forward to his posts. I fully remember questioning him about the motive of his timing. At the time I was puzzled as to how he could have confortably sat tight and kept silenct about such alleged attrocities for so long only to start a most nauseating series about them just before the presidential elections. Having lived comfortably with such nauseating information for many years, he suddenly springs up here just before the presidential elections and quickly disappears as soon as the big prize, the presedential election, was lost to Jammeh. Does this suggest that the National Interest is to be shelved again until another election?

Dampha also told us here that Taiwan gave us over $30 million in suitcases which Jammeh and his cohorts stole and stashed away in Swiss Bank accounts. How logical do you think this is? Who in Taiwan has the authority to withdraw from state coffers the colossal sum of $30 million in suit cases and give them to an individual?

Joe, we can all speculate about Jammeh's wealth and how he might have gotten it. I for one do not buy the story that he is stealing from state coffers. As far as I know, most of the development aid and grants that come to this country come from institutions such as the world bank, IMF, The EU, Kuwaitie fund, IDB, ADB etc, etc and I am very confident that these institutions would not condone Jammeh stealing these funds for his personal gain while still pumping in more money into our country. I also happen to have a lot of faith in the integrity of our central bank. Whether Jammeh got his wealth from Sani Abacha, with whom he was very close or Babanding Sissoho, blood diamonds, counterfeiting, drug dealing, money laundering etc, etc, I do not know. What I know is that it simply does not make much sense to me that he is stealing from state coffers as alleged.

Finally, if people oppose him genuinely in the national interest and not for any selfish reasons, then there is no reason why they cannot be sincere to themselves and acknowledge some of the good that this government has also done. They cannot just blanketly declare that none of the infrastructures that Jammeh is building was long overdue and are a waste of resources. There is no way that I will accept that these projects are white elephant projects. Nobody can also convince me that the areas identified as priority areas for alleviating the miserable condition that The Gambia was in pre-1994, are mis-guided. This, I will simply not accept. I have stated it here many times before that this government has its faults. Where I differ from most on this list is the manner by which the government can be made to see these faults as not conducing for national development. I am sure that you will agree with me that if you continuously and persistently criticize someone regardless of what that person does, you would be forfeiting any chance that you may have of being taken seriously being able to influence that person.

Have a good day, Gassa.

There is a time in the life of every problem when it is big enough to see, yet small enough to solve. -Mike- Levitt-