By Yero Jallow
Mawdo Matt, you have been doing great in your reviews and I wanted to take the opportunity to acknowledge and congratulate your efforts, especially that dealing with the political dispensation of the most critical matters at hand, most of which are delicate and so hard to dissect. To me, you are serving your elderly role on enlightenment both as an activist, a journalist, and an educated person with life experience. This is certainly the expectation. Nonetheless, I still have disagreements with some of your take on important matters. One such is the nature you handle tribe, an undertone more likely flame existing bonds, especially coming from an influential person, in Matt. On a note, I can see how this frustration of denying Buba burial in his home town flares tempers and cornering us as Fulas to think so deeply, to the extent look helpless, and in our effort to make our points, likely do some damage along the way, instead of pinning the matter to just what it is –creeping tyranny and power absurdity in the hands of a world renowned criminal, Yaya Jammeh.
I wanted to slightly reflect on your article as published on Gainako titled, “The Gambia: A Slap in the face to all Fulas; an insult to all other Gambians.” Your article is arguing about Yaya Jammeh’s denial of Buba Baldeh (a Fula) burial in his home town of Basse Mansajang. In the article you said, thus: “But unlike most African tribes, the Fulas are renowned to be extremely tribal; the pain and hurt of one, is the hurt and pain of all.” Again the issue of tribe is very sensitive, but quite honest, you have a point on the above, going by Pullagu’s (Pullaku) history, which seems to base the long guiding principle “Pulloh fof koo gotoh” (Fulas are all one), and hurting one means hurting another. This to my understanding also applies to other tribes and clans as a way of continuous bonding, and from God’s own principle, which non-believers in faith can excuse, tribes and races were only for people to recognize one another and to closely relate.
You continued by saying thus: “Yahya Jammeh must realize that Fulas did not spread from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean and from the Sahara Desert to Central Africa by being cowards.” That is the start of my frustration and giving up on the contents of the article. While the statement is true, but its message in context in the article and the message which it passes to your readership (including me), except if used in a joking manner, narrows this to tribe as you acknowledged yourself. Towards the end of the article, you said “Today, the anger and frustration of Fulas associated with Hon. Buba Baldeh from Gambia to Niger, and from Senegal to Nigeria, is palpable. But Yahya Jammeh must be made to understand that the ancestors of the Fulas were not cowards.”
Matt, I find the above as accepting defeat from the dictator, reducing Buba’s denial of burial in Basse a target against the Fulbe, and possible alienating others from the equation of this unfortunate incident despite the fact that you noted, “Bring him home to rest in perfect peace for the rest of eternity, for Hon Buba Baldeh’s burial in Medina Gunass, is a slap on the face of all Fulas, and an insult to all Gambians regardless of tribe.”
Again, you might not buy my points, but quite honest, all Gambians and non-Gambian humanitarians alike are bleeding in their hearts from Buba’s denial of a home resting, and not limiting it to those you put in that long list, who all happens to be politically active and second as Fulas. That in fact has a tendency to drive away other sympathizers. I wanted to position that Buba’s death and denial of burial in the Gambia by the criminal regime of Yaya Jammeh must not be narrowed to tribe. If it is, it means we are losing the battle, accepting defeat, distracting from the real focal point, and setting a dangerous precedence which is likely to flame tribal undertones, consequently putting other innocent tribal groups in harm’s way, in this case the Jolas, who going by political temperaments are likely to be subjected to reprisal and victimization after Jammeh. This continues to worry me because I firmly belief with what I am privy to, that the Jolas are equally victims, and this fact is indisputable. You are well aware and as you argued Yaya denied your late friend and former classmate, Kukoe, burial in our Foni. Quite honest, the same way that wasn’t a target against the Jolas, this one isn’t a target against the Fulas. The truth remains, Jammeh has been aggressively tribal, and rottenly so, as he exercised in many instances by his comments and actions, but on a greater note, I am concluding that this man (Yaya Jammeh) is simply a dirty and clueless criminal, one with slippery mouth and brain, a heartless power-hungry idiot, such that his action wires don’t connect with common sense, so what makes sense doesn’t make sense to him. Here is simply a lunatic, one that defies every common sense with ears plugged with wax such that he can’t hear what anyone else says. Such impunity in Yaya, combined with his inferior complexity and criminal spite nature, makes good recipe to hate on any human being, including his own mother (Asombi), much more to any other walking soul.
Buba must be mourned as a political hero, a Gambian activist, one who by default was also culturally (Pullagu) savvy and his love for his own didn’t have bounds, and that is a known fact. The beauty of it, I never heard anywhere Buba used his love for his identity (tribe) to be hostile against another identity. Of course I recognize your love for identity which I admire too, and I see nothing wrong whatsoever with it, so long as any identity doesn’t use their identity pride for hostility against another identity like seen in Kenya years ago.
You (Matt), I, others, and even Yaya Jammeh knows why he denied Buba burial in the Gambia. Apart from Jammeh’s callous and fetish nature, the man (Jammeh) is also sick to his oblongata. If any doesn’t know this, you just need to get it right now. A dictator as power hungry as Jammeh is, does everything to protect the throne. Buba was a fighter and he died a fighter, and his spirit is going to haunt Jammeh in no small way. Jammeh’s fetish nature won’t let Buba being buried home. The lunatic wasn’t even thinking that Buba was a Fula; because he will do it to his own mother, tribesmen, his own kids, so long as they threaten his power grip.
So again, in me, I recognize Buba’s role in promotion of Pullagu. I think the very fact that he served in prior Governments, is not only a Gambian representation, but an underscoring point for the Fulbe’s own counting in matters Gambia, short off an ambassador. I don’t know about others, but I am taking Buba’s denial of burial in the Gambia as victory against tyranny, and a reason that justifies my continued engagement in this struggle. It shows that Yaya is a coward, and more afraid of Buba’s death body than even his living. What a shame to Jammeh!
If not for my above frustration in the article, it captures probably a gossip within the inside community of not only the Fulbe, but like we have seen in other tribes cry as well, and rightly so, but it also reveals a problem at hand that need solutions rather than crying for spilled milk on sand. It cannot be recovered except with proper remedies which will promote unity, attract more sympathizers for the true cause for which we are fighting, and a nib to the bud of any threatening tendency to divide, to alienate, and to put other innocent Gambians in harm’s way, now or later, as it is unacceptable in tribal flares.
The Ends.