By The People’s Movement for Democratic Gambia Another July 22 upon us! This is 21 years and counting! Another Public Holiday! Another Celebration! Yet again tax resources of poor farm-families are put to the entertainment of Yahya and his cliques. Now more than ever we have to work hard to put an end to tyranny in our homeland. The approaches of the past 21 years didn’t work and are not likely. We ought to think afresh if we are to retire July 22 in our museums and history books. On this day 1994, Jawara/PPP were kicked out of Banjul…
Author: Gainako
By Fatou Jaw Manneh I was sitting in the ground-floor library of a friend’s house in Senegal when her husband gave me a copy of Kairaba, the memoir of The First President of The Gambia Alhagie Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara, to read. Her ten year old son had a precocious advice for me. The book is boring, he warned me. He couldn’t read past the first few pages. I thanked him for trying to spare me the trouble, but I’m glad that I didn’t listen to him. I wanted to do a serious review of the book, but considering the current chaotic situation in…
His story is one of hundreds if not thousands of Gambians who have suffered an unnecessary ordeal meted on them by none other than their own government. Majority of these horror stories never made it to the public space thus many are buried deep down the ocean and behind the notorious walls of Gambia’s Abu Ghraib prison – (The Mile II). A prison where innocent citizens have been mentally, physically and Psychological tortured for daring to work for a government. The ordeal narrated by young former protocol Officer Momodou Sowe today on Faturadio brought tears to thousands of listeners of the online…
A Poem: Critical Bones & Dry Tears! Critical bones to the marrows With full loads in wheel barrows The bad workmen with their tools Quarrelling in their risky pools Hands, legs, and throats cut put For the dancehall show on stage butt Confusion roars in its loud shame Babies’ helter-skelter homely fame Wounded warriors lay on grassy woods With loaded hearts full of teary moods Gun fires aloud into sky heights In dreams of conquering victory mights Large bodily cuts on innocent heads Aggressors at loose in spider webs Tyranny dances fancy loose With its ugly reign…
SUBJECT: THE CONSTITUTIONALITY OF THE MOTION ON THE ELECTIONS (AMENDMENT) BILL 2015 INTRODUCED BY THE HEAD OF THE CIVIL SERVICE The dictates of National duty, as a major stakeholder in the political process and your role in the process of promulgating a law, has compelled us to address this memorandum to you. We have two fundamental observations to raise, touching on both technicality and substance regarding the constitutionality of passing the Elections (Amendment) Bill 2015. The advice of constitutional experts should be earnestly sought to look into the constitutionality of the motion moved by Mr Nyabally. In short,…
Gainako has confirmed that the Managing Director of a local radio station Teranga FM Mr. Alagie Ceesay has been released by his abductors – who were suspected to be the notorious National Intelligence Agency. Journalist Ceesay was picked up by plain clothes men from his home two weeks ago and was taken to an unknown destination. Ceesay and his independent local radio station have been a target of the Jammeh government for its efforts to broadcast national news into the local languages. The station refused to be silenced or conduct self censor like other news outlets to avoid confrontation…
ARTICLE 19 is concerned about the safety and security of Alagie Abdoulie Ceesay, the manager of Taranga FM, a community radio based in Sinchu Alhagie, a village in the Kombo North District, about 15 km from the Capital Banjul. “We are disturbed by the disappearance of Alagie Abdoulie Ceesay, who has now been missing for ten days without any contact with his family or colleagues,” says Fatou Jagne Senghor Regional Director ARTICLE 19 West Africa. On 2 July, Alagie Abdoulie Ceesay, manager of the community radio station Taranga, was at his compound close to the radio station, when he…
For over twenty years, Gambians have experienced and suffered denial and violations of their basic human rights under Yaya Jammeh’s regime. Even though the severity of the violations continue to traumatize the nation and gained international condemnation, the exercise and demand for rights is still stifled by intimidation, brutality and division among opponents, all of which extends the tenure of this regime. Dictatorship therefore reigns as there is no viable force to oust it. The lack of action, lack of demonstration of a sense of urgency, and failure to act on what unites us, remains a deterrent to the…
World Muslims Celebrate Night of Power! “Peace! …This until the rise of morn” (Abdullah Yusuf Ali, the Holy Quran 97:5, 1989). Muslims the world over are wrapping up on the holy month of fasting. This special month is accompanied with recitation of the Quran, lectures, sharing arms, and making extra worship. This is so obvious and humbling that Muslims –young and old, men and women, rich and poor, the safe and oppressed, the healthy and sick, those with status and the ordinary, all live to stand in ranks gratified, equaling themselves through the late hours of…
History teaches us that Africa will not be able to lift people out of poverty, substantially improve well-being, and reduce inequalities, if it cannot sustainably power itself. The paradox is stark. The region has stunning landscapes, scorching sun, vast water resources to produce cleaner, cheaper and widely accessible energy. Yet, today, more than 600 million people or two thirds of the continent’s population live in darkness, without electricity. Today, the continent has less capacity to generate and transmit grid-based capacity than South Korea, which has a fifth of its population. Though not much talked about, the cost associated with…